ROY BROWN
Good Rockin' Brown (Ace; CD)
THE DELMORE BROTHERS
Fifty Miles To Travel (Ace; CD)
     Late in 2004 Ace Records consultants Tony Rounce and Alec Palao were given permission to ship the precious, fragile (largely undocumented) glass- and metal-based acetates from Gusto Records in Nashville back to the UK in order to let sound engineer Nick Robbins make digital copies of the 4,000 individual discs, most containing three or four tracks. In the process it came to light that, here, was a treasure trove of 1940s recordings from Syd Nathan's Cincinnati-based King and Queen labels and his early acquisitions like DeLuxe and Miracle, which were long thought destroyed in a warehouse fire. Also, during the 1960s when the true worth of vintage recordings was still unrealised, Nathan had destroyed many of the mastertapes of his earliest big sellers by reprocessing the mono recordings into fake stereo (no, not copies of the mastertape - the actual mastertape itself!), leaving latter day reissue programs to choose between issuing a mono copy of a reprocessed tape or a dub from a scratchy 78. But now, praise the lord, Ace have redicovered, catalogued and digitally copied almost everything that was thought lost.
     These two CDs represent the first forays into reissuing as much as possible of that precious pile. The Roy Brown compilation is particularly gratifying to somebody like me who has fantasized for so many years over the long lists of unissued titles from Roy Brown's 1947 DeLuxe sessions, but had been resigned to never hearing these "destroyed" masterpieces. But here they are: seven issued and seventeen completely unissued recordings from Roy's first sessions, including the hit version of his career song "Good Rockin; Tonight" and a previously unknown alternative take, the R&B chart-topper "'Long About Midnight", an early attempt at his famous ‘Miss Fanny Brown’ and twenty more wonderful tracks.
     The Delmore Brothers, while from the other side of the tracks to Brown, are just as important to the birth of rock 'n' roll in the 1950s; whereas Roy Brown's ‘Good Rockin' Tonight’ was covered by rockabillies like Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly and Ricky Nelson, the Delmores' 1950 Country chart topper ‘Blues Stay Away From Me’ was later made into a rock 'n' roll classic by Johnny Burnette, Gene Vincent and Doug Sahm. A sparkling, straight-from-the-acetate transfer of that big hit is here, along with an alternative take and over an hour more of cool country harmonising and infectious hillbilly boogie both issued (18 tracks) and previously unissued (six tracks).
     Each release includes the usual feature-packed 12-page booklet with exhaustive notes by series consultant Tony Rounce. More...many more...please!
www.acerecords.co.uk
Dave Penny

BRENDA LEE
All The Way/Sincerely (Ace; CD)
     Here we are with LPs five and six from 1961 and 1962, continuing Ace's excellent Brenda Lee reissue series. Still a long way from leaving her teens at the time, Brenda's voice continued to show amazing maturity on ballads like ‘All The Way’, ‘How Deep Is The Ocean?’, ‘I Miss You So’, ‘I'll Be Seeing You’, and the simply breath-taking ‘Tragedy’. She still made plenty of room for more uptempo fare, however, with covers of Ray Charles' ‘Talkin' 'Bout You’, Wilbert Harrison's ‘Kansas City’, a fine countrified version of Little Richard's soulful ‘Send Me Some Lovin'‘,and her own #4 hit ‘Dum Dum’.
     A 12-page booklet containing the original artwork, sleeve-notes and a wealth of memorabilia is just the icing on the cake of these US Decca recordings in sparkling sound quality. Well worth investigating.
www.brendalee.com
www.acerecords.co.uk
Dave Penny

JACKIE LEE COCHRAN with JOHNNY & THE ROCCOS
The 1985 Sessions (Ace; CD)
     Rockabilly singer Jackie Lee Cochran was never a prolific artist. Although he began recording in 1956 and waxed a handful of highly collectible one-off singles for such labels as Sims, US Decca, Viv, Avalon, Spry and Jaguar during the 1950s - and even had a brief, blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo as an Elvis impersonator in the 1959 Marilyn Monroe filmLet's Make Love - 'Jack The Cat' was nevertheless surprised when Ronny Weiser came calling in the 1970s to sign him to a contract to make more rockabilly music for his trailblazing Rollin' Rock label. By the mid 1980s Cochran was persuaded to make the trip to Britain to experience for himself a country gripped by rockabilly fever - except that by that late date the revival of the late 1970s/early 1980s had largely burnt itself out and his welcome, although heartfelt, was nonetheless more muted than if he had made the trip five years earlier. While over here in April 1985 he was teamed with Caledonian rock 'n' roll revivalists, Johnny & The Roccos, to record for Mike Vernon's Off Beat label for whom the two LPs which make up this CD were laid down.
www.rockabilly.nl/artists/jcochran.htm
www.acerecords.co.uk
Dave Penny

