Category Archives: Five Stars

Darrell Scott: Ten – Songs of Ben Bullington

DarrellScott_10SongsOfBenBeullingtonStirring tribute to a brilliant, largely unknown songwriter

The fellowship of songwriters is one that evokes appreciation in place of jealousy, and more often spurs “how’d you do that?” rather than “why didn’t I?” Songwriters appreciate one another’s songs at the emotional level of listeners, but also at the intellectual level of craftspeople. And when they play another songwriter’s material, it’s a compliment and possibly a favor, but mostly a way to better understand and enjoy the song and the songwriter. Darrell Scott hits all these notes with this album of ten songs by the virtually unknown songwriter Ben Bullington, and in interpreting another songwriter’s material, he tells the songwriter and the listeners something about himself.

Scott and Bullington developed a deep friendship that lasted only a short time before Bullington’s 2013 death, and much of that time was spent as friends, rather than musical colleagues. It wasn’t until a year before Bullington’s passing that Scott heard many of Bullington’s songs, and it wasn’t until only a few months before Bullington’s death that Scott began singing his friend’s material. Bullington had a full-time medical practice in Montana, and though he self-released several CDs, his touring, and thus his public renown as a songwriter remained limited during his lifetime.

Scott began recording his songs with an iPhone and sending them for his friend to hear during his last few months. The last track on the album, the prophetically titled “I’ve Got to Leave You Now,” is one of those recordings. Eight of the tracks were laid down in three days, just Scott, single instruments (guitar, banjo or piano) and Bullington’s songs. The tenth track, Bullington’s sharp slap, “Country Music I’m Talking to You,” was recorded live on tour. These performances express pure appreciation for the craft of a master songwriter, and they’re played and sung by a master performer, who is himself a master songwriter. Bullington’s songs aren’t good for a doctor, they’re just good. Really good.

Bullington was both an imaginative writer and a fine craftsman. His first-person narratives bring the listener into his experiences, illuminating moments that the listener may have experienced for themselves. His language is poetic in its plain spokenness, wonderful in the way that seemingly extemporaneous speech is made to rhyme in rhythm; doubly so in the hands of Darrell Scott, who sings the melodies, but more strikingly tells the songs as stories – just the way Bullington wrote them. “Born in ‘55” recounts the puzzling sadness young people felt in the wakes of JFK, MLK and RFK’s passings, and the awareness and anger that grew with each passing assassination. Scott’s elegiac piano is as sad as the lyrics, and gives the song the feel of something Jackson Browne might have written.

Raised in Virginia, Bullington attended college at Vanderbilt, soaking up the roots music that had first grabbed him in high school. After a spell in the oil industry he attended medical school and settled into a practice in a small Montana town, where he found time to re-engage with music. His original songs led to self-produced CDs which found numerous fans among Nashville’s roots music elite, a 2012 date at the Station Inn, and now this tribute. Scott has selected several songs that lean on memories, and whether they’re actual memories or a songwriter’s creations, they evoke immediate resonance, whether or not the listener had a problematic step-father, a love that faded away or has spent time in the wide open spaces of the northern states.

Bullington’s original recordings are available through his website, and tracks can be streamed on ReverbNation and YouTube; one can’t help but leave behind a digital trail these days. But as a songwriter, and particularly as a songwriter whose own performing career was circumscribed by professional choice, there’s an extra layer of meaning in hearing his songs live in another musician’s voice, and in seeing his writing form links in the folk music chain. Darrell Scott brings his best qualities as a singer, musician, colleague and friend to these performances, and in doing so, stokes the soul of these songs. [©2015 Hyperbolium]

Ben Bullington’s Home Page
Darrell Scott’s Home Page

Various Artists: Groove & Grind – Rare Soul ‘63-’73

Various_GrooveAndGrindRareSoulAstonishing collection of rare soul singles

Those who miss the tactile pleasure of holding an album cover, or even reading the relatively microscopic copy of CD booklets, are likely to break out in a wide smile when they first heft this collection. The four discs are housed in a hard-bound 127-page book that’s stuffed with striking artist photos, label reproductions and detailed song notes by author and journalist Bill Dahl. And all of that is in service of an expertly-curated collection of rare soul sides that stretch from 1963 through 1973. Collections of this magnitude can be as exhausting as they are exhilarating, but by gathering singles from a variety of labels, and organizing them into four themed discs, the programs flow more like a crowd-pleasing jukebox than the well-curated anthology at the set’s heart. Even better, by mating obscurity with quality, every track becomes both a surprise and a delight.

