Teenbeat

The minor early-'60s British rock band Grant Tracy & the Sunsets never had any hits. But their Ember label nonetheless collected both sides of their first five singles (all issued in 1961-1962, and variously credited to Grant Tracy & the Sunsets, Grant Tracy, or the Sunsets), along with four new instrumental tracks. It's an unimpressive mix of Shadows-styled instrumental rock and blah teen idol pop, some of them covers of American songs; "Say When" and "Please Baby Please" were both penned by the Doc Pomus-Mort Shuman songwriting team, while "Pretend" and "Love Me" were covers of hits by Carl Mann and Elvis Presley, respectively. For "Taming Tigers," Tracy summoned one of the most obvious apings of Del Shannon ever, though the song wasn't too good. Future Honeybus member Pete Dello did play guitar on much of the material, as well as writing or co-writing four of the tunes, though all of the stuff he had a hand in authoring was instrumental. All 14 songs from the LP have been reissued on the CD Everybody Shake! Grant Tracy & the Sunsets, the Complete Collection, which also includes a dozen other tracks from subsequent singles, demos, and unreleased recordings.