Search - Donna Loren :: Very B.O. / Beach Blanket Bingo

Great Anticipation - but - buyer beware........

Michael B. Marshall | 09/25/2002

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Donna Loren - who is an interesting story, more on her below - appeared in the non-speaking but singing role of "Donna" in four of the Beach Party movies. She briefly appears in a duet in the second (Muscle Beach Party) and perfomed does solos in three others. Compared to most female teen celebrities of the 60s, Donna was the proverbial renaissance girl. Only nineteen when she first appeared in the Beach Party series, she was already an experienced singer, model, actress and clothing designer.Prior to her Beach Party appearances, Donna had already spun a moderately successful career as a teen singer into a lucrative role as the "celebrity spokesmodel" for Dr. Pepper, and continued in those roles even after she started appearing in the AIP movies. On that tangent, think movie product placement deals are a recent trend? Think again - everyone sitting in the "Big Daddy's" club scenes in Muscle Beach Party just happens to have a bottle of -- guess what? (hint: think "Donna Loren...as spokesmodel for......") -- sitting in front of them. But Donna didn't stop there: in 1965, she started appearing in an ongoing singing guest spot on ABC's Shindig and even managed to cram in a guest star role (as Robin's girlfriend) on the Batman TV show. She also liked to design clothing and sew, and in 1964 spun that interest into a spokesperson deal with the Simplicity Pattern Company. As far as Donna's recording career, it was a short one, running from the early to mid 60's and involved the release of scores of singles on a number of labels (the only album was the Capitol "Beach Blanket Bingo" LP). The material is hard to characterize, ranging from bubble gum pop ("I'm In Love With The Ticket Taker") to the grand diva-ish ("Everytime We Touch") to weird "let's invent the latest dance fad" stuff ("Do The Zonk"). Suffice to say she had an excellent but under-challenged voice; listening to her recordings of generally forgettable material, one is left wishing she had come under the wing of better agents and producers, ones who might have taken her down riskier but more substantive paths (case in point: Atlantic Records took such a risk in 1969 when they shipped fading, outdated pop diva Dusty Springfield down to Memphis to record with classic blues talent, the result being "Dusty in Memphis," a pop masterpiece that most reviewers now label as one of the greatest albums of the entire decade.) Which leads to discussion of this CD. While it contains some other material, most of the songs on it are from Donna's "Donna Loren Sings songs from Beach Blanket Bingo" (Capitol, released October 1965). While Buena Vista used the four Beach Party movies as an opportunity to produce Annette releases, they for whatever reason passed (or were possibly outbid) on Beach Blanket Bingo. As a result, the fifth film in the series -- and considered by most critics to be the best - was snapped up by Capitol, who had in their arsenal multi-talented Donna, who was presumably chomping at the bit for a shot at an LP. So one sits down with great anticipation to listen to Donna Loren Sings Songs From Beach Blanket Bingo. However, that anticipation readily turns into disappointment. This is because what appeared intriguing ends up being a conflicting listen: on the one hand, Donna was a much more capable singer than Annette, one with a unique style that mixed a strong, confident alto with emotion. On the other hand, management at Capitol clearly didn't know what to do with her or this material. Unlike Annette's carefully produced Buena Vista records (no matter how "silly" the content, Disney Managing Music Director Tutti Camarata always did it well), Donna's LP sounds like it was made in a hurry by people with little experience in guitar-based pop. And the results are frustrating to listen to.In essence, the album was a huge waste of Donna's potential: the arrangements are unnecessarily busy, with overdone orchestration and chorus, and adding insult to injury everything is always played a little too fast. The result is a breathy, growling Donna who sounds like she's working much too hard to compete with it all. Wonderful Styner-Hemrick ballads like "It Only Hurts When I Cry" and "New Love" - which sounded great in the movie -- turn into blaring, overproduced yawns on the LP. Uptempo numbers like "Fly Boy" become hyper-speed pop, to the point where they are literally fatiguing to listen to. Frankly, the only half-way decent cut on the entire album is her version of the Hondell's The Cycle Set (sadly, their great original version of this song never appeared on any their records).What makes all this even more annoying is the fact Capitol was simultaneously producing some excellent female pop. As example, just a few months before Donna's album, Capitol released Jody Miller's Queen of the House LP, her second record and in my opinion one of the best pop albums made by any American female singer during the mid 60s (due not only to Miller's obvious talent but also some outstanding production work by the legendary Billy Strange). If only Donna had received the same treatment!Donna Loren Sings songs from Beach Blanket Bingo was released as Capitol 2323 (mono) and ST 2323 (stereo). At this time, there is also this compilation CD of Donna Loren material (orginally released in 1997), which includes the entire stereo version of this LP. If you are looking for an original 1965 LP copy of this abulm, understand they still do appear on online auctions, in fact copies come up on the web auction sites relatively frequently (most in mono, stereo is rare). Note that despite all the issues mentioned above, this LP has become a big, hot collectible, likely because of the wonderful close-up of a gorgeous twenty-one year old Donna on the cover."

The Orginal Dr. Pepper Girl

G. A Siessel | 01/31/2001

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Previously, if you wanted anything by Donna Loren, you had to find an obscure import CD - or the original Capital LP.Collectibles is getting better. They deserve credit for reissuing stuff that no one else will. If you've ever listened to Collectibles Diane Renay reissue, you know what I mean about "getting better". Looks like now they at least attempt to find stereo sources for their reissues. It's unknown whether they used master tapes for this issue, since they routinely don't include such information. That being said, the sound quality is very good on this CD. Tracks 1-10 are in great sounding true stereo. The remaining tracks 11-19 are mono. Donna Loren had a busy career in the sixties as the Dr. Pepper girl and several appearances in those beach movies. Donna's voice was well suited for slow ballads or a faster rock tempo. According to the CD insert, Donna recorded the entire Beach Blanket Bingo LP for Capital Records in 14 hours straight. Apparently this was done quickly to capitalize on the success of the movie. Indeed, I think her Capital LP could have been done better with a little more time. Donna's voice is much better than the arrangements for those songs. I believe the movie version of "It Only Hurts When I Cry" was better than the LP version she recorded after the movie. Her version of "I Think, You Think" is also a cute song - first recorded by Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon (but never released).Chances are you won't be ordering this CD unless you are already familiar with her, so I won't bore you with the details of her career. However, currently she now has her own business. The website for her clothing business includes info on her sixties career. ... You can find this info in the CD pamphlet."

Donna, Finally on CD!!

William G. Ratcliffe | Lawrenceville, New Jersey United States | 07/25/2002

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Although i was initially disappointed with the lp release of the songs from the film "Beach Blanket Bingo", i had to give Capitol credit as they knew Buena Vista would not release a soundtrack album. A big blunder on Disney's part, and also on American International, who had the capability to release the original tracks from the film on either Vee Jay Records or Tower Records (a subsidiary of Capitol), 2 labels that delt with the film company in the past, and present. Upon hearing the lp, it was obvious that Les Baxter's work was absent, and sounding like a full orchestra, H.B. Barnum's work was very much out of place with the 'teen' star, almost making her sound like Anita Bryant. The cd here is good for one reason or another, mostly for the hard to find tracks that are not easy to assemble elsewhere in a short period of time. For the soundtrack itself, i would rather pass and just make a cassette of the original soundtrack from the film, edit the background and burn the songs onto cd, which is the only way to get the songs you want. Maybe writing to MGM could help, since that studio now owns the rights to all of American International's product, and could maybe make a new soundtrack from the film with the master tapes (which still exist). I am sure that would not be a problem. Otherwise, this cd is the only alternative."