The first volume was reviewed in B&R 280 and contained the original ‘Be-Bop-A-Lula’ and the rockabilly sides with guitarist Cliff Gallup. This set opens on 27th March 1958, three days after Elvis Presley had joined the Army, and has eight songs from sessions at The Capitol Tower studio in Hollywood, including a rocking remake of ‘Five Feet Of Lovin’, a couple of Hank Williams songs, the Elvis-styled rocker, ‘Look What You Gone And Done To Me’, and a fine, bluesy ‘Summertime’. The last day of this three-days-long session produced two ballads very much in Elvis’s post rock’n’roll style. The following session resulted in more generic rock’n’roll, before 15th October 1958 brought a fine version of Fiddlin’ Arthur Smith and Alton Delmore’s ‘Beautiful Brown Eyes’ followed by raving versions of Little Richard’s ‘Rip It Up’, Chuck Berry’s ‘Maybellene’ (interestingly sounding less country-ish than Chuck’s) and Huey Smith’s ‘Hight Blood Pressure’ – and featuring saxophonists Jackie Kelso and Plas Johnson. This rocking groove continued the next day with the rockabilly of ‘Be Bop Boogie Boy’, a Bo Diddley inspired ‘In Love Again’ and Lloyd Price’s ‘I Can’t Believe You Wanna Leave’. The Crescent City feel was reprised the following day with ‘Who’s Pushing Your Swing’. The saxophonists are again present on several of the titles on the second CD (1958-1960), with ‘Say Mama’ reminiscent of Little Richard’s sound, and ‘My Baby Don’t ‘Low’ borrowing more than liberally from the Willie Dixon/Little Walter hit, ‘My Babe’. I could have done without ‘Over The Rainbow’ and ‘Ac-Centu-Ate The Positive’, especially as two of the three songs bookended by these two are the excellent ‘Vincent’s Blues’ and a rip-roaring ‘Ready Teddy’. ‘Big Fat Saturday Night’ was co-composed by a young Don Covay, and ‘Darlene’ is a slow blues with a particularly fine solo by Kelso; like many of the titles on this CD it has a vocal group in the vein of The Jordanaires – an indication of the smoother direction rock’n’roll was taking – but nearly all of these tracks are well worth listening to, and some much more than that. The final two tracks on this CD are BBC studio recordings broadcast on ‘Saturday Club’, and have some nifty guitar work by Big Jim Sullivan.The U.K. recorded material continues onto the collection’s final CD (1960-1962), with the slower version of ‘Be-Bop-A-Lula’ from 1960 a real highlight, tough less pleasing to my ears is the slightly later recording, ‘Weeping Willow’ with the Norrie Paramour Orchestra and Chorus. The music becomes softer, poppier and far less interesting throughout this disk. Gene’s fans will want this collection anyway – if they don’t already possess the material they want. For once though, I would have preferred a double CD instead of a triple CD release! Norman DARWEN - BLUES & RHYTHM
