Peter and Gordon - The Ultimate Peter and Gordon (2001)

"The Ultimate Peter & Gordon," released in 2001, is the best collection available for a decade. Peter Asher and Gordon Waller were the rock duo who had the distinction of being the first group in the British Invasion other than the Beatles to have a #1 hit with "A World Without Love." Of course, the explanation for this success was that Asher's younger sister Jane was Paul McCartney's girlfriend during the first part of the Sixties. This connection paid off with two other hits for Peter & Gordon in "Nobody I Know" (#12) and "I Don't Want to See You Again" (#16). It is not surprising that the first three tracks on this collection are the trio of Lennon & McCartney songs. However, even without their recoding discarded Beatles songs Peter & Gordon would be remembered for their novelty hit "Lady Godiva" (#6). A key thing to remember with these twenty tracks is that they are arranged in chronological order of when they were recorded rather than when they were released, for what that is worth (I am not enough of a fan to catch the value of the esequencing). What you have are the fourteen songs that made it to the Billboard chart, which means not only the songs you remember like the above along with "Woman" (#14) to go with ones you might have missed, such as "I Go to Pieces," "The Jokers," and "To Show I Love You." The other six tracks are a single that did not chart ( "You've Had Better Times), a pair of B-sides ( "Love Me, Babye" and "The Town I Live In" ), and a trio of ablum tracks ( "I Still Love You," "Broken Promises," "My First Day Alone" ). It is hard to quibble with the results and if you only own one Peter & Gordon album this one has to be it because it easily lives up to its title.

Tracklist:

01. A World Without Love
02. True Love Ways
03. To Know You Is To Love You
04. Nobody I Know
05. Crying In The Rain
06. Homeward Bound
07. Somewhere (West Side Story)
08. When I Fall In Love
09. Trouble In Mind
10. Baby I'm Yours
11. Woman
12. Lady Godiva
13. I Go To Pieces
14. Freight Train
15. Tell Me How
16. High Noon (Do Not Forsake Me)
17. Green Leaves Of Summer
18. Leave My Woman Alone
19. You Don't Have To Tell Me
20. Pretty Mary
21. Five Hundred Miles
22. There's No Living Without Your Loving
23. Lucille
24. Memphis