I Can Hear Music: The Ellie Greenwich Collection

Product description

1999 compilation, 17 tracks inc “River Deep, Mountain High”!

Amazon.com

Like fellow critically feted ’60s pop songwriter Burt Bacharach, Ellie Greenwich didn’t see why her artists should have all the fun. Hence this collection of songs made popular by acts such as the Ronettes, the Crystals, Tina Turner, and Elkie Brooks, sung in Greenwich’s own distinctively cool style. Unlike Bacharach, Greenwich started off in her own act–proto-girl-group the Raindrops, whose perky Top 20 hit, “The Kind of Boy You Can’t Forget,” is included here. Among other lost gems is a haunting solo, “You Don’t Know,” plus string-laden, piano-saturated versions of Phil Spector collaborations (“Be My Baby,” “River Deep, Mountain High,” “Then He Kissed Me”) that obviously lack the emotional intensity of their better-known hit versions but have a real lounge-lizard charm of their own. –Everett True