Anyone finding an original of this LP can congratulate themselves on owning a 200-plus dollar collector's item. This was only the second or third rock & roll LP ever issued, at a time when it wasn't clear that teenagers would shell out the cash for long-players, so any shortcomings can be forgiven. Don't expect a sound very much like what
the Four Seasons later produced;
the Four Lovers were a more animated and harder rocking outfit, close in proximity to the booming popularity of '50s R&B and rockabilly. None of the group's early singles are represented here, but they give a surprisingly good account of "White Christmas" rocked up with a hot guitar part; "Night Train" gets an unusual vocal treatment, and the rest isn't bad, even if some of the cuts veer uncomfortably closer to
the Crew-Cuts than to
the Treniers. The sound is unusually crisp and clean on the original recording, in keeping with the usual output from RCA's New York studios, making this artifact from rock & roll's early day doubly rewarding on a technical level. ~ Bruce Eder