New Pop Records

To feed the public hunger for new pop names, U.S. record makers flail the musical undergrowth like beaters at a princely pheasant shoot, while fledgling pop singers break cover from behind lunch stands and dime-store counters, flutter out of laundry trucks and prizefighting rings. With luck, adroit promotion and an occasional touch of talent, some of the captured quarry end up making the kind of noises that set cash registers ajingle.

Columbia Records, no slouch at thicket-hunting, bagged its latest prize in its own doorway. Barbara Eichbauer, 23, is a statuesque suburbanite who wandered into Manhattan looking for an advertising job and wound up instead as a Columbia receptionist. She had once done a little singing at a local inn back in Forest Hills, N.Y., and confided to fellow workers that she happened to have a privately made recording. Just about that time, Orchestra Leader Percy Faith, one of Columbia's stable, was looking for a young unvarnished voice to go with a young unvarnished song called What's It Like in Paree? ("Is the air champagne at night?/ Is it love's domain at night?"). Next thing she knew, Barbara was taking signals behind the mike. Her peach-fuzz voice suggests a girl who has not quite got the word about Things as yet, but is gratifyingly eager to learn. Columbia has changed Barbara's name on the record from Eichbauer to Manners, and is keeping her busy at her receptionist's desk while it awaits the public vibration.

The Songs of Bobby Short (Atlantic LP). A witty and irreverent survey of standard amatory numbers (Speaking of Love, So Near and Yet So Far) by one of the most offbeat cafe singer-pianists now operating. The style ranges from a belting, parade-beat Hooray for Love to a lilting Let's Fall in Love with a light stress on the leer in the lyric.

Levister: Manhattan Monodrama (Debut LP). In this first collection of his short pieces, says youthful (30) Manhattan Composer Alonzo Levister, he was influenced by ''blues, Bartok, Bach and Baptist shouting," but the sound that comes out is clearly his own. The mood is wistful, the emotion wire-taut, the rhythms occasionally splintered. Most successful: Black Swan, a brooding, velvet-piled excursion into the mind and style of Trumpeter Miles Davis.

Heavenly Echoes of My Fair Lady (George Feyer, pianist; Vox LP). Pianist Feyer gives the familiar songs the treatment they might have received from such squares as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff. Frederic Franc,oisChopin, Giuseppe Verdi, e.g., Get Me to the Church on Time as a victory march from a Verdi opera. One of the cleverest parodies since Alex Templeton took Johann Sebastian Bach to town.

It's Not for Me to Say (Johnny Mathis; Columbia). One of the freshest young practitioners of the crewcut, scrubbed-voice style made popular by Pat Boone, Mathis quavers out his fast-selling ballad and all but soft-sells himself out of the lady's vision: "We may never meet again, but then/ It's not for me to say."

Heroes, Heroines and Mishaps (John Allison; Ficker LP). An unusual collection of U.S. folk songs compiled and performed by Folk Singer John Allison. They range from Gypsy Davy, the sprightly tale of a highborn lady's seduction by a hot guitarist, to the blues-flavored account of the Titanic's sinking, sung by World War I troops crossing the submarine zone.

Paris Night Life (Columbia LP). A frantic musical tour steamy with atmosphere. It includes such international headliners as Jacqueline Franc,ois and Juliette Greco, such local music-hall and cabaret favorites as Philippe Clay and Irene Lecarte. Item of three-star interest: "le rock 'n' roll" number, Alhambra Rock, bawled by Paris' chief exponent of "impetuosite frenetique," Magli Noel, in the choked wail of a wet-diapered infant.

Barbara Lea (Johnny Windhurst Quintet; Prestige LP). Wellesley's gift to pop music launches her across-the-cocktail-table voice into a collection of beautifully phrased ballads that deserve a wider hearing--My Honey's Lovin' Arms, Gee, Baby Ain't I Good to You, Baltimore Oriole.

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