These discs are stuffed, clocking in at nearly five hours of music. Disc 1 surveys urban soul from the major markets of New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit and Los Angeles. Disc 2 focuses on vocal groups, disc 3 on southern soul, and disc 4 on funkier sounds. The roster mixes well-known and obscure artists, but even in the case of famous names, the sides are not likely the ones you know. Betty LaVette’s “Almost,” Ike & Tina’s “You Can’t Miss Nothing That You Never Had,” Kenny Gamble’s “Hard to Find the Right Girl,” Candi Staton’s “Now You’ve Got the Upper Hand,” Betty Wright’s “Mr. Lucky,” Eddie Floyd’s “Hey Now,” Carla Thomas’ “Every Ounce of Strength,” and Margie Joseph’s “Show Me” all suffered the same lack of circulation and chart renown as their more obscure set-mates. Even the familiar “Love on a Two-Way Street” is rendered here in the obscure Lezli Valentine All Platinum B-side that marked the song’s debut.

Finding these singles is impressive, but documenting them in such detail is a task only the most devoted fans would undertake. The material came from the collections of rare-records dealer Victor Pearlin, musician Billy Vera and the set’s producer James Austin; the audio restoration was performed by Jerry Peterson. The results are good, though the original productions weren’t often as refined as those from Stax, Atlantic or Motown. There’s occasional vinyl patina, but that’s part of the show when you dig this deep, and it never gets in the way of the songs or performances. This anthology is a tremendous gift to the crate diggers of soul music, filling in gaps they didn’t even realize were in their collections. Casual fans will dig these sides as well, even without dirt-laden fingertips from a thousand record swaps, back rooms and thrift store racks. [©2015 Hyperbolium]

Continental Drifters: Drifted – In the Beginning & Beyond

ContinentalDrifters_DriftedNot so odd odds ‘n’ sods from superb Americana collective

The Continental Drifters publicity often hung on the renown of the Bangles’ Vicki Peterson, the Cowsills’ Susan Cowsill and the dB’s Peter Holsapple, but the music and musicianship of this collective was deeper and broader than its three most famous members. Among its riches were multiple lead vocalists, stellar instrumentalists, the contributions of multiple songwriters and the forge of collective musical sensibility. The group’s formation in Los Angeles and relocation to New Orleans magnified that rich bounty of talent in a confluence that drew both from West Coast and Southern roots.

Omnivore’s two-CD set offers a wealth of rare material that will gratify the band’s many fans. Disc 1 features early material, including from their import-only debut, demos and alternate mixes. At times, the group’s early recordings sound like the Band plugging Little Feat’s instruments into Buffalo Springfield’s amps in a Los Angeles club built in Mississippi. But you can also hear the melodic echoes of the Bangles and Cowsills in Susan Cowsill’s mesmerizing “The Rain Song,” deep soul in Carlo Nuccio’s organ-lined “Here I Am,” and heart-wrenching balladry in Ray Ganucheau’s “I Didn’t Want To Lie.” This was a band with no shortage of excellent original material or musical imagination.

Disc 2 focuses entirely on the band’s way with cover tunes, collecting tracks from tribute albums (including their entire Listen Listen EP tribute to Sandy Denny And Richard Thompson), European imports and live recordings. Their taste in covers was both exquisite and broad, including material from obvious sources like Gram Parsons, Lucinda Williams and Neil Young, and less obvious sources, like Tommy James (Alive and Kicking’s 1970 hit “Tighter, Tighter”), Brian Wilson (Surfin USA’s brilliant, bittersweet album track, “Farmer’s Daughter”), and William Bell (a country-harmony arrangement of Otis Redding’s “You Don’t Miss Your Water”). Their multi-vocalist arrangements of “Dedicated to the One I Love” and “I Can’t Let Go” are dreamy and joyous.

Even in compilation form, with material drawn from across time, geography, lineups and projects, there’s a unity of purpose that holds this all together. It’s a testament to both the band and the collection’s producers, Pat Thomas and Cheryl Pawalski, that the group’s disparate musical interests fit together so easily and remain so timeless. The inclusion of live and cover material shows how the group’s versatility turned their shows from a mere recitation of studio material into a dynamic revue. This two-hour ten-minute collection includes a twenty-page booklet highlighted by fresh notes from the band members and detailed discographical data. This is an essential bookend to the group’s previously released albums. [©2015 Hyperbolium]

Continental Drifters’ Home Page

Ronny and the Daytonas: The Complete Recordings

RonnyAndTheDaytonas_TheCompleteRecordingsThe surprisingly extensive catalog of Nashville’s first surf band

