Del-Fi Records Story

This nice little 2 CD set collects quite a few good/great sides from the early years (1959-1962) from Del-Fi Records. Like other sets in this series the sound is fine, and there's skimpy liner notes, along with a few photos of some of the artists. The music ranges from 3 to 4 "stars" depending on the song/artist. I like to hear the lesser known artists on different labels even if they were never popular. Also, because I'm from that era, this collection is a strong 3 1/2 "stars". Is every track worth multiple hearings? Maybe not (depending on your likes/dislikes), but taken as a whole this is a pretty god representation of the label during these years. Fans of that musical period will recognize artists like Ritchie Valens (his hits "La Bamba", "Come on Let's Go' and others were on Del-Fi), TV star Johnny Crawford ("The Rifleman") with "Cindy's Birthday" among others, and The Lively Ones, with "Miserlou" and "Guitarget" are all here. But there's a passel of good tracks from lesser known artists like Chan Romero ("The Hippy Hippy Shake", "If I Had My Way"--which is mistakenly on both discs), or Bonnie Owens' c&w song "This Other". And listen to Vickie Diaz' boppin' "Your Mama Said No" (similar to Valens' style), or Myron Lee, with his Bo Diddley-like "Schools Out". Also worth hearing is Jericho Brown's pop-blues (?) "Lonesome Drifter", or Little Caesar & The Romans' "Ten Commandments of Love". Check out The Shadows' "Jungle Fever", or the lush sounding "I'm Without a Girlfriend" by The Gallahads. Another great tune is the slow dance/romantic slowy "Tonight", by Arvee Allen. But you get the idea. If you're of a certain age (and especially if you grew up in SoCal), this music will take you back to that whole pre-Beatles era, before music changed forever. The wide range of styles is refreshing--Del-Fi had a policy of listening to virtually anyone who walked in the door--and that "open-ear" way of doing business meant that a lot of different music was released as singles and albums. This is one of the better sets in this series, along with the 3 CD "Poison Ivy: Gems From The Atco Vaults 1959-1962", the 2 CD "Hard To Get: The Challenge Story", the 3 CD "Good For Nothin': The Vogue Story 1956-1962", the 3 CD "Up On The Roof: Gems From The Atlantic Vaults 1961-1962", and the 3 CD "Wait A Minute: Stax & Satellite Story 1959-1962". No doubt there's others in this fine series that contain more good music, but these are the sets I'm familiar with.

Some recordings are really good in audio quality regardless of whether or not they're mono or dubbed in stereo. A few recordings sound like they were recorded from the bottom of a dry well with both the vocalist and the band echoing through a narrow tube. The sound quality on some tracks are painful to listen to, even if the melody is unfamiliar or the song is being heard for the first time, one would gather that the reason these particular songs never became a hit are clearly evident by the sheer audacity and derivative nature of some songs, the clear winners in sound quality are the 4 tracks sung by Johnny Crawford, other tracks are ok and if you don't have these tracks, then you're a bit richer music collection-wise. One song (track 25 disc 1) appears to be the original song I remember, then on disc 2, the same group gets lazy and appears to try and cash in on the popularity of the original song by putting out a slightly different title "memories of", (those oldies but goodies) which in and of itself is redundant in the sense that if one is singing about a particular genre of music, it's a poor choice of words to say "I have memories of the memories of old, (but good) music". I regret buying this, but I suppose the liner notes and a few of the rarer songs make it a worthwhile purchase, but other wise I assume the reason no MP3 samples are provided mean "buyer beware" if you're not familiar with these songs by these artists. A final note is a female sung version of "splish splash" which is unique and she sings it in a slightly similar fashion like the more famous version by Bobby Darin who sang his version as if someone were tickling him while he sung splish splash.

Good...some cuts seemed to be from an original 45rpm...but maybe that's all they had to work with. The major tunes like "Donna" sounded wonderful.

