Lamplighters Loving, Rocking, Thrilling: The Complete Federal Recordings CD - Import

These recordings feature the early days of the group that brought you "Little Bitty Pretty One," "Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow," and "The Bird's The Word," as well as singing vocal backups for everyone from Paul Anka to Duane Eddy. This is the first legitimate reiss

The Lamplighters: Thurston Harris.
Personnel: Thurston Harris (vocals).
Liner Note Author: Jim Dawson.
All 28 of the sides the Lamplighters recorded for King in the mid-'50s are here, including both sides of all 12 of their singles, along with three previously unissued cuts and an alternate version of "Bo Peep" that didn't come out until 1997. The group remains most interesting, frankly, for what some of the members did after this music was recorded. Thurston Harris, who handled the lead vocals on most of this material, went on to have a big, early rock & roll hit with "Little Bitty Pretty One"; three of the other members from the final lineup formed the Sharps, who eventually became the Rivingtons. The Lamplighters tracks, however, were pretty ordinary mid-'50s vocal group R&B, though they did demonstrate the group's versatility, including both slow doo woppers and fast jumpers. As singers they were as good as many of the early R&B-cum-rock & roll vocal groups that had hits; they just didn't have any songs that were good enough to be hits. In fact, at times they could be pretty imitative. "Roll On" is very much in the style of fellow King act the Midnighters; "Believe in Me" can't fail to recall the Moonglows' "Sincerely"; other numbers sound like the Dominoes; and the suggestive "Yum Yum" was probably written with the success of early Drifters hits like "Honey Love" in mind. Still, it's a useful library-filler for R&B and early rock & roll collectors, the detailed liner notes supplying lots of details as to their confusing history and personnel changes. ~ Richie Unterberger