Highlights from her RCA tenure, including many overlooked gems and tracks recorded in Japan, Italy, Germany, France and the Netherlands.
When her recording of ‘I Will Follow Him’ reached #1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 in 1963, 15 year-old Peggy March became the youngest-ever female to top the US pop charts. Over the following year Peggy scored four more hits but, like many other American acts, her chart career waned with the advent of Beatlemania. Nevertheless, she remained an RCA artist until 1969, releasing dozens of terrific records along the way. She also became very popular overseas, particularly inGermany, where she subsequently based her career.
‘I Will Follow Him’, which began life as the French song ‘Chariot’, is heard here sung half in Japanese and half in English. The opening track, ‘If You Loved Me’, is another number originally recorded in French, as ‘Ame Caline’ by its writer Michel Polnareff, and subsequently popularised as the instrumental ‘Soul Coaxing’. Elsewhere are a further 24 of the finest tracks from Peggy’s RCA tenure, including numbers by some of the greatest songwriters of the era. Among them are recordings of ‘Try To See It My Way’ from Burt Bacharach & Hal David’s TV musical On The Flip Side; ‘Leave Me Alone’, penned by the pre-fame Randy Newman; and a lovely version of Brian Wilson and Mike Love’s ‘Aren’t You Glad’ from the Beach Boys’ “Wild Honey” album.
Three songs are featured in both English and another language: ‘He Couldn’t Care Less’ in Japanese as ‘Itsuwari No Koi’, ‘This Heart Wasn’t Made To Kick Around’ in German as ‘Male Nicht Den Teufel An Die Wand’ (the German version came first, unusually), and ‘(I’m Watching) Every Little Move You Make’ in Italian as ‘Eh, Bravo’. The collection also includes a rare chance to hear Peggy singing in French on ‘Ne Joue Pas Les Enfants’ (which her fans might recognise as the English language ‘Let Her Go’) and both sides of an out-there single recorded in the Netherlands with Jan Akkerman’s early band the Hunters.
The package features an essay by girl-pop scholar Sheryl Farber, a track commentary in Peggy’s own words and a plethora of colourful illustrations.
MICK PATRICK
