It’s stretching a point to present actress Diana Dors (born in 1931) as a 60s beat girl but her So Little Time, at once bright and sultry, fits seemlessly into this 20-tracker. It’s all about teen heart-searching set to a bright dance beat and evoking miniskirts, exemplified by Back With You Baby (unjustly, Tracy Rogers’ last single); Bimbi Worrick’s lone single (and, one hopes, the session guitarist’s), Long Time Coming; and Miracles, an early step in Kiki Dee’s distinguished career path.
If the breezy music ends up rather trite (hear Karol Keyes’ Can’t You Hear The Music, while Fred Lloyd’s production skill can’t hide Diane Lancaster’s talent bypass on, unsurprisingly, her lone Polydor 45, How I Need Him), there is plenty of real talent here. The Caravelles are as seductive as ever on You Are Here, Claire Francis could have charted with her towering self-penned beat ballad But I Don’t Care, while future comedienne Faith Brown does a convincing impression of a soul singer as she leads The Carrolls through the meaty Ashford/Simpson song Surrender, whose lack of chart action remains a mystery.
