R&R Cup '17 - Rnd.5, Match 8: done

[fange]

A
The Cleftones - Little Girl Of Mine



vs.


B
Dion & the Belmonts - I Wonder Why

[martha]

A

[sloopjohnc]

I love Dion and the Belmonts, but A.

[toomanyhatz]

Dion himself might well vote for A, but not me. The energy in B is so youthful and so vital, and Dion is such an amazing singer, that even something as well done as A can't beat it.

[Nick Danger]

B

[Thang-y]

Coming back to this one.

[Loki]

[Jumper K]

A works much better as a whole.
A.

[Osgood]

Nice tie, quite comparable picks. I like Dion's better.

B

[fange]

Excellent tracks. 'IWW' just sounds incredible to me even after all these years, and wins this one by a neck.

B

[never/ever]

A

[echolalia]

B

[Rayge]

Stone me! A double doo-wop tie and neither of them is my pick, although they're both moderately familiar.
a - I actually saw the Cleftones play at Wembley in April 1991, the same weekend as either the final or semi-final of the FA cup featuring Spurs. That was a good weekend. Listening to their biggest hit, I realize for the first time that Little Eva's Let's Turkey Ttrot is a direct lift – but I digress. Doo-wop nerdishness leads me to suggest this is more of a call-and-response jump tune than pure doo-wop, as it's short on harmonies, and actually has a drummer - how gauche!. The deep-tone horn solo is nice - love that squeal in the middle – but I do find the drummer obtrusive. 6.5 / 10
b - I'm surprised Dion – particularly The Wanderer - has not yet put in an appearance in this cup, and even more so that his debut therein is with this number with his boy band . I could have done without the audience noise, but for once the video does enhance the song in showing how damn slick, even showbizzy, these guys were in their presentation. As an adult I always tended to gravitate to the more soulful, blacker, ballady end of the doo-wop continuum, but back in the early 1960s I was all over the poppier Italian groups such as the Belmonts, Crests, Capris or Elegants; they tended more to the vocal gymnastics, and letting high tenor or falsetto voices out front. I think it was because I had heard, and been captivated by, The Four Seasons, before I found out about these guys by crate-digging for UK copies of ’50s US singles in 1963 and ’64, and I didn't really get in to the hard stuff such as the Harptones and various bird groups until I went to university and started getting comps of 'oldies'.
Anyway, my second-hand copy of I Wonder Why on Top Rank sounded much better on my 'radiogram' than this digitized video made from a film (or early video - no expert) of a TV lip-sync performance on my (not particularly up-to-the-minute) hi-fi separates system, and I'm really rating the record I heard back then. 7 / 10


B

I enjoyed that

[pcqgod]

Both enjoyable, but it's clearly B.

[Velvis]

A is good, but B is one of the most delightful tracks ever.

[Spock!]

Brilliant.

[Count Machuki]

A

[Neige]

Great match, but B for me

[fange]

A
The Cleftones - Little Girl Of Mine


vs.

B
Dion & the Belmonts - I Wonder Why

A: Jumper K - 6

B: Loki - 11

[Rayge]

Nice one, Steff.