Hot Rockers and Country Boppers

There hasn't been a post on this blog since July 20 so I think it's time for a new one. I'm glad to present you the brand new CRH comp "Hot Rockers and Country Boppers" containing 15 selection of C&W influenced Rock'n'Roll stuff. As usual, I also included some (hopefully) interesting liner notes about the artists and their records. Some of these tracks were never reissued, so grab 'em as long as you can!

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1. Keith O'Connor - Ah Ha Who? Cindy Lou!
2. Gremlins - Wait
3. Amos Como - Heartbroken Lips
4. Wes Bryan - Lonesome Love
5. Davey Jones - The Real Thing
6. Rusty Draper - Pink Cadillac
7. Benny Martin - Thinking About Love
8. Billy Boy Barton - Monkey Business
9. Cathy Johnson - Rockin' and Yodelin'
10. Shorty Long - Hey Doll Baby
11. Grady Owen - 36 from Dallas
12. Ricky Ricardo - Peek-a-Boo Mary Lou
13. Cowboy Slim Dortch - Sixteen Miles
14. Freddy J. and he Flames - Groovin' on Telstar
15. Hal Dee Martin & the Tomcats - Sea of Heartbreak

Gary Glitter on Bell, Part I

 Gary Glitter - I'm the Leader of the Gang (I Am!), 1973 (Bell 2008 184)

 Gary Glitter - Just Fancy That (1973), Bell 2008 184
Another Glam Rock post today. I think many of you will recognize the A side "I'm the Leader of the Gang (I Am!), which was a #1 in the UK for Gary Glitter, and a #6 hit in Germany. But the more interesting side here is "Just Fancy That," an Elvis styled mid-tempo piano swinger. I did not listen to this gem until some weeks ago when I dug out hs 45 and it really surprised me. Hope you like it as much as I do. In my opinion, Glitter represents averything about Glam Rock; he's the artist to name when it comes to 1970s soft rock.

Kitty Wells RIP

Female country music superstar Kitty Wells died on July 17, 2012, at her home after a stroke. She was 92 years old. Wells was country music's first successful female solo singer and was a major chart topper for 14 years, beginning in 1952.

Born in 1919, Wells married Johnnie Wright (who also became a famous country singer) in 1937 and began appearing with him and his new act, Johnnie & Jack and the Tennessee Mountain Boys. In the late 1940s, the duo of Johnnie & Jack rose to fame with their hit recordings on RCA-Victor. Wells signed with Decca and had her breakthrough hit in 1952 with "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels." Other hits were "Making Believe," "Release Me," or "Amigo's Guitar." She was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1976.

Read more at hillbilly-music.com.

Rock from Bakersfield

I guess not much to say. Again, a repost.

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track list:
1. Al Hendrix - Rhonda Lee
2. Bonnie Blue Bell - Let's Go
3. Dusty Payne - Long Time Gone
4. Dusty Payne - My Walkin' Shoes
5. Bill Woods - Bop
6. Cliff Crofford - There Ain't Nothin' Happenin' to Me
7. Bill Carter - I Wanna Feel Good
8. Duke Dickson - Walking Shoes
9. Al Hendrix - Monkey Bite
10. George Weston - Hold Still Baby
11. Cousin Herb Henson - Lose My Mind
12. Corky Jones - Hot Dog
13. Custer Bottoms - Stood Up Blues
14. Bill Woods - Phone Me Baby
15. Sid Silver - Bumble Rumble
16. Johnny Bond - Three or Four Nights

Rockabilly Duos

Another early compilation, featuring rockabilly duos. Actually, these are all male acts and I always intended to do a second volume but other projects were in my mind that are in progress now. I hope I will finish some of them in the next week. If this is the case, please make yourself ready for some great track lists with lots of obscure, rockin', and partially never re-released recordings from the 1950s and 1960s. I was able o locate some real gems and at the moment, I am gathering enough info for some interesting liner notes. In the meantime, enjoy the harmonies of George and Earl, Jimmy and Johnny, Wade and Dick and some others!

