The McCoys – Hang On Sloopy - The Best of the McCoys

Rick Derringer’s teenage band is known for its huge hit, “Hang On Sloopy” and while they had several other great tunes, this compilation is not very strong, overall.

I like the informative liner notes, though. I had no idea that the Strangeloves “discovered” the McCoys and brought them into the studio to record “…Sloopy”. Apparently, the band backed up the Strangeloves (who were still riding high on their “I Want Candy” 45) for a mid-west gig and the elders were sufficiently impressed that the teens were brought in for the producers’ new smash.

Unfortunately, while covers like “Fever” (excellent rock’n’rolling version), “Sorrow”, “Come On, Let’s Go”, “Say Those Magic Words”, etc are great garage rockers, there are plenty of drek-pop inanities like “I Can’t Explain It”, “Little People”, “Mr. Summer”, and the Beach Boys-copy “Runaway” that are so bad as to be embarrassing, even for young boys who were at the mercy of record producers/executives.

I would assume that there are other McCoys’ compilations out there and I hope that some are better, but even though I got this fairly cheap through Amazon, I can’t really fully recommend it.