The Chantels - The Best of the Chantels
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Music CD Cover
Artist: The ChantelsEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 1990-05-10
Music Label: Rhino / Wea
Soundtracks:
- He's Gone
- The Plea
- Maybe
- I've Lied
- So Real
- Every Night (I Pray)
- Whoever You Are
- I Love You So
- How Could You Call It Off?
- Prayee
- Sure Of Love
- Memories
- If You Try
- I Can't Take It (There's Our Song Again)
- Goodbye To Love
- Summer's Love
- Look In My Eyes
- Well, I Told You
Free Music Notes for The Best of the Chantels
Free Music Review: The Chantels
Hit: 5 Stars
Many kinds of music have the ability to touch the heart. I listen to and review a great deal of classical music on Amazon, but I continue to love doo-wop, especially the first and the best of the "girl groups" -- the Chantels. I listen to the Chantels' songs frequently and never grow tired of them. When I was young in the 1950s and 60s, I didn't know much of the Chantels' music. I got to know it later in life.
The Chantels consisted of five girls who in 1957 were between 14 and 17 years old. They sang together at a church in the Bronx and from this experience they developed a harmonic sophistication and closeness unusual for popular groups of the time. The lead singer was a young woman named Arlene Smith who was blessed with musical sensitivity as well as with a wailing, strong and passionate voice. Arlene Smith helped write much of the group's material. Smith subsequently attended the Juilliard School of Music for a time. The Chantels recorded for a series of small labels in the early days of rock and roll. The early tracks are frequently accompanied primarily by a piano or organ, and the quality of the sound generally leaves a great deal to be desired. But the music, particularly the intensity of Arlene Smith, are irrepressible.
The world of popular music tends to measure success in terms of the number of a performer's hit records and the quantity of sales. Although having several recordings on the charts, the Chantel's songs stand on their own. Songs such as "Maybe", the Chantel's best-known recording, "He's Gone","My Plea","Sure of Love", "I Love you so","If you Try", "Prayee" and "Memories" express a feeling of love and innocence that goes far beyond teenage romance in the 1950s. It is easy to forget that romance, love, and loneliness are themes with human, not simply adolescent, appeal. Thus, the Chantel's moving recording of a song called "Whoever you are" begins:
"Whoever you are
Where ever you may be
There's someone who will love you
Please wait and see
Whoever you are"
With the departure of Arlene Smith in 1959, the group had another record, the radiant "Look in my Eyes" in 1961 with a new lead singer named, coincidentally, Anette Smith. This song features a string accompaniment and it gives the group, as opposed to the soloist, a larger role than did the Chantels' recordings with Arlene Snith.
The Chantels remain active. They perform on the oldies circuit with three of the original five members of the group. The groups' music is probably more appreciated today than it was when it first appeared. People with a nostalgia for the world of the 1950s and for their own lost adolescence understandably love the Chantels. Beyond the vagaries of nostalgia and oldies, the Chantels' sang expressively, with great feeling. Their recordings are likely to move many listeners for years to come.
Robin Friedman
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