The Clinger Sisters -- Patsy, Debra, Peggy, and Melody -- were California girls marketed first as the kind of singing act you'd see in the Sixties on The Lawrence Welk Show, but in a couple years, they'd be on mod and hip outlets like Hollywood a Go Go. Their rise tells a story about the difficulties of four women playing in a band in the era, though the sisters likely would have had success just on the strength of their vocals. Eventually falling under the sway of Kim Fowley, the Clingers or Clinger Sisters crafted a whole lot of music which is still as exciting now as it was then.
Thankfully, the fine folks at Sundazed Music have collected the best singles, and a few rarities from these four Mormon sisters who found themselves rock stars for a moment. Early sides like "Golly Mom" and a run at the Newbeats' "Bread and Butter" are fun, radio pop enlivened by the harmonies from the Clingers. Far better is "Gonna Have a Good Time Together", a hard charger that seems to prefigure the kind of Sixties-inspired rock made by The Primitives and Transvision Vamp a few decades later, across the Atlantic. Elsewhere, "Mean It" roars like those Carrie Nations songs in Beyond the Valley of the Dolls in the same era, while a slinky cover of "Good Day Sunshine" is smartly rendered, the Beatles standard recast as a Vanilla Fudge-y blues strut. "Round Round Round", like "Mean It" written by Peggy Clinger and her boyfriend, musician Johnny Cymbal, is another gnarly gem This material is tight, a little punchy, and full of sweet harmonies.
And it's the vocals which really make this such a pleasant discovery. "Only You", a cooing ballad written by Melody Clinger, is as understated as some other numbers are garage-y. The harmonies here are breathtaking, and the mood perfect. Takes on the Beatles continue with "Blackbird" and "In My Life" here being numbers perfectly suited to the sisters' voices, and which are smartly arranged. Apparently the sisters were coached by both Jack Nitzsche and Freddy Cannon, and you can hear a maturity here in how sisteres approached the material which is sort of surprising.
I think I went into this thinking it was going to be sort of proto-bubble gum prefab pop. And while lots of this is surely radio-ready, the music on Havin' a Good Time paints a sonic portrait of four musicians whose work sorely needs redisovery. I sought this out because as a kid I liked Debra Clinger on TV ("The American Girls" in 1978 with Priscilla Barnes; "The Kroft Supershow" before that as a member of Kaptain Kool and the Kongs; and as Michael J. Fox's co-star in Disney's Midnight Madness in 1980), but I came away after listening to this a few times with a real respect for her earlier work as a musician, and how her and her three sisters went from doing doo wop to pure rock-and-roll.
Havin' A Good Time by The Clinger Sisters is out now via Sundazed.
[Photos: Sundazed]