On the surface, Ronny and the Daytonas’ “Little G.T.O.” is a classic mid-60s California surf & drag hit. The song is super-stocked with a driving beat, period hot rod lingo and a falsetto hook worthy of Jan & Dean. But the song wasn’t produced in California, nor was it even the product of an actual group. The eponymous “Ronny” was actually John Wilkin, son of country songwriter Marijohn Wilkin (“Waterloo” “Long Black Veil”), the Daytonas were an ad hoc aggregation of Nashville studio hands, and the session’s producer was Sun Records alumni Bill Justis. Even more surprising, “Little G.T.O.” was Wilkin’s first foray as an artist, and it launched a recording career that lasted into the early 1970s and spanned multiple record labels.

The Pontiac G.T.O.’s 1964 debut proved to be a pivotal moment in automobile history, igniting a muscle car craze that engaged all four American car makers and spread quickly to popular culture. Wilkin was a high school student when his dual interests in music and cars were catalyzed by an article in Car and Driver. The result was the #4 hit, “Little G.T.O.,” with Wilkin’s nylon-stringed classical guitar providing the unusual solo. With a hit single on his hands, more originals were recorded, an album was put together, and a touring band was assembled to hit the road. The follow-on singles, “California Bound” and a cover of Jan & Dean’s “Bucket T,” charted, though without the nationwide impact of the debut, and “Little Scrambler” and “Beach Boy,” despite their teen effervescence, failed to gain any commercial traction.

The lack of follow-on hits didn’t deter Wilkin, and working with Buzz Cason, he released the bouncy single “Tiger-A-Go-Go” (b/w the instrumental “Bay City”) under the names of Buck & Buzzy. The duo had more success with the Daytonas’ second (and final) major chart hit, 1965’s “Sandy,” developing a softer sound with folk tones, lush backing vocals and strings. The corresponding album offered more introspective lyrics than the earlier surf songs, and reflected the sort of growing sophistication heard in the Beach Boys’ contemporaneous releases. Strangely, 1966 started up in reverse with the non-charting single “Antique ’32 Studebaker Dictator Coup,” a track lifted from the 1964 Little G.T.O. album.

The Daytonas’ finished their run on the Mala label with 1966’s “I’ll Think of Summer,” and debuted on RCA with “Dianne, Dianne.” The latter was co-written with Merle Kilgore, and carried on the soft sounds of Sandy. The flip, “All American Girl,” was a catchy Jan & Dean surf-rock pastiche that must have already sounded nostalgic upon its release in mid-1966. The background vocals and falsetto flourishes of “Young” quickly recall the Beach Boys, though the driving piano and drums give the song an original kick. The flip, “Winter Weather,” sounds as if it were drawn from an AIP teen film set in snow country. Wilkin also tried covers, turning Rex Griffin’s 1937 suicide themed, “The Last Letter” into a teenage tearjerker, venturing winningly into light psych with Mark Charron’s “The Girls and the Boys,” and crooning “Alfie” and Boyce & Hart’s “I Wanna Be Free.”

RCA issued singles by both the Daytonas and Bucky Wilkin, the latter including the war themed “Delta Day (No Time to Cry),” co-written by Wilkin, his mother and one of her Buckhorn Music staff writers, Kris Kristofferson. Wilkin’s last “Ronny” originals included the Brothers Four-styled folk harmony of “Walk with the Sun,” the harmony rocker “Brave New World” and the pop “Hold Onto Your Heart.” A few tracks that were left in the vault finish off disc two with the surf-styled “Daytona Beach” the organ rocker “Hey Little Girl,” a reverential cover of Barry & Greenwich’s “Chapel of Love,” and the tender “Angelina.” For a “group” that’s known primarily for their first single, Wilkin built a surprisingly extensive catalog, riding various musical trends between 1964 and 1968, and creating a solid body of original work. Missing are his later solo releases on Liberty and United Artists, but what’s here, remastered almost entirely from tape in original mono, with revealing liner notes by Mr. Wilkin himself, is a surprise and a delight. [©2015 Hyperbolium]

John Buck Wilkin’s Home Page

Chris Foreman: Now is the Time

ChrisForeman_NowIsTheTimeSoul time on the Hammond B3

There are few musical sounds as deeply enveloping as the Hammond B3. Whether it’s murmuring warmly, rumbling at its bottom end or stabbing percussively with notes that sound like raw alternating current, the B3 is unmistakable. The Hammond’s variable tones contrast with the imitative voices of other organs, and require both a player’s technique and an artist’s imagination to shape sounds beyond well-defined stops. Moving from piano to organ is a leap, but moving from a standard organ to a B3 requires the player to develop a personal relationship with the instrument.

Chris Foreman is a Chicago-based organist whose style descends (as do most B3 players) from the epochal Jimmy Smith, along with Jimmy McGriff, “Brother” Jack McDuff, Shirley Scott, Richard “Groove” Holmes and others. He’s most regularly heard at his weekly gigs at the Southside’s Green Mill and St. James African Methodist Episcopal church, and on record with the Deep Blue Organ Trio. The trio’s renown expanded beyond the Windy City a few years ago with an opening slot on Steely Dan’s 2013 U.S. tour, and Foreman ventures forward now with this new album of duets.

The organ is able to stand on its own, provide the centerpoint of trios, or add muscle to larger groups. In duet settings it needs to converse, to ensure that it doesn’t overwhelm its partner. Foreman is skilled at playing both lead and accompaniment, stepping into the initial spotlight with fleet fingers and bold chords for the opening take on Charlie Parker’s “Now is the Time.” He edges slowly into “Shake a Hand,” with a late-night groove that favors Freddy Scott over Little Richard, underlining the piano with his organ and decorating the organ with the piano’s flourishes. You can catch occasional touches of Foreman’s classical training in his fingerings, but he’s never mannered; everything he plays truly swings.

Guitarist Andy Brown and saxophonist Diane Ellis guest on several tracks, providing worthy foils for Foreman’s B3. Brown kicks off a sprightly version of Doc Pomus’ “Lonely Avenue” before giving way to Foreman’s blue chords. Forman returns the favor as he vamps sympathetically behind Brown’s solo, and the two join together for a bridge that leads to Forman’s second variation on the song’s main theme. As someone who plays a weekly club gig, Foreman’s developed a wide-ranging repertoire, drawing upon tunes from Neal Hefti (the atmospheric “Li’L Darlin’”), saxophonist Hank Crawford (“The Peeper,” with Ellis as soloist) and Jimmy McGriff (“Doggone” and “Cotton Boy Blues”).

The organ can evoke memories of churches, movie theaters, county fairs, baseball parks, old-timey pizza restaurants, skating rinks, mall stores, or, perhaps most damning, you father’s den. But it can also evoke the soul of the blues like no other instrument, and in the hands of a master like Chris Foreman, the B3’s notes, chords, drones, bass and volume pedals provide otherworldly transportation to a smoky late-night club. Producers Steven Dolins and Jim Dejong, and engineer Steve Yates have done a superb job of capturing the B3’s wide range of volume and timbre, and have nicely balanced the guitar, saxophone and piano in the duets. Anyone who loves the B3 should check this out! [©2015 Hyperbolium]

Wes Montgomery: In the Beginning

WesMontgomery_InTheBeginningExtraordinary live and studio material from Montgomery’s early years

Wes Montgomery’s Riverside, Verve and A&M catalogs have been reissued over the years, but previously unreleased material has been remarkably rare. Aside from Verve’s controversial Willow Weep for Me and Resonance’s Echoes of Indiana Avenue, there hasn’t been much to fill out the well-known recorded legacy. This 2-CD (3-LP) set dramatically changes the situation with a rich cache of previously unreleased live and studio recordings from Montgomery’s formative years. Among the treasures are late ‘40s sessions with Montgomery as a sideman that had been available as extremely rare 78s on the Fresno-based Spire label, home and nightclub recordings from the mid-50s, and an entire 1955 album produced by Quincy Jones.

Disc 1 is filled primarily with Montgomery Brothers recordings made at the Turf Club in their hometown of Indianapolis. Recorded in mono by hobbyist Philip Kahl, the tapes capture Wes (guitar), Buddy (piano) and Monk (bass) with saxophonist Alonzo Johnson and drummer Sonny Johnson in August 1956, and in November with John Dale on bass and vocalist Debbie Andrews sitting in for two numbers. The restored audio is clean and of good fidelity, and though the solos aren’t always given the prominence one might like, neither are they buried. By this point, Montgomery’s Gibson had already developed its distinctive tone, though the tempos have him playing with more heat than his more famous sides of the 1960s. The disc closes with a relaxed, home recorded seven-minute jam on “Ralph’s New Blues,” featuring Buddy Montgomery on vibes.