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track list:
1. George and Earl - Done Gone
2. Jimmy and Johnny - Can't Find the Door Knob
3. Mike and Jim - Baby Don't Knock
4. Wade and Dick - Bop Bop Baby
5. Jimmy Lee and Wayne Walker - Love Me
6. Mike and Jim - Dungaree Cutie
7. George and Earl - Stop, Look and Listen
8. Farmer Boys - Cool Down Mame
9. Jimmy Lee - Look What Love Will Do
10. Tom Tall and Ruckus Tyler - Don't You Know
11. Jimmy and Johnny - Knock on Wood
12. Farmer Boys - My Baby Done Left Me

Mud on RAK

 Mud - Rocket (1974), RAK 1 C 006-95 707

 Mud - The Ladies (1974), RAK 1 C 006-95 707
Today's post is a bit unusual, thinking of which music normally appears on this blog. Mud was a British Glam Rock band of the 1970s; they had several hits in Europe during the decade. Please do not search for pictures of them unless you want to see men in women's clothers and with women's haircuts. That's why I decided to leave it out to post a picture here. Let the music speak for itself.

1970s Glam Rock was influenced a lot by 1950s rock'n'roll music. Guitar breaks and typical 1950s lyrcis were two of those elements borrowed from rock'n'roll. The genre's leading exponent Gary Glitter even appeared in 1970s Elvis styled suites.

The fast moving "Rocket" is certainly the top side hee and it was a hit in the UK (#6), in Germany (#9) and several other European countries in 1974. "The Ladies" is a mid-tempo rocker which is good but nothing special.

Line-up: Les Gray (vcl), Rob Davis (ld gtr), Ray Stiles (bs), Dave Mount (dms)

Volume 3 review

A rockabilly trio from Canada, the Royal Crowns present their third studio album "Volume 3." Their first two releases were highly acclaimed and their debut album "32 Miles from Memphis" even reached the "National Post's Top Canadian Albums of All Time," a success not many rockabilly bands achieved. The Royal Crowns are Jason Adams on bass and vocals, Danny Bartley on lead guitar and vocals, as well as Teddy Fury on drums and vocals. All of the featured songs on "Volume 3" are original compositions by the band members.

The disc kicks off with the powerful performance of a song called "You Sure Know What You're Doin'," followed by a couple of more solid rockabilly ouings. "Could It Be" and "Please Stop" head more into a pop-rock'n'roll sound direction, the latter being reminiscent of Elvis Presley's late 1950s and early 1960s soft pop songs. Probably the best song is "Pill Poppin' Papa," a raw and stomping number with a great lead guitar.

"Volume 3" is a rockabilly album full of power, energy, and rhythm. Highly recommended to every rockabilly enthusiast. In my opinion, there could have been a bit more variety in the instrumentation and arrangements. A piano here or an acoustic guitar there would have completed the album but that's my personal taste. However, all songs are solid and at least good performances with Danny Bartley playing always an agressive and outstanding lead guitar. "Volume 3" - an exemplar of modern rockabilly.


Visit the band's official website

Carl McVoy on Hi

 Carl McVoy - Tootsie (Hi 45-2001), 1957 

Another bobsluckycat post presented by Mellow's Log Cabin 

Carl McVoy was Jerry Lee Lewis's older piano playing cousin. He worked construction in the Memphis area with Ray Harris. Harris knew Bill Cantrell and Quinton Claunch who were songwriters and workers at Sun Records, in some capacity or other as well. Harris wanted to start his own record company. He also had no maney. He wanted to record Carl McVoy. McVoy had been in the studios at Sun with Harris, Cantrell, and Claunch and they taped some things, none of which impressed Sam Phillips in the slightest. They did do a demo of "Tootsie" and McVoy's arrangement of "You Are My Sunshine."

They took that to a record shop owner in Memphis named Joe Cuoghi and talked him into getting together the financial backing to put this record out. Coughi and his lawyer and a couple of friends managed to scrap up $2500.00. Not much even in those days. I don't know how many copies of Hi 2001 were pressed, even at .25 cents a piece or less, I'm guessing 5000 copies max were printed. The cost of shipping out the records, the cost to take this into a modern custom studio (probably RCA or Starday) in Nashville and re-recording the new master tapes and the other added expense of incidentals ate up the money.

Here's where my speculation comes in based on the facts as I read them. Cuoghi had friends in the juke-box and distribution business and could get the record placed in those distributors hands and juke boxes fairly easily. Probably on spec. None of that initial offering of "Tootsie" went to radio stations or only a very few, so far as I can tell, due to the rampant and crazy payola being paid under the table to D.J.'s at the time. The distributors got the records and farmed them out to the juke-box operators on their bills of lading and got paid for them.

Here's where I come in. In late 1957, the juke-box operator in our town put a copy on the teen hang-out across the street's juke box. I heard it there the same day and walked over to his shop and bought his only other copy. I liked it and I kept it for years.

