You may not know her name, but you certainly know her voice.

Darlene Love – the Best of – CD review – While it would be impossible to compile all of Darlene Love’s finest accomplishments on one collection, The Best of Darlene Love does a fairly good job of bringing together the highlights of her tenure with Phil Spector, her most fruitful commercially.  The CD opens with “He’s a Rebel,” credited to the Crystals, but is in fact Darlene on lead vocals.

The song rocketed to #1 in the fall of 1962 and helped solidify Phil Spector’s status as a “rock genius.”  Perhaps because of this notoriety, Spector became increasingly erratic in his dealings with his artists.  This explains the schizophrenic credits on this CD: Spector would promise Darlene that the next single would be in her name, only to release it as by the Crystals.  Next, she’d be credited as Bob B. Soxx & the Blue Jeans, for which they cut the odd Disney classic “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah.”  Still other tracks were inexplicably left unreleased, as in Darlene’s original version of “Chapel of Love,” later a monster hit for the Dixie Cups. “A Fine Fine Boy” and “(Today I Met) the Boy I’m Gonna Marry” are both fine examples of her strong clear voice: it’s as if she’s back in the choir singing gospel.  The set closes with an added tidbit: “Lord If You’re a Woman,”  a failed attempt at a comeback for Spector and Love from 1977.