Disc 2 finds Montgomery in the company of Melvin Rhyne (piano), Flip Stewart (bass) and Paul Parker (drums) at the Missile Lounge in 1958. The quartet strikes a bluesier nighttime groove than the 1956 Montgomery-Johnson quintet, and improvises at greater length. They pick up the tempo for Dizzy Gillespie’s “A Night in Tunisia,” providing Montgomery a showcase for his incredible technique. The set winds back to 1955 for five tracks from the shelved Quincy Jones session with the same hard-charging quintet that opened disc one. The disc’s final three pieces rewind to 1949, for a peek at Montgomery’s early years as a sideman. Across the two discs the set lists include jazz, swing and tin pan alley standards, alongside the Montgomery originals “Wes’ Tune,” “Far Wes” and “Blues.”

It’s incredible to realize that Montgomery developed his innovative style while still working a day to support his family. He played clubs at night, slept four hours and started all over again. He turned full-time pro a few years later, but it was this woodshedding in Indianapolis clubs that honed him into an international sensation. The CD edition of this release is presented in a tri-fold digipack with a generous 55-page booklet stuffed with rare photos and liners from a half-dozen writers and interview subjects, including Quincy Jones, and Monk and Buddy Montgomery. The notes set up the Indianapolis jazz scene and its players, providing valuable context for these rare tracks. It’s one thing to discover material of this magnitude, but Resonance has gone the extra 500 miles to deliver a truly deluxe release. [©2015 Hyperbolium]

Little Richard: Directly From My Heart

LittleRichard_DirectlyFromMyHeartSolid 3-CD set of seminal mid-50s sides and mid-60s comeback

It’s hard to believe, but Little Richard’s key sides – “Tutti Frutti,” “Long Tall Sally,” “Rip it Up,” “Lucille,” “Jenny, Jenny,” “Keep A-Knockin’,” “Good Golly Miss Molly” and others – were recorded in only seventeen months, between September 1955 and January 1957. This will particularly surprise fans who first heard the original releases stretched out another eighteen months, through July 1958. Part of that schedule was due to the natural tempo of radio play and the singles charts, but a larger part was a byproduct of Richard’s late 1957 exit and subsequent hiatus from secular recording.

In the Fall of 1957, at the very height of his fame, Richard stepped out of the rock ‘n’ roll spotlight to devote his life to God and record gospel for End, Mercury, Atlantic and Coral. He returned with a one-off secular single for Little Star in 1962, recorded briefly for Specialty in 1964 (scoring a minor hit with “Bama Lama Bama Loo”), and returned full-time to rock ‘n’ roll with Vee-Jay from mid-64 to late-65. Richard’s stay on Vee-Jay included a number of royalty-recovering remakes that seemed more to imitate his earlier self than break new ground, but there was also new material and contemporary covers that found the showman’s vitality and ingenuity completely intact.

Specialty’s three-CD set cherry-picks Richard’s brilliant initial recordings of the mid-50s and his return to rock ‘n’ roll in the mid-60s. The set includes hits and B-sides that show off his initial failure to find an original sound, the spark lit in 1955, his inimitable string of hits, and his 1960s reworking of his own creation. Most startling to this day are the early hits he cut at Cosimo Matassa’s J&T studio, backed by the finest players in New Orleans. The morning session produced R&B that failed to differentiate itself from his earlier work for RCA and Peacock. But his off-the-cuff lunchtime rendition of the raunchy “Tutti Frutti” turned producer Bumps Blackwell’s head and was quickly spun into gold.

In short order, Richard laid down the most famous portion of his catalog, garnering radio play, chart hits, international tours and feature film appearances. But just as quickly as his fame came, he stopped it cold in its tracks with an October 1957 decision to abandon rock ‘n’ roll. Specialty managed to extend Richard’s chart presence with patched up demos of “Keep A-Knockin’” and “Ooh! My Soul,” the 1955-6 recordings of “True Fine Mama,” “Good Golly Miss Molly” and “Baby Face,” and Little Richard singles continued to pour out of Specialty for another year. But only a 1955 recording of “Kansas City” even grazed the charts, bubbling under at #95 in 1959, and Richard all but disappeared from popular music.

To be more nuanced about his first morning session, there are several highlights among what might otherwise have been pedestrian R&B sides. Richard croons movingly on “Wonderin’,” Alvin “Red” Tyler’s sax adds muscle to “All Night Long,” and Justin Adams’ guitar solo is an unexpectedly raw delight on “Directly From My Heart.” By the time Richard swings into “Baby,” you can start to feel it in his vocals, but the jump to “Tutti Frutti” is really a full quantum leap. Richard’s opening “wop bop a loo bop a lop bom bom” turns everything up several notches, and the band – particularly drummer Earl Palmer – ignites.

