VA She's A Doll! Warner Bros.' Feminine Side (2021)

Polished soul, pop gems and more from the female roster of 1960s Warner Bros and Loma.
“She’s A Doll!” could very easily have been the next volume in our long-running “Where The Girls Are” series, but the tracks for that are already cast in stone and due for release in the near future. Instead the decision was made to make it a stand-alone release, and who knows, possibly the first in a whole new series of label-centric girl-pop compilations. Packaged with a 24-page booklet featuring a 4,000-word track commentary and rare full-page photos of many of the artists, the collection opens with ‘Contact’ by the Three Degrees, a slice of cool Philly soul, with a little space age psychedelia on the side, issued as the glamorous trio’s one-off single for Warner Bros in 1968, and closes with Lorraine Ellison’s ‘In My Tomorrow’ from the same year, one of the many fine records she made under the auspices of producer Jerry Ragovoy.

Polished soul, pop gems and more from the female roster of 1960s Warner Bros and Loma.
“She’s A Doll!” could very easily have been the next volume in our long-running “Where The Girls Are” series, but the tracks for that are already cast in stone and due for release in the near future. Instead the decision was made to make it a stand-alone release, and who knows, possibly the first in a whole new series of label-centric girl-pop compilations. Packaged with a 24-page booklet featuring a 4,000-word track commentary and rare full-page photos of many of the artists, the collection opens with ‘Contact’ by the Three Degrees, a slice of cool Philly soul, with a little space age psychedelia on the side, issued as the glamorous trio’s one-off single for Warner Bros in 1968, and closes with Lorraine Ellison’s ‘In My Tomorrow’ from the same year, one of the many fine records she made under the auspices of producer Jerry Ragovoy.

This new addition to the Ace Records catalogue comprises polished soul, pop gems and more from the female roster of 1960s Warner Bros and the company’s Loma subsidiary. The collection opens with Contact by the Three Degrees, a slice of cool Philly soul issued as the glamorous trio’s one-off single for Warner Bros in 1968, and closes with Lorraine Ellison’s In My Tomorrows from the same year, one of the many fine records she made under the auspices of producer Jerry Ragovoy.

More pop, soul and beat gems from the London-based company’s 60s girls – with a touch of folk, psychedelia, bubblegum and even jazz. To the 60s Brit Girl enthusiast, discovering the Pye back catalogue is like being a kid in a sweet shop. It was first plundered for the purposes of reissue back in 1990, with the initial volume of the “Here Come The Girls” series which, during its eventual nine-year run, grew to include a further five collections of sublime and neglected gems from girls whose recordings appeared on Pye or sister label Piccadilly. In 2016, 17 years after the last of those compilations, and with a renewal of interest in all things Brit Girl, Ace visited the Pye catalogue for the “Scratch My Back! Pye Beat Girls 1963-1968” CD. But it’s now 2021, and for the new, or even seasoned devotee of the genre, four years is a long time to go without a top-up fix. So in a timely gesture of sustenance, Ace hereby presents “She Wants You! Pye Records’ Feminine Side 1964-1970”, a further set of tracks by the company’s female talent, over half of which never appeared on those 1990s reissues.

More pop, soul and beat gems from the London-based company’s 60s girls – with a touch of folk, psychedelia, bubblegum and even jazz. To the 60s Brit Girl enthusiast, discovering the Pye back catalogue is like being a kid in a sweet shop. It was first plundered for the purposes of reissue back in 1990, with the initial volume of the “Here Come The Girls” series which, during its eventual nine-year run, grew to include a further five collections of sublime and neglected gems from girls whose recordings appeared on Pye or sister label Piccadilly. In 2016, 17 years after the last of those compilations, and with a renewal of interest in all things Brit Girl, Ace visited the Pye catalogue for the “Scratch My Back! Pye Beat Girls 1963-1968” CD. But it’s now 2021, and for the new, or even seasoned devotee of the genre, four years is a long time to go without a top-up fix. So in a timely gesture of sustenance, Ace hereby presents “She Wants You! Pye Records’ Feminine Side 1964-1970”, a further set of tracks by the company’s female talent, over half of which never appeared on those 1990s reissues.

Unlike other labels subjected to exhaustive multi-disc retrospectives like this whopping ten-disc Revolutions in Sound: Warner Bros. Records – The First Fifty Years, Warner Brothers never embodied a scene or sound: they've always embodied what a major label should be – a dominant force that chronicles and dictates the sound of the mainstream. Coming out at the tail-end of 2008, when the influence of major labels is on a slow steady decline, Revolutions in Sound can be seen as a portrait of a time that's beginning to recede into the past: a time when there was such a thing as mass entertainment, when the pop audience all shared a common bond of hit records they either loved or rallied against. Perhaps the greatest things about this monumental box set is that it captures that colossus while also illustrating that for a while, majors did take risks. Of course, Warner was the riskiest of all the majors, never held back by an anti-rock & roll sourpuss like Mitch Miller, who struggled to keep CBS out of the tumult of the '60s (this with no less than Bob Dylan as the label's flagship rock artist). Instead, Warner embraced the underground, recording some of the strangest to shake out of the '60s, and that adventure fits a label that turned to rock & roll to help establish themselves as a real player at the turn of the '60s.

Stereo ★ Type A is the 1999 album by Miho Hatori and Yuka Honda, who are/were Cibo Matto. This, their second full length, was released through Warner Bros. Records.

Beyond This World "Best & Rare" is a 2000 European compilation by American rap group the Jungle Brothers. It focuses on material from the group's two albums they did for Warner Bros. Records, along with a few Warner Bros. songs not on albums.