Keep a Hold on Him! More Garpax Girls

Ace's 2015 compilation Keep a Hold on Him! More Garpax Girls opens with the Idols mimicking the Ikettes on the dynamic "Just a Little Bit More," a hell of an opening salvo for this decade-delayed sequel to the label's Boy Trouble: Garpax Girls. Like that 2004 collection, Keep a Hold on Him! rounds up a bunch of rarities -- nearly half of the 24 tracks see their first release here -- from the vaults of Garpax, a label run by Gary Paxton, but where that volume focused on swinging mid-'60s sides, this concentrates on R&B-leaning records of 1963 and 1964. Music that sounds a lot like the Idols, in other words, but in addition to soulful girl groups there are grand, cinematic productions for the likes of Doris Webb and productions that lie somewhere between, such as the nifty propulsion of Linda Mackey's "It Just Ain't Right." Paxton's studio flair is often one of the primary attractions on this collection -- the addition of a banjo gives "He's Not Mine Anymore" a lift of oddness, he doesn't overplay the corny trash of Judy & the Jades' "Yosemite Sam" -- and this imagination, along with the sweet sincerity of the singing, keeps the compilation grooving even when the songs themselves aren't especially distinguished. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine