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It appears that Lulu doesn't care much for her early recordings on the Decca label, but I regard those Decca years as being among her best of Lulu`s illustrious career. While these recordings were not especially successful overall, the style of these recordings generally suited Lulu well. Nine singles were released in Britain (the booklet text says eight, but the accompanying discography lists nine), five of which completely missed the charts and two were only minor hits. The other two both made the top ten and one of them, though by no means Lulu's biggest hit chart-wise, remains the song for which she is best remembered.
This compilation lives up to its title, containing every song that Lulu recorded for Decca, even including both sides of a German single. The big hits (Shout, Leave a little love), the minor hits (Here comes the night, Try to understand), the misses (Can't hear you no more, Satisfied, Tell me like it is, Call me, What a wonderful feeling) and their B-sides are all here, along with four tracks from an EP and all, the tracks that appeared on two albums released in 1965 and 1967 respectively. Actually, those two albums included a fair number of tracks that also appeared as A or B sides of singles, but there is no duplication in this compilation.
It is a mystery as to why Lulu failed to achieve more consistent chart success with Decca. Perhaps the choice of A-sides wasn't always the best, but Here comes the night (which only just scraped into the UK charts) became a much bigger UK hit for Them, the group that propelled Van Morrison to stardom, a few months later. Another mystery is the complete failure of Call me, a cover of the Tony Hatch / Jackie Trent classic. Petula Clark recorded this song first, as she did with so many of Tony and Jackie's songs, but her version was not released as a single. In America, the song was a huge hit for Chris Montez, but nobody had a hit with the song in Britain, although it is now considered to be a classic song. Getting back to the choice of A-sides, the liner notes suggest several tracks that might have made great A-sides and could have been hits at the time, but hindsight is always easy. With hindsight, Decca's biggest mistake in the sixties had nothing to do with Lulu. It came a year or two before they signed Lulu, when they opted to sign Brian Poole and the Tremeloes instead of the Beatles, though at the time most record labels would have made the same decision.
So Lulu's Decca singles, with two exceptions, were unsuccessful, while her EP's and LP's also failed to chart in Britain. Her German single flopped in Germany. Yet there is plenty to like about this compilation, which shows Lulu's love of American R+B music and her ability to record it. Apart from Shout (a cover of a very early Isley Brothers song), Lulu also covered Heat wave (Martha Reeves and the Vandellas), What's easy for two is so hard for one (Mary Wells), Just one look (Doris Troy - this became a UK hit for the Hollies), She will break your heart (Impressions), Stubborn kinda fellow and Can I get a witness (both Marvin Gaye) among others. An excellent song written by the Rolling Stones, Surprise surprise, was released as a B-side. There are also great covers of Dream lover, He's sure the boy I love and Tossing and turning, all given Lulu`s distinctive R+B treatment..
Although plenty of these tracks have been released on earlier compilations of Lulu's Decca music, this definitive set is long overdue. With only two big UK hits among them (and no big American hits), a lot of people may wonder why bother. But charts have never told the whole story. What really matters is the quality of the music. Here, what you get is fantastic sixties pop music with a heavy dose of R+B.
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