Tommy Boyce & Bobby Hart - Songs of Tommy Boyce & Bobby Hart (CD)

All Music Guide

Only six of these 18 tracks were recorded by the Boyce-Hart duo (another was recorded by Dolenz, Jones, Boyce Hart). But since Boyce-Hart's principal importance was as songwriters rather than as performers, this compilation -- which matches the most notable Boyce-Hart recordings with the best and most famous of the cuts by other artists covering Boyce-Hart compositions -- is the best representative sampling of their most important music. Boyce-Hart's "I Wonder What She's Doing Tonite" is here, as are a few minor hits they had in the late 1960s. Other than "I Wonder What She's Doing Tonite," Boyce-Hart's own tracks pale next to the cover versions on this disc, which include the Monkees' "Last Train to Clarksville" and "Valleri"; "(I'm Not Your) Stepping Stone" in its pre-Monkees version by Paul Revere the Raiders; and relatively rare, gritty versions of "Words" (from 1966, by the Boston Tea Party) and "Tomorrow's Gonna Be Another Day" (from 1965, by the Astronauts), both of which would later be done by the Monkees as well. There are also a bunch of hits that Boyce and Hart did not write on their own, or to which only Boyce or only Hart contributed, like Freddie Cannon's "Action," Curtis Lee's "Pretty Little Angel Eyes," Jay the Americans' "Come a Little Bit Closer," and Little Anthony the Imperials' "Hurt So Bad."

- Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide