Beach Blanket Bingo: The Very Best of Donna Loren

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riskier but more substantive paths (case in point: Atlantic Records took such a risk in 1969 when they shipped fading, outdated pop diva Dusty Springfield down to Memphis to record with classic blues talent, the result being "Dusty in Memphis," a pop masterpiece that most reviewers now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.


IT WAS ABOUT TIME   August 29, 2002
ERNIE GARCIA (LONG BEACH, CA.)
5 out of 8 found this review helpful

IT WAS ABOUT TIME THAT THIS C.D. WAS RELEASED. YES, DONNA LOREN WAS VERY TALENTED AND I WAS GLAD THAT "BLOWING OUT THE CANDLES" WAS INCLUDED. I REMEMBERED HER SINGING IT ON "SHINDIG" WHILE THE BLOSSOMS DID THEIR VERSION OF "YOU'LL NEVER GET TO HEAVEN" (A DIONE WARWICK SONG).I STRONGLY DISAGREE WITH A PREVIOUS REVIEWER THAT ANNETTE FUNICELLO WHO ALSO RECORDED SOME OF THESE SONGS WAS A "NO-TALENT". SHE WAS WONDERFUL AND I WISH THAT AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL WOULD RELEASE HER SONGS FROM "THUNDER ALLEY" AS WELL. LET'S ALL WRITE TO MGM WHO HAS THE RIGHTS TO THEM. THANK YOU WILLIAM RADCLIFFE (ANOTHER REVIEWER) FOR THAT INFO!