The Fontane Sisters - Their Greatest Hits

For 50's Collectors

Contains their greatest hits from the 50's. One of the great cover-groups of the era. December 1, 2007

A real gem....much better than I expected!

If you are like me and enjoy early to mid 50's pop then in all likelihood you are at least familiar with the Fontane Sisters. Most people would recall the groups two Top Ten hits from that era. "Hearts of Stone" climbed all the way to the top of the Billboard charts in 1955 and the bouncy "Seventeen" was a number three smash later that same year. Love that tune! What many people fail to realize is that the Fontane Sisters managed to reel off a string of two dozen hits in the seven year period from 1951-1957. For a good many years most of these songs were extremely difficult to find. Now Remember records which appears to be based in Portugal of all places has released "The Fontane Sisters: Their Greatest Hits". This terrific new disc presents 25 of the girls best and brightest tunes from back in the day. For me this one was a real find!
"The Fontane Sisters: Their Greatest Hits" offers up nearly all of the groups charted singles from their days at both RCA Victor and Dot. I must admit that I enjoyed them all. From the early part of the decade enjoy the Top 20 hits "Tennessee Waltz" as well as the Hank Williams' classic "Cold Cold Heart". I was also partial to "Daddy-O" and most especially to the Sisters rendition of the great Drifters hit "Adorable". Finally, I would like to recommend to you both "Most of All" and "If I Could Be With You (One Hour Tonight)". Although neither song ever cracked the Billboard Hot 100 they proved to be highly enjoyable nonetheless.
"The Fontane Sisters: Their Greatest Hits" comes with a couple of pages of informative liner notes and the remastering job is dandy. Fans of group harmony should certainly latch onto this one! Recommended! November 2, 2007

I Received My Request - Sort Of

In my review of the Varese Sarabande release Hearts Of Stone: The Best Of The Fontane Sisters, I suggested they re-release that volume and either include the following as additional tracks, or put them in place of some of the non-hits:

Playmates, the flip of Rollin' Stone and a # 13 follow-along hit in 1955; Nuttin' For Christmas, a # 36 in December 1955; Lonesome Lover Blues - the flip of Voices and a # 93 in 1956 with Pat Boone narrating; Still - the flip of Please Don't Leave Me and a # 86 in late 1956; and last - but certainly not least - their version of The Banana Boat Song which made it to a quite respectable # 13 early in 1957 and which was currently not available anywhere on CD. That, I said, would give us all 18 of their solo hit singles for the Dot label in one swoop.

Well, Varese Sarabande has so far made no move to follow that suggestion, but in the meantime along came this release from an outfit called Remember and made in Portugal which DOES provide all five of the above-mentioned hits, along with the five they had for RCA Victor from 1951 to 1954 before joining Dot. Unfortunately, they too come up just a bit short of a complete hits compilation by including three tracks that were not hits (7, 14, and 25) and omitting three that were. In fact, their final three: I'm Stickin' With You (# 72 Billboard Pop Top 100 in May 1957); Chanson d'Amour [Song Of Love] (# 12 Top 100 in May 1958); and Jealous Heart (# 94 in November 1958).

So, either we wait for someone else to come up with a 24-track release that contains ALL the hits, or we make do by combing this release with the Varese Sarabande one. The only problem with that is the rather high price placed on used copies of the latter at this writing.

The New Jersey sisters, Bea, Geri and Marge, who backed the late great Perry Como on many of his late 1940s/early 1950s RCA Victor hits, came up with their first solo hit in 1951 when their version of The Tennessee Waltz reached # 20 in January. Although no threat to Patti Page, it did well enough to encourage RCA to try again with Let Me In which, with Texas Jim Robertson, peaked at # 24 in April, followed in September by Castle Rock. With the Norman Leyden orchestra backing, it topped out at # 27. Then in November, their cover of the Hank Williams hit, Cold, Cold Heart, got to # 16 for their best RCA solo hit with the backing of the Mitchell Ayres orchestra, the same one that had backed them and Perry on so many earlier hits.

After no hits in 1952 and 1953, they had one more with RCA in January 1954 when Kissing Bridge hit # 22 with Hugo Winterhalter's orchestra, following which they moved over to Dot where the material handed to them was more in keeping with the changing tastes in music, and to give that label an answer to The Chordettes on Cadence and The McGuire Sisters on Coral. And answer they did, putting 19 Dot single onto the Billboard Pop charts to 1958.

The sound quality is quite good and in the insert you get two pages of background notes written by author William Hogeland. A listing of the songs on the back of the insert shows th chart performaces where applicable.

At last I have all the hit singles of the early girl group I enjoyed the most back in the mid- to late-1950s. Recommended. September 28, 2007

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