Over the next few months Richard built on the invention of “Tutti Frutti,” reinventing its opening call for “Heeby-Jeebies Love,” taking emotional pleading to a new level with “True, Fine Mama” and “Shake a Hand,” lighting up the band’s New Orleans second-line on “Slippin’ and Slidin’ (Peepin’ and Hidin’),” and laying down the rock ‘n’ roll templates “Long Tall Sally,” “Ready Teddy” and “Rip it Up.” The band’s cool groove on “Lucille” contrasts with Richard’s unrestrained vocal, and he sets the studio on fire with his signature “Good Golly, Miss Molly” and the awesomely salacious “The Girl Can’t Help It.” By 1957, even the straight blues of “Early One Morning” succumbed to the edgy power of Richard’s singing.

Richard’s 1964 full return to rock ‘n’ roll found his fire stoked by the gospel he’d been recording. His televised live set for the UK’s Granada transitions seamlessly between secular and gospel material, and his recordings showed new sparks. 1964’s “Bama Lama Bama Loo” has more of a go-go rhythm than his earlier work, and “Poor Boy Paul” has a light Calypso undertow for its novelty chorus lyric. Moving to Vee Jay, Richard spent considerable time re-recording his hits in an attempt to regain royalties he’d signed away in 1957. This set sidesteps those re-recordings in favor of new material and covers that find Richard tackling songs from Leadbelly, Larry Williams, Fats Domino and others.

Though the Vee Jay performances aren’t as incendiary as the mid-50s Specialty sessions, there’s some great material here that shows Richard still expanding his reach. Among the more notable sidemen in his 1964 comeback sessions was reported to be Jimi Hendrix, whose guitar is said be be heard on several tracks, including a cover of Don Covay’s “I Don’t Want What You Got But It’s Got Me.” More definitively documented is the electric violin of Don “Sugarcane” Harris on the blues “Goin’ Home Tomorrow.” Richard successfully reaches back to rock ‘n’ roll’s roots for “Money Honey,” “Lawdy Miss Clawdy,” “Blueberry Hill,” and “Short Fat Fanny,” but also rocks contemporary material, such as Nilsson’s “Groovy Little Suzy” and Alvin Tyler’s “Cross Over.”

Richard’s originals during this period included “My Wheels They Are Slippin’ All the Way,” “Dancing All Around the World” and the wonderfully funky “It Ain’t Whatcha Do (It’s the Way How You Do It).” Richard seemed to be searching for his place in the musical landscape of 1964, singing rock, soul and orchestral ballads, and even swinging brassy updates of the Platters’ “Only You” and Dean Martin’s “Memories Are Made of This.” Unfortunately, with Vee Jay crumbling amid financial malfeasance (not to mention the loss of the Four Seasons), and the British Invasion washing up on American shores, there was little mainstream chart action and no commercial comeback for Richard’s records.

And that lack of notice is a shame, as Little Richard was still in top form in 1964. Vee Jay managed to release two full albums before dribbling out the remaining material over the following decade. Specialty’s three-CD set provides a good selection of the label’s seminal mid-50s recordings and Vee Jay’s comeback material, and represents a way-station between single-disc hit anthologies, the foundational original albums Here’s Little Richard and Little Richard Volume 2, and the all-in Specialty Sessions box set. The 36-page booklet includes liner notes from Billy Vera, and plenty of photos, but is sorely missing session dates and personnel listings. The tracks are all mono, except for stereo on “Bama Lama Bama Loo” and “Dancing All Around the World.” [©2015 Hyperbolium]

Conway Twitty: Rocks at the Castaway

ConwayTwitty_RocksAtTheCastawayOne-of-a-kind Conway Twitty live set from 1964

More than a decade before Conway Twitty became one of country music’s most prolific hitmakers, he was a pompadour-wearing rock ‘n’ roller, schooled by Sam Phillips at Sun Studios. Starting with 1958’s chart-topping “It’s Only Make Believe,” Twitty strung together nearly two years of pop hits that included “Lonely Blue Boy,” “Mona Lisa” and a bouncy take on “Danny Boy” (all of which can be found on The Rock ‘n’ Roll Years box set, or the more concise Conway Rocks). He turned to country music in the mid-60s, and with 1968’s “Next in Line,” began twenty years of nearly unparalleled chart success. The transition from ’50s rocker to ’60s country star found Twitty and his band the Lonely Blue Boys on the road, playing bars and clubs throughout the country, mixing original hits with covers from blues, rock, R&B and country.

