RUSTY & DOUG KERSHAW WITH WILEY BARKDULL
Louisiana Men (Ace Records; CD)
     If anything, the Louisiana-born Kershaw Brothers Rusty & Doug will be known today for being the originators of the tough 1958 rockabilly classic ‘Hey Mae’, which was covered in 1980 and taken into the UK pop charts by Shakin' Stevens, yet between 1955 and 1961 they enjoyed five chart hits in the US Country charts for Nashville-based Hickory Records, the biggest being the Cajun-lite country rocker ‘Louisiana Man’ in 1961. This 2-CD set from Ace offers the complete Hickory recordings of Rusty & Doug, together with the tracks laid down by their sometime collaborator, pianist Wiley Barkdull, who if not stealing the show, certainly holds his own in this company.
     The majority of the tracks are fine 1950s hillbilly, occasionally with a cajun edge, and frequently with a rock 'n' roll flavouring and some will be familiar to the long-term rockabilly fan from their inclusion on the ground-breaking 1977 DJM LP Hillbilly Rock; ‘Hey, You There’, ‘Too Many’, ‘I Ain't Gonna Waste My Time’ and, of course, ‘Hey Mae’ have been cherished inclusions in my weekly playlist for the last 27 years and see no sign of being usurped with the sound upgrade provided by this delightful collection. The 20-page booklet is outstanding, even by Ace standards, with a lengthy essay by Dave Sax (and full sessionography).
     I look forward to more compilations from the neglected Hickory label archives - proof that Music City in the 1960s wasn't all string-laden “countrypolitan”.
www.acerecords.co.uk
Dave Penny

HOWLIN' WOLF
Sings The Blues (Ace Records; CD)
     Otherworldly. There is no better word to describe Howlin' Wolf.
     Unfortunately, approaching his style retrogressively, the listening experience has been spoiled by the many inferior British bands who borrowed heavily from his style, and have thus diminished its impact. Imagine, if you will, turning on the wireless in 1951 to catch Rosemary Clooney and hearing The Wolf; encountering for the first time that uniquely strangulated vocal style - sparsely backed by Willie Johnson's plangent guitar-picking and Willie Steel's driving drumming - hollering, barely coherently, about riding with his baby tonight and sleeping way down in the cold, cold ground. You must have believed that you had picked up a signal from the seventh level of hell!
     This volume continues Ace's plan to issue all of the classic LPs from the Bihari Brothers' Crown label, enhanced with extra tracks and better remastering. This one takes the ten tracks issued on Crown CLP-5250 in 1961 and adds ten bonus tracks. There is nothing new here; these 1951/52 debut recordings by The Wolf have been continuously available for the last 40 years and are currently available on a handful of CDs, but Ace have done their usual job of fine sound coupled with an attractive package, including a 12 page booklet containing notes by Wolf expert Dave Sax - and if you haven't heard them, you are in for a treat...you may even decide to throw out all those cherished Eric Burden LPs!
www.acerecords.co.uk
Dave Penny

VARIOUS ARTISTS
The Golden Age Of American Rock 'n' Roll: Special Doowop Edition (Ace Records; CD)
     As with most musical genres, doowop (or "vocal group harmony" to the purist) means many things to many men. To me it conjures up breathy ballads - performed almost acapella - by a lead singer supported by three or four other guys harmonising with nonsense syllables, and consequently only half of these tracks qualify. The rest can be dismissed as pop/rock 'n' roll performed by a vocal group.
     The best of the 1950’s doowop chart hits can be found spread across the ten volumes of the main GAOARNR series, but this volume attempts to mop up the best of what's left. Standouts include The Chimes' ‘Once In A While’, The Flamingos' ‘Lovers Never Say Goodbye’ and The Dubs' stunning debut ‘Don't Ask Me (To Be Lonely)’, all classic end-of-the-dance “bum clutchers”, remembered from my youth in the late 1970s rock 'n' roll revival.
     With a sprinkling of household names (Drifters, Spinners, Platters, etc.) to maximise sales, this is another attractive package from Ace, with a feature packed 28 page booklet and voluminous notes from Rob Finnis.
www.acerecords.co.uk
Dave Penny

VARIOUS ARTISTS
The Leiber & Stoller Story #1 (Ace Records; CD)
     It is one of those paradoxes that seems unbelievable even half a century later: two white middle-class high school kids, in the pre-rock 'n' roll era, writing a string of best-selling blues and R&B songs full of references to sex, drugs, death and violence, with an authenticity that obviously appealed to the black population and to an increasing white market.
     Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller were both just 17 in 1950 when they met and collaborated on a charming little song called ‘Real Ugly Woman’ (“She's 300 pounds of meat and she's my female Frankenstein!”) and managed to get top R&B star Jimmy Witherspoon to record it. That recording, along with 27 others from 1950 to 1956, is included on this neat little Ace compilation which has been sanctioned by Jerry and Mike. On the whole, the collection works exceptionally well, with risqué blues such as Mickey Champion's sexy ‘Lovin' Jim’ (“Every gal in town has a kid that looks like him!”) and The Du Droppers' ‘Bamalam’ (“You should have seen what a girl of seventeen did to me!”) consistently hitting the mark if not the charts. Some of the more innocuous songs however,did sell very well, and these were the ones that crossed over to the pop market; this CD includes a few of the more unusual cover versions, some of which work very well (Jack Cardwell's rockabilly treatment of The Robins' ‘Whadaya Want’ and Freddie Bell's take on Big Mama Thornton's ‘Hound Dog’, which led directly to the Elvis version) and some of which are appalling (Edith Piaf's murder of ‘Black Denim Trousers And Motorcycle Boots’ rendered as ‘L'Homme A La Moto’ and Ella Mae Morse's ‘Down In Mexico’ both from 1956. By this time, L&S were working with Atlantic in The Big Apple, and producing rock 'n' roll classics like The Drifters' ‘Ruby Baby’.
     This set is the first of three volumes. The second available imminently, will cover L&S's move to NYC and run from 1956 to 1962, while volume three will run to the end of the 1960s. Something for everyone there.
www.acerecords.co.uk
Dave Penny