Joe Cuoghi bought out his partners before this first record was released. Harris, Cantrell and Claunch had equal shares of stock at the inital set up of the company. After that buy-out, Cuoghi owned all but 90 shares of the initial stock, and became head of the company.

After the records were shipped, the record distributors in large part refused to pay for them (maybe Cuoghi owed them money from previous dealings. Who knows.) At just about the same time in early February 1958, Carl McVoy secured a spot on one of Dick Clark's first Saturday Night Programs on ABC TV to do "Tootsie". (Dick Clark never could be touched concerning the mob or payola, but it was highly suspected that Nick Mamerella, Dick Clark's number 2 man had mob ties in Philadelphia for years.)

That TV exposure brought in orders for the record which Cuoghi and Company couldn't fill, since they hadn't been paid for what was already shipped and now had no money to work with. They took it to Sam Phillips right away and he bought it to re-issue on his Phillips International label right away, but by the time he actually got the record out and it was starting to get radio air play. The momentum had passed and the record died. (Phillips paid $2600.00 for the record and bought it outright. In 1970, after Shelby Singleton bought Sun Records copies of the record were still in the warehouse, either returns or unshipped stock and priced to sell at $5.00 a piece). Cuoghi just about broke even.

 

Sometime after that in 1958, the company was reformed with the original four, plus Coughi's lawyer and two "silent" partners and they had an influx of new capital from the "silent partners". Fresh capital was floating around at that time from many sources. Hi Records was then able to release 15 more 45's unsuccessfully into late 1959, when they secured a National Distribution deal with London Records New York Branch which stayed in place for 18 years. London did not distribute much except their own American and English out-put. This was virgin territory for them and they made a fortune in time. The whole company turned then, with Bill Black's Combo gettin radio air-play, juke-box slots nationwide, and a new aggressive venture into the field of LPs which was a success from the start.

 Bill Black Combo - Do It Rat Now (Hi 45-2064), 1963 - with Carl McVoy on piano

In 1960, Carl McVoy bought out Quinton Claunch's stake in the company. I'm thinking he got it pretty cheaply since he was probably owed money. McVoy, by this time, was the pianist/keyboard player for the Bill Black Combo which was churning out hit records right and left. Bill Black died in 1965. McVoy quit shortly after that and took a buy-out and went into the contruction business. He died in 1992. Carl McVoy was a talented musician and arranger make no mistake about that and his contributions may have slipped through the cracks.

RIP Eddy Bell / Doc Watson

In the last few days, the music business has lost two great musicians, both of them were masters in their fields.

Polka legend and rock'n'roll star Eddy Bell aka Eddie Blazonczyk died May 21, 2012, in a hospital in Chicago. He led America's number one polka band for decades but retired in 2002 due to health problems. He was 70 years old.

Folk music legend Doc Watson passed away on May 29, 2012, in Wake Forest Baptist Hospital Medical Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The blind guitar picker from North Carolina was one of the most influential musicians during the last 50 years and has influenced generations of folk/country guitarists. He also teamed up with such legends as Merle Travis, Bill Monroe, or Clarence Ashley. He was 89 years old.

Barn Dance review

If Charlie Poole or Fiddlin' Doc Roberts would have used recording equipment by today's standards, listen to this album and you know what it would have sounded like. "Barn Dance" by Little Black Train is an album full of authentic, traditional old-time music right from the mountains. In the same category as the Black Twig Pickers, Little Black Train covered a lot of old tunes by familiar rural mountain artists.

The album kicks off with a rendition of Dick Justice's "Don't Let Your Deal Go Down" variation entitled "Old Black Dog," a lively and well-sounding track which surely let the listener expect more. "Satan Your Kingdom Must Come Down" is a rough and rural Southern gospel song, while the title track "Barn Dance" takes you into an old barn to enjoy the music of a string band playing on an old fashioned barn dance. The track list includes more gems. On "California Blues," Little Black Train replaces the jazzy accompanimen of the original Jimmie Rodgers recording with a more traditional Bluegrass arrangement. Another highlight is their version of the Carter Family's beautiful "Ain't Gonna Work Tomorrow." Reading the track list will offer you versions of some of old-time music's most influential and successful artists' songs. It presents American music's roots.

"Barn Dance" is definitely an album with great titles. Listening to this album will take you into the deep South of the 1920s. A band to watch and an album to recommend.


Visit the official website