SMOKEY HOGG
Midnight Blues (Ace Records; CD)
     This is Ace's fourth CD of the rhythmically-challenged Texas bluesman Andrew "Smokey" Hogg, who recorded for the cream of California's uptown R&B indies - such as Specialty, Modern and Imperial - despite sounding about as rural as a country bluesman could sound. In the studio singer/guitarist Hogg was usually paired, incongruously, with a sophisticated piano/bass/drums trio who would invariably have extreme difficulty keeping up with Hogg's inability to keep tempo or metre. Couple this with Hogg's wholesale theft of earlier blues songs, and you would have thought that he has little to recommend himself to the average listener - even the average listener of the Texas and West Coast blues tradition!
     He only achieved the national Billboard R&B chart twice in his heyday - once in 1948 and again in 1950 - but as booklet writer Tony Rounce points out, he must have sold steadily otherwise he would not have been so widely and ubiquitously recorded between 1947 and 1957. The same conundrum presents itself today; Hogg is apparently reviled by most modern blues buffs for his monotony and for the unoriginality of his material, yet his CDs sell well enough for Ace to be up to volume four of his work! This present CD includes 20 tracks recorded for Modern Records during 1947-1952 along with a further four sides waxed in 1951 for Jake Porter's new Combo Records, and viewed objectively, it isn't quite as bad as Hogg's detractors would have us believe. In addition to the curiously archaic Big Bill Broonzy-like blues style, there is the occasional light, countryfied (almost hillbilly) pieces such as "Late Prowling Girl" and the almost - almost! - dynamic "It's Rainin' Here" and "Walk-in' Doctor Bill", not to mention the 1947 session that introduces a redundant trombone player.
     The last word in Smokey Hogg reissues? Many will hope so!
www.acerecords.co.uk
Dave Penny

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Good Girls Gone Bad: Wild, Weird & Wanted (Ace Records; CD)
     Undoubtedly the peak of the British reissue industry (at least as far as vintage rhythm & blues and rock 'n' roll is concerned), just occasionally Ace Records comes out with a release that makes one sigh in frustration and rhetorically inquire "Why?". The concept is a good one: a CD compilation filled to bursting with prime examples of the often overlooked contribution women made to the early years of rockabilly and rock 'n' roll. Sadly the project is lazily compiled and mainly consists of tracks that are either already available on other Ace compilations or, due to the preponderance of legendary - but easily licensed - Sun material, will be owned by most rockabilly fans on half a dozen extant CDs.
     The highlights include the sexy "He Will Come Back To Me" (Era 1034) by the mysterious Alis Lesley - probably so-named because it is close enough to "Elvis Presley" - and The Miller Sisters' jovial "Someday You Will Pay" (Flip 504) - featuring Tarrantino's current favourite Charlie Feathers on that most rock 'n' roll of instruments; the spoons! The package is almost rescued by the usual high quality Ace booklet with rare photos and Brian Neville's quirky nine page essay, but a sandwich with no filling is just two slices of bread!
     Not the best, and certainly not the most desirable collection of distaff rockabilly tracks, this set would have been a winner as a budget-priced sampler - which is largely what it actually is - but as a full-priced item it is sadly lacking.
www.acerecords.co.uk
Dave Penny

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Gene Vincent Cut Our Songs: Primitive Texas Rockabilly & Honky Tonk (Ace Records; CD)
     On the other hand, this collection is everything that the rockabilly aficianado could possibly ask for...and then some!
     The late Jack Rhodes was a musician and songwriter from tiny Mineola, Texas, who set up his own demo recording studio in the early 1950s and collected a small coterie of singers and musicians to give shape to his witty self-penned country songs. Beaumont-based Starday Records was an early customer, and was so impressed with Rhodes' professional-sounding demos, that they even released some as commercial product. One such was Jimmy Johnson's erotic "Woman Love" (Starday 561) which was picked up by Capitol Records in April 1956 and given to Gene Vincent to record at his debut session. Vincent's even more pornographic cover of "Woman Love" was paired with his own "Be-Bop-A-Lula" which made the top 10 of all three Billboard charts (Pop, Country and R&B) and convinced Rhodes' that rockabilly was the style to pursue.
     The result is the contents of this CD. Both sides of Johnson's desirable Starday 45 are included as is a later release by Elroy Dietzel on a Bo-Kay single, but the remaining 26 tracks are all previously unissued, primitive demos of prime Texas rockabilly by obscure Hillbilly Cats such as Derrell Felts, Johnny Dollar, Jerry Hanson, Freddy Franks and the aforementioned Jimmy Johnson. A handful of the demos were, indeed, made into wild-eyed rock 'n' roll classics by Gene Vincent & The Blue Caps - which explains the mildly misleading title - but nevertheless this compilation of clever songs enthusiastically performed to the accompaniment of just guitars and bass is about the best compilation of stripped-down early hillbilly rock that you could hope for, topped off by a twenty-page photo packed booklet with notes by the ubiquitous Rob Finnis.
     The fact that 26 of the tracks are previously unheard simply adds to the "Holy Grail" feel of this release; short of two dozen unissued Elvis Sun masters turning up, this is about as good as it gets.
     New trousers, please nurse!
www.acerecords.co.uk
Dave Penny

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Mellow Cats 'n' Kittens: Hot R&B and Cool Blues 1946-52 (Ace Records; CD)
     Criticised for many years for their tardiness in reissuing all but the most obvious material from the catalogue of the California-based Modern/RPM/Kent/Crown stable, in recent years Ace have employed a more diverse reissue schedule and have begun to compile deliciously obscure R&B and jump-blues compilations from this source and none have been more toothsome than this set gathering issued (five tracks), alternative takes (five tracks)and previously unissued (14 tracks) masters from among the hundreds of tapes purchased by Ace in the 1980s.
     Not as wild or as obviously teenager-aimed as the form of R&B that immediately predated rock 'n' roll in the mid 1950s, post-war R&B - or jump-blues to give it a more accurate description - was more closely akin to the jazz and swing from which it had developed. Many of the musicians who practised it were refugees from the old swing bands who were not interested in playing bebop - or could play both forms! - and examples here include Helen Humes, Jimmy Witherspoon, Jake Porter, Bardu Ali, Butch Stone, Wild Bill Moore, and the pervasive presence of the mighty Maxwell Davis; MD for Modern Records at the time.
     Comparative R&B heavyweights such as Witherspoon, Jimmy Nelson and Johnny Otis (behind The Robins and, I suspect, Bardu Ali's brace of recordings) rub shoulders with obscure jive group The Three Bits Of Rhythm, L.A. guitar heroes Tiny Webb and Gene Phillips, renegade jazzers Butch Stone and Scatman Crothers, tough mamas Humes and Effie Smith, and a slew of second division West Coast jump-blues combos to deliver the perfect bill for a night of torrid terpsichory at one of the hotspots on Central Avenue in 1949 or, failing that, sitting to attention in front of the hi-fi tonight.
     Solid, Jack!
www.acerecords.co.uk
Dave Penny