Always kinda lurking behind their “Monkeesidemen” role, Tommy Boyce & Bobby Hart actually had their own moment of fame, which might’ve taken them way beyond the “classic songwriting duo” section, alongside such luminaries as Goffin/King, Bacharach/David, Sloan/Barri, Gordon/Bonner or Mann/Weil… which it didn’t.
So, continuing their everlasting mission of pop history re-puzzling, Rev-Ola puts another piece into its place. Of course, considering the presence of not only Boyce and Hart, but also their backing band The Candy Store Prophets, the occasional heavy Monkee-resemblance is no wonder at all.
With some of the tracks obviously recycling the tested formulas (Sometimes She’s A Little Girl, I’m Digging You, You Digging Me, Strawberry Girl, Where Angels Go), and then again, there’s also a couple of them sounding as if they were actually saving the best for themselves (Out And About + the essential bubblegum flavour of the title tune).
Just as with The Monkees, they too were jumping back’n’forth from lighter commercial material, like the above mentioned, or the upbeat “cyrkling” pieces of pop like Pretty Flower or Where Angels Go (Trouble Follows), to some slightlydelic stuff such as I Should Be Going Home and For Baby, while they also managed to create their own “pocket symphonies” built within their own “wall of sound”, as heard in We’re All Going To The Same Place.
The latter didn’t go unnoticed too, since they were actually approached by Bruce Johnston with an idea of The Beach Boys production (while Brian wasn’t up for it), after he’d heard Goodbye Baby (I Don’t Want To See You Cry), though Bruce’s point can clearly be heard in some other tracks too, like Love Every Day or Six + Six.
Hey hey, these are Boyce’n’Hart, and they sure weren’t only Monkee-ing around, because they had their own Monkee-business to do!
[Released by Rev-Ola 2005]
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