Good mix of songs from the Del-Fi catalog. Some songs you may not remember, but as a whole it's worth your money.

Have felt that other reviewers of One Day reissues were overly critical of audio quality as these reviewers seemed to have a prejudice that these reissues were gray line product being out of 50 year sound copyright in EU. I did not care about sound copyright as these pre 62 artists did not then nor likely would not now get any royalties from US owner of sound copyright, and if One Day had access to session or other decent master tapes that is what mattered to me. this one is not as good audio-wise as other of their product. This one must have been recorded primarily off third generation material for the most part. Audio quality is usually just fair. Very little stereo content, even some that is readily available, such as the Johnny Crawford material. Del-Fi was a small west coast label. Sound quality was usually good as owner Bob Keene engineered a lot of it himself and was conscientious and used Gold Star and other good studios. Listening from an engineer's or audiophile's viewpoint, seems little if any taken from session or first or second generation masters. One Day really dropped the ball on this collection. Worthwhile if you are a fan of Canadian rocker Bobby Curtola or to give you a large collection of the Del-Fi catalogue. Would have rated 2 1/2 stars. Otherwise save your money.

Great does what it says and delivers with a clout. Long live Ritchie Valens memory.

ほとんどの方は私同様、内容についてほとんど御存じないでしょう。でもほとんどの方が聞けば ｢良かった｣と思える事でしょう。そう感じられなかった方も、これほど値段が安くて ｢良かった｣と思える事でしょう。

This public domain compilation compiles music from the `Del-Fi' label from 1958 - 62. Nearly 2 hours of music - cd 1. 56.32mins and cd 2 56.55mins. The sound quality is good overall (four or five tracks have audible pops and distortion). This is a no thrills compilation - so there's no booklet but there's a one sided intro, writing credits and six small pictures of the leading artists. In my humble opinion Del-Fi had more than its fair share of talent that sadly for one reason or another never reached their full potential or haven't had enough credit aimed there way - Chan Romero, Ritchie Valens (passed away), Johnny Crawford (quit at 16), Bobby Curtola (a huge success in Canada but not in the U.S) or Jericho Brown. Despite this, there are so many good tracks on these two discs by those mentioned above - the outstanding original of 'The Hippy Hippy Shake' by Chan Romero who like Ritchie Valens came from an Hispanic background. All the Valens tracks are classics and need no introduction. On the lighter side of pop, teen idols - Bobby Curtola & Johnny Crawford are both very good ('Cindy's birthday' and 'Rumours' by the young Johnny are excellent as are 'Fortune teller' and 'Aladdin' by Bobby). Overall, it's a very good compilation that's great value for money. Enjoy. 8.5/10. Please note: Aladdin by Bobby Curtola IS NOT the ORIGINAL 45rpm (Del-fi 4185). It's slower as if the pitch is wrong, or it could be a latter re-recording or album version? Also note: There are 2 versions of the great B side 'If I had my way' (correct title on Del-Fi 4119 - 'If I had A way') by Chan Romero, one has a slightly more prominent vocal. I believe they were recorded 3 months apart.

eine tolle CD mit den Stars des Labels. Allen voran natürlich Ritchie Valens. Aber auch Bobby Curtola, Johnny Crawford, Little Caesar and the Romans waren in den Hitlisten zu finden. Übrigens, die hier aufgeführten Shadows sind nicht die englischen "Apatche"-Shadows, sondern eine US Band gleichen Namens.

