Georgia Gibbs - The Complete Original Hits

Born in 1919 in Worcester, Massachusetts, Freda Lipschitz rose from humble beginnings to the very top of the pop pantheon. Freda took the name Gibson when her mother remarried, and she began singing regularly in clubs by the age of 13. Not even 18-years-old when she made her radio debut, Georgia was soon lending her bold and brassy pipes to the big bands of Frank Trambauer and Artie Shaw. After joining the Garry Moore-Jimmy Durante radio show in the late 40's, Moore bestowed her with the playful sobriquet that stuck - "Her Nibs, Miss Georgia Gibbs!"

Soon thereafter, Georgia struck out on her own and joined the Hit Parade, scoring 25 hit singles on the Coral and Mercury labels over the next two decades, including two #1 smashes - "Kiss Of Fire" (1952) and "Dance With Me Henry" (1955). Now, Hit Parade Records has collected all of her Top 50 hits onto one album - many on CD for the first time ever!

The Complete Original Hits Of Georgia Gibbs contains the original versions of Georgia's greatest hits - not the versions she recorded for other labels later in her career. Here, you'll find her chart debut, the Top 5 novelty tune, "(If I Knew You Were Comin') I'd've Baked a Cake," recorded for Coral Records in 1950. And you'll thrill to Georgia's upbeat renditions of rock, country, and R&B songs like "Tweedlee Dee" (LaVern Baker), some of which were bigger hits for the gorgeous Miss Gibbs than for the original performers. With the passing of Her Nibs in Dec. 2006, The Complete Original Hits Of Georgia Gibbs stands as a loving tribute to a remarkable performer and the most comprehensive anthology of her popular recordings ever compiled.

Hit Parade Records is a new Canadian label dedicated to finding, restoring, and preserving lost treasures like these. Exclusively distributed in the United States by Eric Records, Hit Parade employs many of the same creative folks who lovingly compile those great Eric CD's - including Greg Adams, whose detailed liner notes (including new information from Georgia's final interview, conducted especially for this release) will fascinate you for nearly as long as the 58-plus minutes of music contained on The Complete Original Hits Of Georgia Gibbs! And, don't miss Hit Parade's other great collections, Fabulous Fifties Divas and Fabulous Fifties Crooners as well as Hard To Find Jukebox Classics 1956. Album Description

All the Love You've Got

I read about Georgia, never having heard her music. Part of her fame comes from her shift from the pop sounds of the early 50s to the early rock era. She has a dramatic voice such as on the opening tango "Kiss of Fire." The booklet on this Hit Parade label release is excellent, giving chart information like "(If I Knew Your Comin') I'd've Baked a Cake" went to #5 while "Dance with Me Henry" went to #1. Songs like "Tweedle Dee" put a smile on your face as Georgia belts, "Give me all the love you've got." "Seven Lonely Days" I knew from Patsy Cline's recording about eight years after Georgia went to the top ten. "I Want You to Be My Baby" pops with energy. "Cry" is a classic song that has been recorded by a diverse singers like Timi Yuro, Jackie Wilson, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, Brenda Lee, Crystal Gayle, Ray Charles, Paul Anka & Lynn Anderson. In Georgia's version the melody is lovely with some early 50s harmonies in the background, "If your sweetheart sends a letter of goodbye, It's no secret, you'll feel better if you cry." While I appreciate the early recordings, the mid-50s material really captures my attention. "Sweet & Gentle" has a peppy cha cha beat while "Somebody Bad Stole de Wedding Bell" tries on calypso. Fred Ebb gets a writing credit on the sizzling "Kiss Me Another." "Tra La La" is a bouncy track, "You're as sweet as a candy bar. ... You're as cute as a movie star." "Rock Right" sets my toe tapping and puts a smile on my face. The set concludes with Georgia's version of "Great Balls of Fire" where she blasts some ripe rock & roll, although the sound clarity is a bit below the standard of the rest of the album. This good set covers this expressive singer's career in the 1950s. Enjoy! July 20, 2008

One Of Two Essential Georgia Gibbs CDs

The CD entitled The Best Of Georgia Gibbs - The Mercury Years gives you 20 of the 25 hit singles she posted for that label from 1950 to 1957, plus a couple of B-sides and three E.P. selections.

And while this one repeats 14 of those selections, you also get nine hits that are not included in the Mercury Years release, these being tracks 3, 8, and 16 (her hits while with Coral), along with these Mercury hits missing from that other CD: Good Morning Mr. Echo (# 21 in June 1951); Rock Right (# 36 in April 1956) and Tra La La (# 24 in December 1956). Also included is her last Billboard Pop Top 100 hit single, The Hula Hoop Song, which Reached # 32 in October 1958 for the Roulette label.

Georgia did have one more hit, that being Let Me Dream which made it to # 37 on the Adult Contemporary charts in February 1966 on the Bell label. That remains very hard to find.

For any true Georgia Gibbs fan, this should be purchased in conjunction with the Mercury Years release. In addition to the superb sound quality (all in glorious original mono), you get six pages of fascinating liner notes written by Greg Adams together with three more photos of Georgia at various stages of her career and, on the back, the chart performance of each selection (only label details are missing). August 31, 2007

Georgia Gibbs

Great to see some tracks not in other official releases. A great CD. June 16, 2007

Best comp so far...

Before rock and roll took over the airwaves in the late 50's, musical styles stayed well insulated behind walls of segregation, as did much in society. R'n'b tunes were often sanitized by mainstream pop artists to make them acceptable to the much larger white market. Some saw this as stealing while others noted that it gave this music a bridge to a much wider audience. Georgia Gibbs was one such performer who reworked some r'n'b tunes of the day and turned them into substantial pop hits. Whatever your view of this practice may be, her renditions of these songs did put them into the consciousness of many people who would otherwise not even know of their existance. And while to some they may seem to be a corruption of the original music, they were well-crafted pop ditties that stood on their own merit. Here, Hit Parade Records gathers together 23 of Gibbs' recordings in a package dubbed the "Complete Original Hits of Georgia Gibbs". While the term complete is debatable in that it includes only those tunes that made it as far as the top 40 (with two exceptions), it does provide the most comprehensive collection of Gibbs' work to date. The tracks span the period from her first major hit in 1950, "If I Knew You Were Coming, I'd've Baked A Cake" up through her take on "The Hula Hoop Song" in 1958. Though not charting singles, her versions of "Ballin' The Jack" and "Great Balls of Fire" are also included. This piece is another quality effort by the Hit Parade label with a generous 23 tracks, an informative eight-page liner notes booklet and remarkably clean sound for recordings of this vintage. No reference to the source recordings is given so whether these tracks are taken from vinyl, tape, or other digital source or some combination thereof is unknown. Nevertheless, the sound quality is very clean for the most part, the exception being track 23. This piece offers a welcome replacement for the now out-of-print Mercury compilation from several years past. April 6, 2007

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