Bobby Goldsboro - Bobby Goldsboro - All Time Greatest Hits

Bobby Goldsboro / All Time Greatest Hits

I bought this Cd for three songs and that's about all I like. I know it's a classic but maybe too classic for my taste. "Honey", "Watching Scotty Grow" and "And I love You So", is about it, out of 10 songs. I'll take the three songs and cut my losses. You had better be a big fan to enjoy them all. March 11, 2008

Typical Early CD

This is one of the earliest CDs to hit the market, at a time when outfits like Curb thought all they had to do was slap ten songs on a disc, give it a sub-title like "All Time Greatest ..." and the public would snap them up just to have something to play on their spanking new CD players. Even without any liner notes whatsoever. And, for a while at least, it worked, as I suppose anyone who had a fondness for this former member of Roy Orbison's Candymen has a copy of this CD.

But it doesn't work anymore. At least not among serious oldies collectors. There are far better collections available now, some that will give you most of the 39 hit singles he had from his first, Molly, which hit # 17 Adult Contemporary (AC)/# 70 Billboard Pop Hot 100 in January 1963 b/w Honey Baby for the Laurie label, to his last, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, which reached # 34 AC in March 1981 b/w Green Eyed Woman, Nashville Blues. Ironically, that was for the Curb label, one of two he had with them (the other being Goodbye Marie which hit # 19 AC in late 1980 b/w Love Has Made A Woman Out Of You - and neither is in this Curb release!

And only Curb would put out a compilation entitled "All-Time Greatest Hits" and then include, among the ten meagre selections, two that barely made the Hot 100 [And I Love You So - # 83 in 1971 and With Pen In Hand - # 94 in 1972 - although both scored better on the AC charts at # 8 and # 28 respectively]. Even so, they omitted legitimate Hot 100 Top 40 hits such as Whenever He Holds You - # 39 in 1964 and also a # 13 AC, Voodoo Woman - # 27 in 1965, and Blue Autumn - # 35 in 1966.

Having said that, the other eight selections are all legitimate hits, and all ten are the original renditions - something Curb does not always provide in their material. So, if you're only seeking his mega-hits like Honey (# 1 Hot 100 and AC in early 1968), and See The Funny Little Clown (# 3 AC/# 9 Hot 100 in early 1964), and don't mind the complete lack of liner notes, this is as good as any. September 8, 2007

Little Things make Bobby great

I discovered "radio music" at age 11 in the winter of 1964 when I was invited to spend the night at my best friend's house. My family had moved to the other side of town and I hadn't seen Benjy regularly since moving and changing schools; we had been best friends since age 3. He had discovered popular music and an early FM radio station. We were blessed, in our small southern town, to have an original Clear Channel station that played the Billboard Top 100! The diversity of music I was able to hear on that station was far greater than the typical "Top 40" format that was common in those days.

That Friday night we had a heavy snow fall, always a treat in the Piedmont of North Carolina. We sat up almost the entire night listening to the radio. We would go outside in the dark and play in the snow and then come back inside to warm up and listen to music. I'll never forget that night.

I'm not sure if Bobby Goldsboro's "Little Things" was released and playing that night, but that song was released sometime in my early listening period. I remember "The Jolly Green Giant" by the Kingsmen from that night, and maybe "This Diamond Ring" by Gerry Lewis and the Playboys. Also Gene Pitney's "Last Chance to Turn Around", a truly great song. Some others were "Downtown" by Petula Clark and "The Birds and the Bees" by Jewel Akin. Those early songs always remind me of snow and hanging out with my friend, eating his grandmother's good cooking and just having a happy time being a kid. The passion of music has never left me since then and I am buying this album essentially for "Little Things".

I'm not sure this translates well to the too cool hipsters of today. Although I'm not wild about "Honey" or even "Watching Scotty Grow", there are other good 60s pop tunes that are fine examples of the genre. It is the sound Swing Out Sister emulates so well, although no one will mistake Corrine Drewrey for Bobby Goldsboro.

This is an inexpensive CD that is a sampling of rare vintage pop music. The sappy tearjerkers "Honey" and "Scotty" are the least of them. Give it a try for "Little Things" and most of the others. You've bought and enjoyed worse, I suspect. And if you've got the ear for 60's pop, you may understand why I gave it 5 stars. April 5, 2007

I LOVE THE OLDIES

I HAVE BEEN LOOKING FOR THIS CD FOR SOME TIME AND I DECIDED TO LOOK HERE AND THERE IT WAS NOW I HAVE IT AND I LOVE IT. August 1, 2006

Sickeningly awful

To think that "Honey" was No.1 in the United States for five weeks gives you a good idea of how depraved our society is. It's this kind of sappy emotionalism that gave birth to the kind of over-vibratoing American Idolish disposable pop-trash that pollutes our radios today.

It rhymes "what the heck" with "hugged my neck". That's just silly. April 24, 2006

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