Ace’s “Girls with Guitars 3” Features Guitar Rock From Jackie DeShannon, Brenda Lee, Goldie and the Gingerbreads, More

Ace Records began its Girls with Guitars CD series in 2004.  That first volume took its inspiration from a 1989 LP issued by the label and featured 24 tracks from lesser-known American girl groups worthy of attention from garage-rock fans.  The music of Girls with Guitars was diverse, encompassing a variety of sixties sounds from garage to pop and soul.  A second volume, Destroy That Boy: More Girls with Guitars, followed in 2009 ramping up the star wattage with a couple of mind-blowing cuts by Ann-Margret.  Now, Volume 3 – entitled The Rebel Kind after Lee Hazlewood’s song famously recorded by Dino, Desi and Billy and surveyed here by New Zealand’s The Chicks – collects 24 more rockin’ girl rarities from the U.S., the U.K., Italy, Japan and beyond.

The most famous names on The Rebel Kind belong to Jackie DeShannon and Brenda Lee.  Jackie has been a fixture on the Ace scene, with the label offering volumes of her complete Liberty and Imperial singles as well as a collection of her work as a songwriter.  (A second such volume is on the way.)  Girls with Guitars naturally indulges the more rocking side of the “Put a Little Love in Your Heart” and “What the World Needs Now is Love” chanteuse, featuring her 1964 recording of “Dream Boy,” recording during the same London trip that yielded her folk-rock gem “Don’t Turn Your Back on Me.”  Jimmy Page, then a hot session guitar slinger, joins Jackie on the track.  Nashville queen and “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” gal Brenda Lee also found herself in London in 1964 with Jimmy Page at her side and on fire.  With producer Mickie Most (The Animals, Donovan), Lee recorded the version of Ray Charles’ “What’d I Say” heard here.

Donovan himself is represented with “You Just Gotta Know My Mind” from actress, singer and future David Bowie pal and collaborator Dana Gillespie.  The Donovan tune was Gillespie’s first single for Decca Records, and yup, featured the ubiquitous Page!    Donovan isn’t the only famous name here in the songwriting department.  Bob Dylan’s “If You Gotta Go, Go Now” is heard via a 1966 single by The Honeybeats – in Italian!  Brill Building stalwarts Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil’s “Chico’s Girl” was cut in Los Angeles by producer and Wrecking Crew sax man Steve Douglas for a 1966 single reprised here.  L.A. band The Turtles served as the backing group for The Chymes on another sound of ’66 –the Chattahoochee Records single “He’s Not There Anymore,” written and produced by Nita Garfield and her boyfriend, The Turtles’ Howard Kaylan.

Rock on after the jump!