It’s virtually impossible to imagine the first half of the 60s without the songs of Greenwich/Barry; constantly cropping up in films even today, many of them remain stone cold classics – especially in the girl group genre.
Together and individually, Greenwich and Barry wrote the music, even performing lead and background vocals. This second collection of their work – complete with full sleevenotes from Ace compiler Mick Patrick – shows how adept the duo were in constructing instantly memorable slabs of perfect pop, such as Lesley Gore’s Look Of Love, The Four Pennies’ When The Boy’s Happy and The Dixie Cups’ Chapel Of Love. With some rarer tracks mixed among the huge hits, we also get The Butterflys’ slower version of I Wonder, The Tokens’ very rare Sweet Laurie, Fair Laurie and Jeff Barry’s own fine Motownesque dancer I’ll Still Love You. The pair also delivered cool R&B with Sam Hawkins’ I Know It’s All Right and grandiose New York pop courtesy of Jay & The Americans, while they also always seemed to be among first-call writers for established artists such as Connie Francis and Manfred Mann, remaining active into the mid-60s with work for The McCoys and The Monkees.
