Packaged as a 50th anniversary tribute to Old Town Records boss
Hy Weiss, this double CD contains 60 tracks from the label's catalog that span the early '50s to the late '60s, including five previously unissued cuts. Although Old Town is fairly well remembered by '50s rock & roll collectors, it only had half a dozen or so big hits, most of them bunched together at the very beginning of this compilation:
the Capris' "There's a Moon Out Tonight,"
Billy Bland's "Let the Little Girl Dance,"
the Fiestas' "So Fine,"
the Earls' "Remember Then,"
Robert & Johnny's "We Belong Together," and
Larry Finnegan's "Dear One." And truthfully, Old Town really didn't develop nearly as strong an identity as the most successful New York rock and R&B indies did, being most active in the doo wop field, in which they landed a number of singles that found success in the New York area without making a national impact. Doo wop by groups like
the Solitaires,
the Valentines, and
the Harptones takes up much of disc one and some of disc two. While some hardcore collectors esteem this stuff highly and there are occasional true standouts like
the Harptones' "Life Is But a Dream" and
the Solitaires' "The Wedding" (which is unabashedly sentimental even by doo wop standards), for the most part it's average and unmemorable.