Feelin' Groovy: The Best Of Harpers Bizarre

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Harpers Bizarre

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It brings back the best of memories. The mix of instruments, topped by the best harmonies, what a heavenly delight. Just close your eyes, sit back, and enjoy! There will never be this kind of magic, ever again. I also am trying to find the album or cd " Anything Goes". I can sing every song on that one. What I miss on the "Best Of", is the prelude to Anything Goes, where the tune of Anything Goes is being sung like Rudey Valley, and some lyrics like, Instead of landing on Plymouth Rock, Plymouth Rock would land on them. For all the youngsters out there, Try it, you'll like it!

Warners screwed this one. The scraps assembled from the four Harper's Bizarre albums don't represent the group at its best and will likely infuriate the group's fans. There was plenty of room on the disc for ALL of the first and second LPs -- "Feelin' Groovy" and "Anything Goes" --and highlights from the lesser third and fourth sets. Instead we get a too brief, 37-minute run-through of their Top 40 hits --their amiable cover of Paul Simon's "59th Street Bridge Song," their brilliantly arranged, just-this-side-of-too-too-much versions of "Chattanooga Choo-Choo" and Cole Porter's "Anything Goes" -- plus a smattering of this and that. A rare coming-together of talents (among them folks prominent in the camps of Brian Wilson and Phil Spector), this was one of the most inventive, sophisticated and wittily produced pop groups of its time and recorded the earliest work of some of L.A.'s most intriguing young songwriters, among them Randy Newman and Van Dyke Parks. Other major talents included arrangers Leon Russell (yes, THAT Leon Russell) and Perry Botkin Jr. and, of course, flaxen-haired lead singer Ted Templeman, who went on to produce the Doobie Brothers, Van Morrison, Van Halen and others. The liner notes and photos are nicely done, I'll say that. And I'm thankful that a couple of tunes not available anywhere else on CD, like Newman's wistful "The Debutante's Ball" and droll "The Biggest Night of Her Life" and Parks' "Come to the Sunshine" and "High Coin," are included. But it's sad SO much was pointlessly left in the vault. And it's especially disheartening to see Templeman and the great Lenny Waronker, who produced all the original LPs, listed as co-producers of this set. The heritage of well-crafted pop they left us with those nifty Harper's albums deserves a lot better. (NOTE: An equally disappointing import is available with four bonus tracks, at least three of which are lesser numbers from the third and fourth Harper's albums.)