JESSE BELVIN
Guess Who: The RCA Victor Recordings (Ace; CD)
     The doyen of the West Coast doowop group, Jesse Belvin, was mentor and inspiration to most of the young vocal harmony singers of the Los Angeles area in the early-mid 1950s. He was also a reputedly prolific, if careless, songwriter who would churn out dozens of potentially hit-making compositions and sell them outright to interested parties for just a few bucks. 'Earth Angel' he gave away to The Penguins and 'Goodnight My Love' was unfortunately sold to John Marascalco; unfortunate because Belvin's recording of the song on the Modern label subsequently hit #7 on the national R&B chart, while the song was later taken into the Pop chart by Paul Anka. Even so, Belvin was destined for greater things and in 1958 the mighty RCA Victor label took a keen interest in him.
     Victor didn't have any interest at all in Belvin's vocal harmony past, but his solo performance of 'Goodnight My Love' had convinced the major record label that, here, was a handsome, black balladeer to rival the success of Capitol's Nat Cole or Epic's Roy Hamilton and for over a year the magic worked. The well-received Just Jesse Belvin LP was released in 1959 shortly after Belvin had scored Billboard R&B hits with 'Funny' and 'Guess Who'. 1960 began promisingly with a southern tour until 6th February when the tour car was involved in a head-on collision in Arkansas and Jesse Belvin was no more.
     This Ace double CD collects the album tracks from Just Jesse Belvin and those of the posthumous follow-up Mr Easy together with odd singles and tracks that remained in the can until later in the 1960s. Often disparaged by doowop fans for lack of soul (and a vocal group!), Belvin's RCA recordings were nevertheless peerlessly sung and performed and the material was well chosen. While Ace may not secure sales to their usual partisans, pitched in the right channels this set could sell because of the recent interest in '50s MOR and the high profile given to the likes of Bobby Darin and the Rat Pack. Lou Rawls' considered opinion is that Mr Easy has “gotta be the greatest jazz/pop LP ever made.”
www.acerecords.co.uk
Dave Penny

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Memphis On Down: The Modern Downhome Blues Sessions #3 (Ace; CD)
     The culmination of Ace's reissue of the southern field recordings made by the Bihari brothers in the early 1950s for their Modern/RPM/Flair group of labels, this third volume will be the most commercially attractive to the more general blues fan, including as it does such "household names" as Howlin' Wolf, Bobby Bland, Junior Parker and Walter Horton. Sam Phillips' Memphis Recording Service on Union Avenue is the source for many of the recordings here, while some others are from West Memphis and Helena, Arkansas - which fit alongside nicely - and a session by The Dixie Blues Boys which was cut in Los Angeles in 1955 - which doesn't...but then it wouldn't have comfortably slotted in on any of the other volumes either!
     Drummer Willie Nix and Willie Johnson's distorted guitar kick off the proceedings with both sides of RPM 327, followed by Wolf (2), Bland & Parker, Joe Hill Louis (4), Horton, Jim Lockhart (2), Alfred "Blues King" Harris (2), Robert "Dudlow" Taylor & James "Peck" Curtis (7) and The Dixie Blues Boys (5), ending the volume and the series on a rather lightweight - if historically apt - note by taking the downhome blues to the big city and making it palatable to more sophisticated urban tastes.
     The usual Ace attention to detail enhances the gorgeous presentation, with period photos, label shots and a twenty page essay by Jim O'Neal, the founding editor of America's long-running Living Blues magazine
www.acerecords.co.uk
Dave Penny

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Double Up & Catch Up: Hillbilly Bop 'N' Boogie 1950-1958 (RPM; CD)
     Since the rockabilly revival of the late 1970s there has been an increased interest in the music that preceded the style. Despite what the dusty old 1960s rock history books told us, we soon discovered that rockabilly didn't begin with a catalyticBig Bang in July 1954 in Memphis, but had been steadily fermenting since WWII, boosted by the increase in independent record companies and the popularity of the electric guitar. Also, while Memphis was indeed a hotbed of activity, Texarkana - the tri-state area covered by Texas/Arkansas/Louisiana - was also at the conception of the birth of hillbilly rock. Although hundreds of indie companies proliferated in the area, artsts had to migrate to Capitol Records in Hollywood in order to record for a more major label and while, with the exception of Gene Vincent and Wanda Jackson, Capitol failed to consolidate it's position in the rock 'n' roll era, the company made some of the best pre-rockabilly (hillbilly bop/country boogie/western swing) of the post-war period.
     Broadcaster Mark Lamarr has compiled this fine 25 track CD from the Capitol vaults which, despite the title, stretches from The Milo Twins' 'Pretty Mama Boogie' from 1947 to Dick Curless' 'Travelin' Man' in 1966, taking in a whole range of artists from the obscure Tabby West to the familiar Jerry Reed, from the stone country of Cousin Herb Henson's 'How Come Y'all Come' to Jimmy Bryant's jazzy instrumental 'Bryant's Boogie', from the French polished western swing of Hank Thompson's 'How Cold Hearted Can You Get?' to the spiky, pounding country bop of Faron Young's 'I'm Gonna Live Some'.
     For those still unsure, we have here a selection of mainly early-mid '50s rockabilly-in-all-but-name with the addition of the odd fiddle or steel guitar to mar the perfect, minimalist trinity of the classics guitar/bass/drum line-up. As the tracks have all been legally licenced from EMI, the sound-quality is excellent and the artwork is suitably 1950s Country-Kitsch, while Lamarr's notes are suspiciously more informative than usual.
     More please!
www.rpmrecords.co.uk
Dave Penny