In August 1964 the group touched down for a week’s stand at Geneva-on-the-Lake’s Castaway Nightclub. Hobbyists Alan Cassaro and Bob Scherl used an Olsen reel-to-reel recorder and an Electrovoice EV 664 microphone to capture two sets on each of two nights. With only a single microphone (which Twitty generously allowed them to place next to his stage mic) and a mono recorder, Cassaro and Scherl were at the mercy of stage mixes that shortchanged the drums, sax and keyboards, but Twitty’s guitar and vocals are clear, and the band’s crowd-pleasing performances are superb. This material has been issued before, but Bear Family has improved the sound, cherry-picked the best version of each song from the four different sets, and included the previously unissued instrumental “Rinky.”

The set list features many ‘50s and early ‘60s rock, pop, R&B and blues standards, including Muddy Waters’ “Got My Mojo Working,” Lloyd Price’s “Lawdy Miss Clawdy,” Jimmy Reed’s “Big Boss Man,” Chuck Berry’s “Memphis Tennessee,” and incendiary covers of Elmore James’ “Shake Your Moneymaker” and Bo Diddley’s “You Can’t Judge a Book by the Cover.” The latter finds Big Joe E. Lewis laying down a great bass line over which the sax, piano and guitar solo. Twitty’s talent as a rock ‘n’ ‘roller was overwhelmed by his later success as a country star, but he sings here with real fervor, and lays down several hot guitar leads. Twitty’s 1960 original “She’s Mine” shows a heavy Jerry Lee Lewis influence, and his hit “Lonely Blue Boy” (sung both in medley and standalone) has the unmistakable imprint of Elvis Presley’s growl.

By 1964 Twitty was already cutting country demos, and the next year he’d jump from MGM to Decca to record with Owen Bradley in Nashville. His live set was incorporating country material, including Willie Nelson’s “Funny How Time Slips Away,” Hank Williams’ “Your Cheatin’ Heart,” and Bobby Darin’s “Things.” His band still favored blues, rock and pop, but you can hear Twitty’s vocals starting to add country flavor to the bent notes. Even more country, his cover of “It Keeps Right On a-Hurtin’” adds a helping of  honky-tonk to Johnny Tillotson’s string-lined original, and “Born to Lose” is sung as a blues that fits between Ted Daffan’s 1943 original and Ray Charles’ lush cover.

Bear Family’s knit the tracks together with bits of stage patter, audience chatter, pre-intermission vamping and even a few flubs, to provide a sense of the overall performance; all that’s missing are the tunes sung by band members when Twitty too a break. The band shows off their road-honed chops as they swing into each song at Twitty’s calls. The set list depicts a relentless show that powers through up-tempo singles “Is a Bluebird Blue,” “Danny Boy,” “Mona Lisa,” and packs emotional crooning into covers of “Unchained Melody” and “What a Dream.” The set’s booklet offers Bear Family’s typical riches of photos, graphic design and well-researched liner notes. This is a great release for Twitty’s ardent fans, documenting the earliest phase of his transition from a rock ‘n’ roller to a country icon. [©2015 Hyperbolium]

The Kingbees: The Kingbees

Kingbees_KingbeesThe Kingbees’ debut still has its sting thirty-five years later

It’s hard to believe that at thirty-five, this album is nearly a decade older than was rockabilly itself in 1980. The Kingbees emerged in the late ‘70s, alongside the Blasters, Stray Cats, Pole Cats and others, and though primarily known for only this one album (their follow-up, The Big Rock, was stranded by their label’s bankruptcy), it’s among the very best of the 1980s rockabilly revival. The Kingbees laid down a solid backbeat, but weren’t afraid to move beyond the sound of vintage microphones, standup bass and slapback echo. Even better, they had great songs, guitar riffs that crossed classic tone with modern recording sonics, a fiery rhythm section (check out the bass and drum solos on “Everybody’s Gone”) and a terrific vocalist in lead bee, Jamie James.

Produced in the group’s native Los Angeles, the album initially failed to stir commercial interest, but in a page from the book of 1950s record promotion, the band gained a second wind through the regional airplay on Detroit’s WWWW and WRIF. “My Mistake” and “Shake Bop” both charted, and the band’s club performances led some to think they were local. The group’s second album garnered a cameo in The Idolmaker and an appearance on American Bandstand, but that was basically it. The group and their label both disbaned, leaving behind a small but impressive collection of recordings. The albums have been reissued as a two–fer, but this remastered anniversary reissue sweetens the debut’s ten tracks with the demos that landed the band a contract, live tracks from a 1980 Detroit show, and a 12-page booklet featuring period photos and new liner notes from Jamie James.

