"Teenage Doll"

If you dug the pioneering "Hot Boppin' Girls" series you oughta get a load of this rippin' set of wild women rockers that makes Wanda Jackson look like the tip of the iceberg! As usual, the first cut's an absolute stunner (Jim Dandy by Sara Lee) that sets the tone for the rest of the action. Brenda Darlin tells us she's a Rockin Lady, Freeda Boxx is Havin' A Ball, Miss Georgia does some Rockin' After School, Sandy Lee does Ballin' Keen, and Jan Moore's Play It Cool is so great it's on here twice! Also, some spectacular photos that would probably be illegal in some states. Don't miss this one. (GDR, Roots & Rhythm)Patsy Cline turns up here with "Gotta Lot of Rhythm," and one of her Four-Star sides, but other then that I defy anyone other than the most knowledgeable rock & roll scholar to know anything about anyone represented here; its a shame, because there's not a weak track among these 29 (yep, they had trouble filling that 30th spot; a Janis Martin song would've fit in nicely). Judy Layne ("Hard Headed Woman"), Sandy Lee ("Ballin' Keen"), Betty Nickell ("Hot Dog"), Jan Moore ("Play It Cool") et al were mostly serious rockabilly and bluesy rock singers, with an attitude and a way with a song, and all featuring good backing bands. These women were awesome, every one of them, but they were also monsters by the standards of the 1950s. Except for a few more mainstream country-sounding figures like Cline and Joannie King, and the slightly more R&B-oriented Kelly Hart ("Boy Crazy"), each one of these women would've scared the crap out of most guys, forget their parents, so it's no wonder that none of them ever made it in a serious way. Worse yet, none of them were 12 years old like Brenda Lee, whose youth and country orientation mitigated the hot sound she put out and made her a novelty act. Bolean Barry could've fostered a whole tonsorial trend faster than any styles Elvis was wearing if anyone had gotten to hear her "Long Sideburns." Ivey Burnett looks like she was about 35 when she cut "It's All Your Love or Nothing," and her band sounds harder than most of the guy songs that were making the charts in 1956/'57. What made it worse was that girls like Peggy Upton ("Sweet Sugar Bugger"), Freeda Boxx ("Havin' a Ball"), Sheree Scott ("Easy Payment"), and Jane Bowman ("Mad Mama") wrote their own stuff, which probably made it even tougher to foster a career -- if they couldn't even get a piece of their songwriting action, what male producer or manager would want to take them on? Buy this collection, you won't be sorry. Kay Cee Jones even turns "Shortnin' Bread" into a proposition; and if anyone out there knows what happened to Alvadean Coker ("We're Gonna Bop"), let her know this writer would still want to bop with her 40-some years later. Same goes for Nancy, of Nancy and the Millionaires ("Atooka, Okla”).(Bruce Eder, Allmusic)

trax:

1. Jim Dandy - Sara Lee 2. Hard Headed Woman - Judy Layne 3. Ballin' Keen - Sandy Lee 4. Hot Dog - Betty Nickell 5. Play It Cool - Jan Moore 6. Hystory - Joannie King 7. Cool Cool Daddy - Lee Jones 8. Rockin' Lady - Brenda Darlin 9. Sweet Sugar Booger - Peggy Upton 10. Rockin' After School - Miss Georgia 11. Shortnin' Bread - Kay Cee Jones 12. Mad Mama - Jane Bowman 13. Little Fool - Donna Rae 14. Stagger Lee - Kay Johnson 15. Havin' A Ball - Freeda Boxx 16. Play It Cool - Jan Moore 17. Boy Crazy - Kelly Hart 18. Loving You Baby - Charlotte Harden 19. It's All Your Love Or Nothing - Ivey Burnett 20. Easy Payment - Sheree Scott 21. Gotta Lot Of Rhythm - Patsy Cline 22. Long Sideburns - Bolean Barry 23. We're Gonna Bop - Alvadean Coker 24. That's My Heart - Sue Winfrod 25. Boogie Woogie Rock - Suzy Q. Scott 26. Money Honey - Suzie Lawrence 27. Lightning Bug - Ronnie Malone 28. Handy Andy - Patti Mack 29. Atooka Okla - Nancy & The Millionaires 30. Da-De-Da - Sylvia Hogan

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