Bonnie Guitar
's
Dot
recordings are the best of her career, but even at that they're only sporadically engaging. She was an adequate but bland vocalist who worked in an MOR
country-pop
style that gave her one big
pop
hit,
"Dark Moon,"
in 1957. The 1961
Dark Moon
album includes the original hit version of the title track as well as its minor hit follow-up, the upbeat
"Mister Fire Eyes."
A theme emerges with nearly half of the songs having "moon" in their titles --
"Baby Moon,"
"Rocky Mountain Moon,"
etc. -- the best of which is a rocking rendition of
"I Saw Your Face in the Moon"
with an aggressive guitar solo. A number of comparisons could be drawn between
Guitar
and
Gale Storm
, her
counterpart at
who also scored a big hit with
"Dark Moon"
; both have mature-sounding voices that seem incongruous and square when they attempt
teen
-oriented material, as on
"If You'll Be the Teacher."
Although
made a couple other big
country
hits later on,
is the one people remember, and only a few of her other recordings arouse even mild interest. ~ Greg Adams