LITTLE WILLIE JOHN
The King Sessions 1958 - 1960 (Ace; CD)
EUGENE CHURCH
The Very Best Of Eugene Church (Ace; CD)
     Two male rhythm & blues singers at the very birth of soul music, contemporaries Detroit-based Little Willie John (born November 1937) and Los Angeles' Eugene Church (born January 1938) are here represented with full Ace CDs of their own.
     A cult figure - and inspiration for the young James Brown - Little Willie John has consequently been well-served by the reissue industry; indeed Ace Records have already issued The Early King Sessions (CDCHD 846) four years ago and this volume slots in nicely after the period covered by the earlier one. Kicking off with the Top 5 R&B smash 'Talk To Me, Talk To Me', the CD explores slightly less successful chart hits like 'You're A Sweetheart' (#14), 'Tell It Like It Is' (#12), 'Leave My Kitten Alone' (#13), 'Let Them Talk' (#11), 'Heartbreak (It's Hurtin' Me)' (#11) and 'Sleep' (#10) along with the more seldomly anthologised tracks such as the blistering 'Spasms', 'I'm Shakin'', 'Do You Love Me' and the 'Fever'like 'My Love Is'...and some wonderful covers of earlier King R&B successes like 'All My Love Belongs To You', 'Why Don't You Haul Off And Love Me' and 'No More In Life'.
     Eugene Church has been less well served by reissues and, indeed, this is the first complete release, CD or even LP, under his own name. Starting as a musical partner of Jesse Belvin in 1955 in a duo called The Cliques, the pair recorded for Modern and enjoyed a hit with 'The Girl In My Dreams' in 1956. On his own, Church recorded for Specialty, Class/Rendezvous and King between 1957 and 1963, placing three releases on the Billboard R&B chart: 'Pretty Girls Everywhere' (#6), 'Miami' (#14) and 'Mind Your Own Business' (#19), the former becoming a minor standard and recorded by Gene Vincent, Clyde McPhatter, Arthur Alexander and Eric Clapton among others. All these hits along with 22 more fine pop/R&B/soul recordings (I particularly dug the nasty 'I'll Mess You Up' from 1956 and the belated rock 'n' roll anthem 'That's What's Happenin'' from four years later) can be found in Ace's new release with a stunning 12-page booklet annotated by Stu Colman.
     Little Willie John suspiciously died in Prison in 1968 whilst serving time for manslaughter, while Eugene Church, having joined the ministry in 1963, lasted another thirty years until his death in 1993 from AIDS.
http://www.acerecords.co.uk/
Dave Penny

IVORY JOE HUNTER
Woo Wee! - The King & Deluxe Acetate Series (Ace; CD)
GRANDPA JONES
Steppin' Out King - The King & Deluxe Acetate Series (Ace; CD)
     This superb and worthy series continues apace with another two candidates for the spectacular sound treatment. Ivory Joe Hunter was a Texas-born pianist and blues singer who recorded for his own Pacific and for Bill McCall's 4-Star labels prior to joining King on a two year contract in 1947. He enjoyed his biggest hits later on MGM (1949-54) and Atlantic (1954-58) and became known as a fine songwriter in the late 1950s, but from an artistic viewpoint his King recordings were never bettered (although some of his themes were overly sentimental - if not to say maudlin). However, the wealth of material recorded during that two-year span means that a cherry-picked single CD such as this can and should be extremely good...and it is; from storming boogie tunes such as 'Send Me Pretty Mama', 'I Like It', 'All States Boogie', and the instrumental 'Siesta With Sonny' to lowdown jazzy blues like 'Changing Blues', 'No Money, No Luck', 'I Quit My Pretty Mama', 'False Friend', 'Landlord Blues', 'Blues At Sunrise' and 'Lying Woman', and hip, swinging novelties like 'Don't Be No Fool, Fool', 'Old Gal and New Gal', 'Woo Wee' and 'I Got Your Water On'. Of course, the odd cloying ballad ('Guess Who' and 'In Time') has been slipped in, but to be fair, this is the sort of music Hunter charted with and its exclusion would mean a compilation that was not representative of his style.
     An entirely different type of music altogether, singer and banjo-player Grandpa Jones was the first artist to be signed to King in 1943 (indeed it could be argued that the label was set-up by Syd Nathan just to record Jones and his musical partner Merle Travis) and he recorded for the label, on-and-off throughout the 1940s and 1950s. An archaic, and almost unclassifiably unique style of country music, Jones' recordings would undoubtedly not engender such interest today were it not for the talented Travis' dextrously modern and breath-taking flights of finger-picked electric guitar accompaniment. Within a year or two, Merle would be a star in his own right on Capitol Records, but his early contribution to tracks like 'It's Raining Here This Morning', 'Heart Stealin' Mama', 'That Depot In The Sky', 'Ridin' On That Train' and, especially, 'You'll Make Our Shack A Mansion' demand respect as the very roots of rockabilly music...five years before the event! As an added bonus we get the two 1944 tracks by "Bob McCarthy", a pseudonym for Travis.
     Two of the tracks feature accompaniment from The Delmore Brothers, while another three benefit from the inclusion of Cowboy Copas, but even solo, Kentucky-born Jones often rocks like the clappers - witness 'Grandpa Boogie' (1949), 'Five String Banjo Boogie' (1950), 'Send In Your Name And Address' (1951) - while lovers of more traditional fare will lap up 'Old Rattler', 'There's A Hole In The Ground', 'There's A Grave In The Wave Of The Ocean' and 'What'll I Do With The Baby-O'.
     The icing is provided by the attractive booklets annotated by series consultant Tony Rounce. Any chance of a Wynonie Harris volume, Tony?
http://www.acerecords.co.uk/
Dave Penny

