Peter Gordon

Two of Peter & Gordon's early albums, Woman and Lady Godiva, were combined on this single-CD reissue by Collectables.
Woman (1966). There's but one original on this album, and maybe it's no coincidence that this effort, "Wrong From the Start," is the best song on the LP other than "Woman." "Wrong From the Start" is nothing great, but at least it's straight-ahead period rock with organ. Most of the album, in contrast, nearly drowns in fatuous orchestral production. The selection of cover material isn't much better, sometimes giving the impression the pair was trying for the all-around entertainment market, including as it did songs like "Somewhere" (from West Side Story)…

These two slightly later efforts are actually more consistently interesting than the duo's first two albums, mostly because they stop trying to sound like the Beatles or the Everly Brothers, and sound more distinctive and soulful - that's doubly true of the material off of the True Love Ways album. They rely more on their voices, which show more flexibility - P&G were never going to be blues singers, but they're far less embarrassing and more directly attuned to what they're singing here, which includes Otis Blackwell's "All Shook Up" and Leadbelly's "Good Morning Blues." The results are sometimes successful within the context of the duo's work; "Cry to Me" is a good cover and one of their better records of this era, even if the Rolling Stones did it better, and their cover of Smokey Robinson's "Who's Loving You" is astonishing. The sound is consistently good-to-excellent, though the notes are sketchy.

These two LPs combined on one CD (with one bonus track) show off the duo's strong and weak points at once. Peter & Gordon did good Beatlesque songs, although they couldn't really compete with the real article without the occasional outside song like "A World Without Love" or "I Go to Pieces" coming their way. And they did all right, if not exceptionally well by folk-style numbers such as "Pretty Mary" and "Willow Garden," on which they compare favorably with the Everly Brothers. But when they do blues ("My Babe," "Trouble in Mind"), they sound plain silly, and pretty lightweight when they cover songs like "Lucille" as well. Additionally, they do the occasional over-orchestrated number that breaks the spell altogether…