Let's Go! Joe Meek's Girls

by Richie Unterberger When you take the plunge into a Joe Meek rarity CD, you have fair warning that you're not going to encounter many lost masterworks. This compilation of 29 tracks by female singers he worked with in the early and mid-'60s, though, is one of the better ones on the market. None of these -- by the likes of Jenny Moss, Gunilla Thorn, Kim Roberts, and Yolanda -- were hits (ten tracks weren't even previously released), and frankly they didn't deserve to be, due to the extremely innocuous and slight nature of the material. That's not, however, what Meek connoisseurs are seeking with these archival releases. You want examples of Meek's inimitable outer space bathroom production techniques, whether highly polished or in progress, and you get them here, via the Casper-the-ghost strings, compressed percussion, and spooky keyboards. Which makes it a not half-bad document if you've got the Meek bug, even if the songs themselves are completely overshadowed by their embellishments, although the odd tune (Jenny Moss' "Hobbies," Pamela Blue's "Hey There Stranger," and especially Glenda Collins' dramatic "Baby It Hurts") carried some hit potential.