The Chantels - The Best of the Chantels
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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
Free Music Review: The Model For All Girl Groups That Followed
Hit: 5 Stars
The Chantels were, quite simply, the premier girl group of their era. Led by Arlene Smith (born 1941), they included Rene Minus (1943), Lois Harris (1940), Sonia Goring (1940) and Jackie Landry (1940) - barely teenagers all when their first big hit on George Goldner's End label, Maybe, launched them into national prominence.
Going to # 2 R&B and # 15 Billboard Top 100 in March 1958, b/w Come My Little Baby, it spent a combined 25 weeks on those charts. Their next release that year, Ev'ry Night (I Pray) b/w Whoever You Are didn't fare nearly as well, topping out at # 16 R&B and # 39 Top 100 in late April, but that was still quite respectable considering the hefty competition from the likes of Elvis, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Pat Boone, Gene Vincent, The Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly & The Crickets, Connie Francis, Brena Lee, et el.
Their third hit in 1958, I Love You So (b/w How Could You Call It Off) did marginally better on the R&B charts, going to # 14, but just failed to make the Top 100 Top 40 at # 42. In 1959 the man who produced all their hits to date, Richard Barrett, joined them in the billing (Richard Barrett With The Chantels) for Summer's Love, a # 29 R&B charter that September, but only able to make # 93 Hot 100.
Further chart success on End eluded them but in the fall of 1961, after signing with Carlton, they were back with Look In My Eyes (b/w the appropos Glad To Be Back), a # 6 R&B smash and a decent # 14 Hot 100 showing. Their next hit, borrowing from a Country specialty, was an "answer" to the Ray Charles' huge hit, Hit The Road Jack. Called, Well, I Told You, it made # 29 Hot 100 but for some strange reason failed to dent the R&B Top 100. Go figure.
Again there was a two-year hiatus from the charts before they had a minor - their final - hit with Eternally on the Ludix label. Not the same song as either the Sarah Vaughan (1960) OR the Thomas Wayne (1959) hit of the same name, it only managed to reach # 77 Hot 100 in 1963.
With Barrett now concentrating on a new female group, The Three Degrees, The Chantels drifted from Ludix to Verve, and finally to RCA without luck. Arlene then took her powerful voice to Spectorious and Big Top, but again met with no chart success as a single artist. Sadly, any reunion performances will have to be without Jackie Landry, who succumbed to cancer two days before Christmas in 1997.
A very important group who paved the way for The Shirelles, Marvelettes, Cookies, Ronettes and, yes, The Supremes - among others - this CD should be given a prominent place in your collection.
Free Music Review: THE ORIGINAL "girl group"
Hit: 5 Stars
This is a great compilation which contains all of their best songs. I highly recommend this CD to all. Their covers of "The Plea" by the Paragons and "I love You so" by the Crows are well worth the price alone, not to mention the Chantels own classics such as as "Maybe"Free Music Review: Fabulous memories
Hit: 5 Stars
I grew up listening to this music, played by my 2 older sisters. Hearing these songs again literally brought tears to my eyes and I recommend this CD to any and all baby boomers. There will never be "girl groups" like this again!Free Music Review: The Best of the Chantels
Hit: 5 Stars
Maybe still brings chills to my spine 48 years after I first heard it on the radio. Many other excellent songs...the Chantels were the first and best of the girl groups.
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