1958年に、ボブ・キーンによってロサンジェルスに設立されたデル・ファイ・レコード。1950年代後半から1960年代にかけて、商業音楽界の中でも最もホットな街の一つだったロサンジェルスですが、このデル・ファイ・レコードも西海岸の商業音楽史に大きな足音を残したレーベルの一つです。インディ・レーベルでありながら、ドナ（リッチー・ヴァレンスのヒット曲から命名。ロン・ホールデンの「Love You So」などがヒット）、マスタング（ボビー・フラー・フォーの「I Fought The Law」のヒットなどで有名）などの傍系レーベルを持っていました。ただし、本CDはデル・ファイだけのカタログから、1958年～1962年にリリースされた50曲をセレクトした2枚組の編集盤です。 このレーベルのスターは、まず何といってもバディ・ホリー、ビッグ・ボッパーと共に僅か17歳という若さで不慮の死を遂げたリッチー・ヴァレンスですが、他にも彼と同じくメキシコの血を引く、チカーノ系のロックン・ローラー、チャン・ロメロ、ティーン・ポップ・スターのジョニー・クロフォード、ボビー・カートラ、ドゥ・ワップ系ではリトル・シーザー＆ザ・ローマンズなどもヒットを放っています。 いくつか気になった曲を紹介します。 Disc-1 1.説明不要の有名曲。 3.イギリスのスウィンギン・ブルー・ジーンズのヒットで有名ですが、こちらがオリジナルです。 4.デル・ファイのサーフ・インストバンド。ディック・デイルの有名曲のカヴァー。 5.ティーン・ポップ・ヒット。 6.リッチー・ヴァレンスを少しポップにした感じのロックン・ロール・ナンバー。このヴィッキー・ディアズという歌手は、何でもあのジャン＆ディーンのジャン・ベリーがプロデュースしたザ・マタドールズのメンバー（リード？）になる人だそう。このマタドールズは、ジャンのプロデュースで「Ace Of Hearts」（63年）という、ジ・エコーズの「Baby Blue」によく似たグレートなホワイト・ドゥー・ワップ・ナンバーを、コルピックス・レコードから出しています。他にもバリー・マン作のホット・ロッド・ナンバー、「I've Gotta Drive」（63年）も出しています。 9.ナイス・ティーン・ポップ・ナンバー。 11.ガール・ポップ。ボビー・ダーリンのカヴァーです。 13.ドゥー・ワップ・バラッド。 14.リッチー・ヴァレンスの変名シングル。インストルメンタル。 19.有名ドゥー・ワップ・バラッドのカヴァー。 23.1959年にニュー・ヨークのモホーク・レコード（ディオンがデビュー・レコードを出したレーベルとして有名）から1959年に発売された、素晴らしいミディアムのホワイト・ドゥー・ワップですが、デル・ファイからも発売されていたとは知りませんでした。 25.ドゥーワップ・リバイバルに乗って、大ヒットした曲。 Disc-2 4.後のガレージ・サウンドに通ずるような、ノイジーなイントロのロックン・ロール。 5.ナイス・ティーン・ポップ。 7.サーフ・インスト。 8.Disc-1、6.の逆面ですが、スーパーが付くグレートなティーン・ポップス。いやー、良い曲です。 9.Disc-1、25.のフォロー・アップを狙った曲ですが、それほどはヒットせず。よく似ているからでしょうか。 10.グループ名はドゥー・ワップ・グループっぽいですが、ティーン・ポップ・バラッド調。 11.説明不要。涙が出るほど素晴らしいロカ・バラッド。 13.けっこうノイズが聞こえます。 14.アルドン系ライターによるティーン・ポップ・ヒット。 17.ティーン・ポップ調バラッド。 18.ティーン・ポップ・バラッド。 19.ナイス・ティーン・ポップ。 20.リッチー・ヴァレンスの変名シングル。インスト。 23.女性ティーン・ポップ。 24.グレート・ティーン・ポップス。 25.ロバート&ジョニーのR&Bデュオのヒットのカヴァーですが、なかなかの出来栄え。 デル・ファイには、ロサンジェルスという土地柄を反映して、数々のサーフ・インストものの素晴らしい録音も残っているのですが、本CDは（すでに版権の切れている）62年までの収録なので、ライヴリー・ワンズの2曲が収録されているのみというのが残念なところではあります。その辺はまた別の機会に期待します。