RED SOVINE
Honky Tonks, Truckers & Tears (Ace; CD)
     Born in Charleston, West Virginia, in 1918, Woodrow Wilson ‘Red’ Sovine formed his own band ‘The Echo Valley Boys’ in 1947 and began recording for MGM Records the following year. His star failed to rise, however, until he joined the Louisiana Hayride in the early 1950s and met Webb Pierce who befriended him and recommended him to US Decca, teaming up together for the 1956 Country chart topper ‘Why Baby Why’.
     This CD does not include any of those early MGM or Decca tracks, but features a stunning collection of Red's Starday and Gusto recordings cut between 1963 and 1980 when Red was rarely off the Billboard Country chart. Only the recuts of his 1950s hits ‘Why Baby Why’ and ‘Little Rosa’ missed the charts the second time around, leaving 22 chart hits split between honky tonkers like ‘Class of '49’ and ‘Loser Making Good’, truckers such as ‘Freightliner Fever’ and ‘Phantom 309’, and tear jerkers like ‘Last Goodbye’ and the famous ‘Teddy Bear’...and a fine version of Clapton's ‘Lay Down Sally’ which made #70 in 1978.
www.redsovine.com
www.acerecords.co.uk
Dave Penny

VARIOUS ARTISTS
These Ghoulish Things: Horror Hits For Halloween (Ace; CD)
     A spiffing 28-track compilation of the best of the horror-related tracks from the 1950s and 1960s heyday, running from The Jayhawks' ‘The Creature (From Outer Space)’ cut for Aladdin in 1957 to Round Robin's ‘I'm The Wolfman’ on a 1965 release on the tiny Domain label. The styles range from rockin' doo wop (‘Screamin' Ball’ by The Duponts, ‘Midnight Stroll’ by The Revels, The Hollywood Flames' ‘Frankenstein's Den’, etc.), rockabilly (Virgil Holmes' ‘Ghost Train’, Jackie Morningstar's ‘Rockin' In The Graveyard’), pop novelty (John Zacherle's ‘Coolest Little Monster’ and ‘My Son, The Vampire’ by Allan Sherman) and suitably sinister instrumentals (Bill Doggett's ‘Monster Party’, The Fiends' version of the ‘Addams Family Theme’, ‘The Munsters' Theme’ by Milton DeLugg )...and the just plain weird (Screamin' Jay Hawkins' ‘Feast Of The Mau Mau’, ‘The Vampire’ by Orvin Yoes).
     All topped off with a cauldronful of humorous radio plugs by Bobby ‘Boris’ Pickett, a wonderful 20-page grimoire and track-by-track incantations by the ever-reliable Rob Finnis...and a guaranteed best-seller at least once a year for however long it is kept in catalogue...
www.acerecords.co.uk
Dave Penny

VARIOUS ARTISTS
30th Birthday Celebration: Blues and R&B (Ace; CD)
30th Birthday Celebration: Doo Wop and Rock 'n' Roll (Ace; CD)
     As the packaging divulges, Ace are currently celebrating their birth in 1975 and the entry of their fourth decade as Britain's premier reissue record label, and to mark the anniversary they have compiled four limited edition CDs with which to sample their wares. The ‘Blues and R&B’ volume boasts blues royalty like Elmore James, Howling Wolf, B B King and John Lee Hooker rubbing shoulders with Drifting Slim, Saunders King, The Great Gates and Big Duke Henderson, while the ‘Doo Wop and Rock 'n' Roll’ collection displays a little more originality in the selections, kicking off with the powerful ‘That's Show Biz’ by Dale Wright, it parties away for nearly fifty mintues via The Cadets' ‘Let's Rock 'n' Roll’, The Teen Queens' ‘Rock Everybody’, The Jiv-A-Tones' nasty instrumental ‘Wild Bird’, Huelyn Duvall's ‘Three Months To Kill’, Curley Jim Morrison's manic ‘Rock 'n' Roll Itch’, Dolly Cooper's joyful ‘My Man’, Joe Houston's ‘We're Gonna Rock 'n' Roll’, the late Link Wray's ‘Jack The Ripper’ and erstwhile Blue Cap Paul Peek's wholesale appropriation of Ray Charles' ‘Mess Around’, retitled ‘The Rock-A-Round’.
     Making up the set of four volumes is a ‘Soul and Funk’ volume and one covering ‘Garage, Beat and Punk Rock’ which will no doubt be reviewed elsewhere on the Shindig site.
     Happy birthday Ace - here's to the next three decades!
www.acerecords.co.uk
Dave Penny

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Chart Toppin’ Doo-Woppin Volume 1: Rock Me All Night Long
Zoot Suit Riot! (Both Rev-Ola; CD)
     Compiled and annotated by our very own Dave Penny, these collections draw together some good tunes within their respected genres. Little Esther (Phillips) career making hit via Johnny Otis, ‘Double Crossing Blues’ and The Orioles’ ‘Crying In The Chapel’ or The Drifters’ ‘Money Honey’ are the kind of universally praised material you’ll find on the former and honkers and shouters like Big Jay McNeely, Roy Milton, Tab Smith and Tiny Bradshaw (and even an appearance by Frank Sinatra!) are what you’ll find on the latter.
www.revola.co.uk
Paul Martin