The demos show how fully realized the band’s sound was before they signed with a label; even more impressively, the subsequent studio versions of “My Mistake,” “Man Made for Love” and “Ting a Ling” take the performances up another notch. The latter, a cover of the Clovers’ 1952 doo-wop hit, pairs with an inspired reworking of Don Gibson’s “Sweet Sweet Girl to Me” to show just how thoroughly the group knew what it had to offer. The latter kicks off the album, hotting up Warren Smith’s Sun-era cover in the same way Smith transformed Gibson’s original into rock ‘n’ roll. The live tracks show the trio to be a tight unit with plenty of spark, and the band’s simple, percussive covers of “Not Fade Away” and “Bo Diddley” speak to James’ roots rock inspirations; the former shines with the sheer joy of singing a Buddy Holly song, the latter gives all three players a chance to really lean on the Bo Diddley beat.

James’ originals are superb and sound fresh as he sings about girls, lust, romance, broken hearts and rock ‘n’ roll. “No Respect” builds from a slinky bass line and snappy snare drum to James’ lead guitar, and after a short verse, a sharp solo; Rex Roberts really grabs your attention with his drumming on both “My Mistake” and “Shake-Bop.” There’s a pop-punk edge to the faster numbers, but the rockabilly beat and James’ glorious ‘57 Fender Strat absorb, rather than fetishize the ‘50s roots. Cross-pollinated with the energy of ‘80s power-pop and new wave, the Kingbees forged a rock ‘n’ roll sound that’s proven quite timeless. Omnivore’s reissue features a master by Gavin Lurssen and Reuben Cohen, and includes a 12-page booklet highlighted by period photos and liner notes from Jamie James. [©2015 Hyperbolium]

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James McMurtry: Complicated Game

JamesMcMurtry_ComplicatedGameA welcome return of McMurtry’s experience and imagination

It’s been seven years since singer-songwriter James McMurtry offered up an album of new material. His last release, 2009’s Live in Europe, recontextualized McMurtry’s societal observations in front of a European audience, and though the songs took on new shades in front of a foreign audience, the CD was still more of a tour memento than a new statement. Which leaves 2008’s Just Us Kids as his last full thesis. At the time, McMurtry’s observation fell upon broad social issues of political disorder, social isolation, economic disruption and ecological destruction. Seven years later, his concerns haven’t abated, but his songs narrow their focus to witness these larger issues at human scale.

The album’s opening track, “Copper Canteen,” finds its aging protagonists struggling to hang on to their small town life. The big box stores on the bypass loom over them, reframing broad questions about mass-scale marketing to personal issues of an individual town’s demise. Their fears find salve in nostalgic thoughts and the hope that they can hold on to retirement, as they remain fatalistic rather than desperate or bitter. Nostalgia threads through many of McMurtry’s new songs, with wanderers looking back to see where they lost the trail and community totems memorialized by those who remember. The portraits of hard-working fishermen, hard-luck ranchers and unemployed veterans are both inspiring and heartbreaking, and blend easily into songs of depression and escape.

Peeking through the darker scenes, there are a few glimmers of sunshine. The everyday details of “How’m I Gonna Find You Now” are rattled off in a monologue whose agitation reveals the narrator’s unspoken feelings, and the portraiture of “Things I’ve Come to Know” stems from the sort of intimacy that is born of time and devotion. On its surface, the album feels less overtly political than Just Us Kids, but the incisiveness of the lyrics turns these individuals’ stories into social commentary. McMurtry labels himself a writer of fiction, but the details he captures in songs like “Carlisle’s Haul” are too visceral to have been read in a book. He may fictionalize, but the people, places and language are as much experience as they are imagination.

Co-produced by CC Adcock (Lafayette Maquise, Lil’ Band O’ Gold) and engineer Mike Napoutiano, the guitar-bass-and-drums are augmented by well-placed touches of banjo and violin, and given added dimension from Hammond B3 (courtesy of Benmont Tench), moog bass (courtesy of Ivan Neville), Uilleann pipes, and various electric guitar sounds. The longer songs give the band a chance to play into the grooves, but the productions never lose sight of the vocals. McMurtry is a singer who tells stories, and a storyteller who sings melodies. At times he sounds like a more-melodic Lou Reed, with a half-spoken, half-sung style whose medium and message are inseparable. Seven years is a long time to wait for a new album, but in addition to McMurtry’s busy road schedule, songs this finely observed spring from experience rather than demand. [©2015 Hyperbolium]

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