This is an augmented 2020 repost (I added three more numbers) featuring six selections from the 1974 J.C. Penney box set, The Unforgettable Years (specifically, the "Dance Time Discotheque" side--which, like the rest of the set, features '60s-era material), and 18 from the 1968 boxed set Young and Warm and Wonderful, another Columbia label mail-order set (This time, "a product of Columbia Musical Treasuries").
And my main reason for reviving this post was my nostalgia for (and wish to reshare) the "Dance Time Discotheque" selections: Delightful big band treatments, much like Enoch Light's on Command and Si Zentner's on RCA, only minus any credit. My favorite: Downtown, whose arrangement pleases me to no end, with Satisfaction's a close second. Despite the 1974 release date, it's hard to imagine this session not occurring during the '60s. As to what Toot, Toot, Tootsie! (Goodbye) is doing here, I can't begin to guess, but it's well done, so what the heck. The remaining 114 (!) Unforgettable Years selections didn't make the cut, though I almost included Blowin' in the Wind and Mr. Tambourine Man from the "Folk Festival" disc. However, those are done in a silly, sing-along "hootenanny" style--plus, they're in rough shape. No great loss.
Next, from the seven-disc Young and Warm and Wonderful, we start with the New Dance Band, which gives us Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In, This Guy's in Love With You, Yesterday, and three more. I'd have included California Dreaming, but that track is marred by distortion (either an instance of needle damage or a pressing flaw).
And I ripped all but two of the eleven selections by the In Group (I banished Misty, which--imo-doesn't belong with Land of 1000 Dances and Respect, while I can live without Hang On Sloopy in any version), and they are very much in the "fake" hit/sound-alike category (we could call them authentic fake hits)--and each very well done. Light My Fire, it should be noted, copies the excellent Jose Feliciano version, though an imitation-Doors knockoff might have been interesting. All would work nicely for my "Lee's Fake Hits" YouTube channel, except that they're not contemporaneous knockoffs. That's one of my rules.
There's also the International Hits Orchestra (another likely-sounding appellation) with the world's worst fake of It's Not Unusual, along with superior sound-alikes of Don't Sleep in the Subway and Downtown. Winchester Cathedral is an instrumental cover--and quite good. As opposed to the Starlight Strings' Alfie and Strangers in the Night, two of my all-time favorite numbers, but rendered (even by easy-listening standards) indifferently. Both seemed like can't-miss tracks, but... they missed.
A nice mix of fake hits and instrumental hit parade covers--all from Columbia House. A mail-order special.
UNKNOWN ARTIST
Downtown
I Want to Hold Your Hand
I'm Telling You Now
Satisfaction
She Loves You
Toot, Toot, Tootsie! (Goodbye)
The Unforgettable Years: Dance Time Discotheque (Columbia Special Products CSS 375-84; 1974)
THE NEW DANCE BAND
Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In
This Guy's in Love With You
Yesterday
The Sound of Silence
What the World Needs Now
Up, up and Away
THE INTERNATIONAL HITS ORCHESTRA
It's Not Unusual
Don't Sleep in the Subway
Winchester Cathedral
Downtown
THE IN GROUP
The "In" Crowd
(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay
Land of 1000 Dances
Respect
Both Sides, Now
Mrs. Robinson
Anyone Who Had a Heart
Those Were the Days
Light My Fire
Young and Warm and Wonderful (Columbia Musical Treasuries P7S 5114; 1968)
Lee
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