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Grooviest 17 Original Hits!

The Georgia Peach

* Compilations *

Recorded: 1955-59

Released: 1968 GO, 1991 GP

GO Grooviest 17 Original Hits!
GP The Georgia Peach


Rating: 4.575 (average of 2 ratings) GO

4.575 (average of 2 ratings) GP


Genre: early rock and roll


Quotable: “the single-disc Little Richard hits collection to own for a long time to come” – William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide GO


Album Tracks: GP

  1. Tutti Frutti GO
  2. Baby
  3. I’m Just a Lonely Guy
  4. True Fine Mama GO
  5. Kansas City/ Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey!
  6. Slippin’ and Slidin’ GO
  7. Long Tall Sally GO
  8. Miss Ann GO
  9. Oh Why?
  10. Ready Teddy GO
  11. Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! GO
  12. Rip It Up GO
  13. Lucille GO
  14. Heeby-Jeebies GO
  15. Can’t Believe You Wanna Leave
  16. Shake a Hand
  17. All Around the World GO
  18. She’s Got It GO
  19. Jenny Jenny GO
  20. Good Golly, Miss Molly GO
  21. The Girl Can’t Help It
  22. Send Me Some Lovin’ GO
  23. Ooh! My Soul GO
  24. Keep a Knockin’
  25. Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On
  26. Boo Hoo Hoo Hoo, I’ll Never Let You Go GO
* Songs marked with GO appeared on Grooviest 17 Original Hits!. See notes for additional details.


Sales:

sales in U.S. only --
sales in U.K. only - estimated --
sales in all of Europe as determined by IFPI – click here to go to their site. --
sales worldwide - estimated --


Peak:

peak on U.S. Billboard album chart --
peak on U.K. album chart --


Singles/Hit Songs:

  • Tutti Frutti (11/26/55) #17 US, #29 UK, #2 RB
  • Long Tall Sally (4/7/56) #6 US, #3 UK, #1 RB. Sales: 1 million. Airplay: 1 million
  • Slippin’ and Slidin’ (4/7/56) #33 US, #2 RB
  • Rip It Up (6/30/56) #17 US, #30 UK, #1 RB
  • Ready Teddy (6/30/56) #44 US, #8 RB
  • She’s Got It (10/27/56) #15 UK, #9 RB
  • Heeby-Jeebies (10/27/56) #7 RB
  • The Girl Can’t Help It GP (12/29/56) #49 US, #9 UK, #7 RB
  • All Around the World (12/29/56) #13 RB
  • Lucille (3/16/57) #21 US, #10 UK, #1 RB. Airplay: 1 million
  • Send Me Some Lovin’ (3/16/57) #54 US, #3 RB
  • Jenny Jenny (6/17/57) #10 US, #11 UK, #2 RB
  • Miss Ann (6/17/57) #56 US, #6 RB
  • Keep a Knockin’ GP (9/30/57) #8 US, #21 UK, #2 RB
  • Good Golly, Miss Molly (2/17/58) #10 US, #8 UK, #4 RB
  • Ooh! My Soul (6/9/58) #31 US, #22 UK, #15 RB
  • True Fine Mama (6/9/58) #68 US
  • Kansas City/ Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey GP (5/11/59) #95 US, #26 UK
Songs marked by GP appear only on The Georgia Peach.


Notes: Many compilations have been released over the years that cover this exact same era, when Little Richard was signed to Specialty Records and although this one was strong, there were better – most notably 1991’s Georgia Peach. That collection covered everything on Grooviest 17 Original Hits!, except for “Boo Hoo Hoo Hoo, I’ll Never Let You Go,” and added another nine cuts.


Awards:

‘Grooviest 17 Original Hits’ is one of Blender’s 100 Greatest American Albums


Grooviest 17 Original Hits!/
The Georgia Peach

Little Richard
Review:
“Despite its trendy title, Grooviest 17 Original Hits! was the most complete collection of Little Richard’s hits yet released” (Ruhlmann). Essentially, “his career was over by 1959, for Richard Penniman had denounced rock & roll as the devil’s work. But he had time to add a fistful of songs to his existing greatest hits. He sounded possessed (‘evil’ was actually the word he used), but Jesus! – he knew how to thrill” (Blender).

However, over the next decade, he “re-recorded his hits for Vee-Jay, Modern, and OKeh, and Specialty seems to have wanted an album with the word ‘original’ in the title, emphasizing that they possessed the actual hit versions. Taking the 12 tracks from 1963’s His Greatest Hits, the company added five more tracks, among them Ready Teddy, Miss Ann, and Ooh! My Soul, chart records they had skipped the first time around. ‘The Girl Can’t Help It’ still didn’t appear on a Little Richard hits collection, but Grooviest 17 Original Hits! was the single-disc Little Richard hits collection to own for a long time to come” (Ruhlmann).

More than 20 years later, the 25-track Georgia Peach trumped that collection and is “perhaps the greatest of Little Richard’s greatest hits compilations” (Erlewine). Not only did it gather together everything that appeared on Grooviest 17 Original Hits!, except for one cut, but fleshed it out with another nine songs and put them all in chronological order. That means the listener gets “terrific singles that never were as big as Tutti Frutti and Good Golly Miss Molly” (Erlewine) as well as hits likeThe Girl Can’t Help It and Keep a Knockin’ that were inexplicably left off Grooviest 17 Original Hits!. “On top of the sublime song selection and sound, the liner notes by compiler Billy Vera are splendid and insightful.” (Erlewine).


Review Source(s):


Last updated November 7, 2008.