You Don't Have To Be A Baby To Cry - The Complete Caravelles 1963-1968

Here's a compilation - the tracks are listed in the Comments below - that will be welcomed by both Girl Group Sound collectors and those whose focus is the British Invasion, since The Caravelles (they took their name from the famous French airliner) fit nicely into both. Lois Wilkinson, born April 3, 1944 in Sleaford, Lincolnshire, England, and Andrea Simpson, born on September 9, 1946 in Finchley, London, were hardly major players among either group with just the one North American hit single.

Here you get that hit and its B-side, along with the 3 other singles released in the U.S. by the Mercury subsidiary Smash, to go along with their U.K. singles and tracks from their lone U.K. album (also see Comments below), not to mention two more that had previously only appeared in a French E.P., and their German language cuts, all of which emerged in a 5-year period from 1963 to 1968. The sound quality is first class and the informative 16-page insert, replete with vintage photos and poster/record illustrations, features comments from Lois.

That their soft sound used the 1956 duo of Patience & Prudence as inspiration is unmistakable so it's no accident that their two big hits were featured in The Caravelle's only LP. But the song everyone remembers them for is, of course, You Don't Have To Be A Baby To Cry, an old Country tune written by Bob Merrill & Terry Shand and first done way back by Moon Mullican and then later by Tennessee Ernie Ford as the flip to his huge 1956 hit, Sixteen Tons. In fact, Ford's version made it to # 78 on the Billboard Pop Top 100 that January.

For the girls however, their rendition reached # 6 in the U.K. in 1963 on Decca F11697 b/w The Last One To Know, and when picked up for U.S. distribution by Smash it soared to # 2 Adult Contemporary and #3 Billboard Pop Hot 100 with the same B-side. Unfortunately, the 1963 follow-up, another old Country tune (a huge hit for Eddy Arnold and Les Paul & Mary Ford in 1954), I Really Don't Want To Know, went nowhere in the U.K., nor was it picked up by Smash. The U.K. flip was I Was Wrong on Decca F11758.

Smash did opt to release their 1964 U.K. disc on Decca F11816, which once more reached way back to a Country tune, this time Have You Ever Been Lonely (Have You Ever Been Blue?), composed by Peter DeRose and Billy Hill, and while the U.K. release again failed to chart with Gonna Get Along Without Ya Now as the flip, the Smash 1869 release did manage to squeak into the Hot 100 at # 94 but with Don't Blow Your Cool as the B-side.

Two more 1964 releases also failed to chart in either country - You Are Here/How Can I Be Sure (Fontana TF466 and Smash 1901) and I Don't Care If The Sun Don't Shine/I Like A Man (Fontana TF509 and Smash 1958), nor did any of True Love Never Runs Smooth/Georgia Boy (Polydor NH59034 in 1964), Hey Mama, You've Been On My Mind/New York (Polydor 56137 in 1966), I Want To Love You Again/I Had To Walk Home Myself (Polydor 56156 in 1967), and The Other Side Of Love/I Hear A New Kind Of Music (Pye 7N17654 in 1968) - all U.K.-only sides.

After they split, Lois recorded solo as Lois Lane while Andrea gamely carried on as The Caravelles on into the 1990s with several partners.