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Do Be You: King Vocal Groups Vol 4 (Ace; CD)
     The fourth volume of this patchy, but well-received (so what do I know?) series includes doowop thoroughbreds such as Otis Williams & The Charms, The Swallows, The Five Keys, The Royals, The Admirals and The Hurricanes (formerly The Toppers), along with also-rans like The Mascots, The Federals, The Ascots and Jerry Dorn. New entrants to the series, The Orchids impress with their fine harmonies and backing from Sonny Thompson's Ork, but The Superiors are ridiculously mis-named.
     The obscure Ramblers' rocker, 'Shame On Me', is most welcome among the ethereal ballads, as is the uptempo treatment of the ancient standard 'Yours' by The Hurricanes.
     Gordon Skadberg of Early Bird Records again pens the useful notes in the cool 12 page booklet with nice full page photos of The Mascots and The Swallows. You'll know whether you need this or not...
http://www.acerecords.co.uk/
Dave Penny

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Gaz's Rockin' Blues (Ace; CD)
     In July 1980 DJ Gaz Mayall opened his club "Gaz's Rockin' Blues" in Soho and little more than a year later, Ted Carroll at Ace Records asked him to compile an LP for the fledgling label. Now, to celebrate the Silver Jubilee, and with the club still going strong, Gaz has returned to Ace to upgrade his 14 track LP into a shiny, 28 track CD. The first 14 tracks here, chock full of classic rockin' blues and black rock 'n' roll drawn from the Modern/RPM catalogue (except for Little Booker's 'Open The Door' from the US Ace catalogue) has now been augmented with another 14, more varied tracks from Little Johnny Jones' 1953 Chicago blues, Robbin Ray's thunderous 'Love My Baby' from Los Angeles, Cookie and The Cupcakes' ska-like Louisiana sound and Freddie Simon's California swing...and a wonderful, previously unissued Goree Carter jump blues from Houston and 1951.
     God knows on what format we'll be listening to these tracks (joined by another 28?) in another quarter century, but I guarantee they'll sound as fresh and exciting as they did in 1981 and do now.
http://www.acerecords.co.uk/
Dave Penny

VARIOUS ARTISTS
More Mellow Cats 'n' Kittens - Hot R&B And Cool Blues 1946-1952 (Ace; CD)
Flip Hits!...and Misses! (Ace; CD)
     Here are a couple of highly enjoyable CDs that help to map the development of post-WWII rhythm and blues on the West Coast. "More Mellow Cats..." charts the jazzy beginnings of California jump blues in the pre-rock'n' roll era, with almost-swing tracks from Big Band veterans like Geechie Smith, Bardu Ali, Jake Porter, Howard McGhee and Butch Stone and the pure risque hokum of jive groups like The Scamps and The Three Bits Of Rhythm. More bluesy fare is contributed by Clarence Williams, Tiny Webb and Al "Cake" Wichard from the L.A. camp, but more intriguing is the batch of largely unissued recordings from Detroit's Sensation label; including Kitty Stevenson - a fine vocalist and mother of Motown's Mickey Stevenson - and a superb jump combo called The Noc-Tunes, featuring an unusual instrumental line-up with an accordian and a prominent steel-guitarist.
     The second CD features a value-packed 30 tracks from Hollywood's Flip Records, reissuing the two "greatest hits" compilations released by the label itself and adding another 13 "misses". Although at the time, the label's biggest commercial success was The Six Teens' 'A Casual Look', the band is now undoubtedly most famous for having issued Richard Berry's original versions of 'Louie Louie' and 'Have Love Will Travel'. This compilation includes those three tracks along with more by The Six Teens, The Vel-Aires, The Dreamers, The Elgins and The Emotions vocal groups and some cool Cal R&B by Ray Johnson and Sherman Williams. More unusual is the funky 'Bye Bye Baby (My Pride)' by Shank & Maydiea from 1962 and the extraordinary 'Rock-a-billy Gal' by The Colby-Wolf Combo - not rockabilly at all but beatnik jazz performed as an instrumental and also as a vocal; the latter proving this to be the original version of the song cut by Hayden Thompson for Sun in 1957.
http://www.acerecords.co.uk/
Dave Penny