There has been a lot of attention paid lately to the Summer Of Love and its 40th anniversary, accompanied by a number of special albums and DVDs featuring the music of that era. That might have been part of the motivation for this boxed set, Chasing The Sun - The Greatest Songs Of Summer, from Time-Life. However, in this case they've put together a huge collection of music that is not specific to 1967 - in fact, it covers several decades - and in doing so, they're provided something for almost everyone.

As the title suggests, this is a collection that moves across the country while celebrating Summer, and it consists of three CD's stuffed like an undersized bikini with 59 songs, accompanied by a fourth disc, a special collectible DVD. It contains a PBS documentary about surfing and its history, Liquid Stage - The Lure Of Surfing, and is a nice bonus in the set, which is cleverly packed into a miniature red and white beach cooler. Also inside the little cooler is... no, not tiny bottles of cold beer, but a very nice booklet with pictures and text about many of the artists and their era, along with complete info on each song.

The natural assumption might be that the music included in this set is specific to the California beach scene, especially with the inclusion of the surfing DVD, but an examination of the tunes included confirms that the producers have pretty much adhered to the theme of Summer songs in general. However, that created another question in my mind. Would so broad a subject, one that included so many songs from so many different eras, lack focus?

I'm happy to report that it appears some real thought was given to organizing this eclectic mix of music, and it works pretty well. The whole thing keys off the titles of the CD's themselves, which are each packed with an amazing number of outstanding tunes.*

Disc one is titled Surf Songs, which would seem to contradict what I said earlier about the diversity of this set. And it does include some of the traditional surfing tunes you'd expect, such as "Surfin' USA" by The Beach Boys and a rousing "Miserlou" by Dick Dale and the Del-Tones, a terrific song that enjoyed a revival a few years back when it was used in Pulp Fiction.

But there are surprises too, including one or two cuts with a distinctly R&B flavor, such as The Rivingtons' delicious "Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow". There are also songs that stretch geographically and relate to the overall theme of the set, Chasing The Sun. Among these are "New York's A Lonely Town" by The Tradewinds, and The Ramones' retro hit from 1978, "Rockaway Beach".