Listen: Wow Wow Wee (He’s The Boy For Me) (Mono) / The Angels
Wow Wow Wee (He's The Boy For Me) (Mono) / The Angels

Some things are meant to happen. Two weeks ago, maybe more, I grabbed a random cd for the car, had some errands to run. The iTouch is a wonderful thing, light, thin, easy to transport. Easy to misplace too. Haven’t seen mine in weeks. Hence the cd, and out of alphabetized storage as well, therefore an artist beginning with A. The Angels.

Not to repeat myself from yesterdays re-post, but I was a fan, and let me tell you, ‘Wow Wow Wee (He’s The Boy For Me)’ sounds mighty great in the summer. I swear I’ve played it fifty times, between the car and having pulled out a copy for the upstairs RCA changer.

Like all things 60′s, it sounds best in mono. Why the majors dig out and polish up the stereo versions for their anthologies, I don’t get. Maybe the rest of humanity prefers to remember the music the way it didn’t sound. Not me. With the windows down, blaring, the stereo version was admittedly more than passable. But first rule is, once in the house, back to mono.

Days ago, Eric Mache emails a link for the girl group review doubling as a tribute to Ellie Greenwich at Lincoln Center, and who’s included but The Angels. The event was a non-stop cavalcade of impeccable voices, very RnB leaning. Five hours that flew by in a flash. Other than dashes to the signing tent for jukebox tab stalking, I never left my seat.

Above: Jukebox Tab signed by Jiggs Allbut

Listen: Jamaica Joe / The Angels
Jamaica Joe / The Angels

The girl groups from the sixties were the first to catch my attention. It all started really early with The McGuire Sisters’ and their hit, ‘Sugartime’, which had pretty high kid appeal. Then I noticed The Ronettes, The Shangri-Las…….and The Angels.

Their #1, ‘My Boyfriend’s Back’ seems to have survived decades of airplay, still spun a lot on the oldies formats. I know because it’s one of the few I can bare if forced to listen on a long trip or something.

The local Syracuse stations played a lot of Angels singles including the national non-hit ‘Jamaica Joe’. Seems they chose this one despite it being relegated to the B side as the sleeve suggests.

The actual promo copy doesn’t indicate an A side which could explain. Well I’m glad they did, I loved it for months at the time and still do. It was my first taste of ska on re-examination. And it went down a storm when I’d spin it out.