It's My Party: The Mercury Anthology

Personnel includes: Lesley Gore (vocals); Claus Ogermann, Jack Nitzsche, Herb Bernstein, Hutch Davie, Trade Martin, Thom Bell, Bobby Martin, Paul Leka (arranger, conductor); Michael Gore (piano); Ellie Greenwich (background vocals).Producers: Quincy Jones, Shelby Singleton, Bob Crewe, Steve Douglas, Charles Koppelman.Compilation producers: Bas Hartong, Bill Levenson.Principally recorded at A&R Recording Studios, New York between March 30, 1963 and July 31, 1969. Includes liner notes by Fred Bronson.Fifty-two-track double CD has all the hits and then some. It may seem excessive for those who only want the hits, and some of the selections (particularly from the late '60s) are weak. But Gore had more worthy B-sides, album cuts, and low-charting singles than most people assume, and there are a good number of those on this collection: "Wonder Boy" (a white Martha & the Vandellas cop), "Off and Running" (covered by the Mindbenders in the To Sir with Love film), "Look of Love" (one of Greenwich-Barry's greatest girl-group-style songs), a cover of Laura Nyro's "Wedding Bell Blues" (which lost out on the charts to the Fifth Dimension's version), and interesting little-known compositions by Goffin-King, Paul Anka, Van McCoy, Marvin Hamlisch, and Lesley herself. Gore covered more territory than the teen self-pity anthems for which she's most remembered, and this anthology, while not enough to make you demand her election to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, is not nearly as relentlessly lightweight as her detractors would have you imagine. Includes some tracks that were previously unavailable on album, or previously unreleased in the U.S. ~ Richie Unterberger

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