R-O-C-K-A-B-I-L-L-Y

howlin' hoosier

howlin' hoosier

Ikon Class
Joined
Apr 23, 2011
Location
Somewhere in the middle ...
Anybody here like to switch gears and take the WABAC Machine into the 50s for a rockabilly blast? It's a coin flip for me - 2 guitar break 'billy blasts from the 50s, or growling garage greatness from the 60s both satisfy the urge to crank up the hi-fi and shake the walls. Who do you dig out of the stacks when the urge hits to hear howling hillbillies backed by a slap bass and stinging guitar strikes?
 
I like Johnny Burnette's Rock & Roll Trio sides best; I'd made a tape from my Dad's 78s of them but found a great 2on1 CD from BGO records U.K. that still gets spun the most (runner up CD is the Gene Vincent Screaming End one on Razor & Tie). Glen Glenn (One Cup Of Coffee And A Cigarette) and Al Terry (Watch Dog) are always cool too if you want to dig into something maybe even more obscure than the Burnettes.
 
Burnette Trio set on Bear Family is killer - mastered by Boppin' Bob Jones, the best in the biz when it came to getting the most out of a tape.

Glen Glenn - another splendid choice - criminally unknown by the masses...
 
Just picked up a copy of Doug Powell's "Jeannie with the dark blue eyes" at a record swap in Greenville last month. Pretty great.
 
I really love the "moodier" songs (as I do in 60s garage). Greg and Westex sometimes bring in tunes like that. Are there any compilations with "moody" rockabilly?
Stuff like this here:

 
Sonny Fisher's Starday sides. and I'm really locked on Meteor stuff @ the moment (Junior Thompson, Bill Bowen, Jess Hooper, Wayne McGinnis) also Sonny Cole, Tony & Jackie Lamay and Howard Chandler's "Wampus Cat"

Ned
 
Ned said:
Sonny Fisher's Starday sides. and I'm really locked on Meteor stuff @ the moment (Junior Thompson, Bill Bowen, Jess Hooper, Wayne McGinnis) also Sonny Cole, Tony & Jackie Lamay and Howard Chandler's "Wampus Cat"

Ned
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Ace is a great label for rockabilly fans. They have a 2 cd set of Meteor RAB sides - I'm rather fond of the Steve Carl/Jags tunes like Curfew: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXWzE-XT5bU&feature=related , some early Charlie Feathers classics like Tongue Tied Jill/Get With It: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHJbAd2NxK4&feature=fvsr , and have-to-hear to believe songs like Jess Hooper's All Messed Up: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnb-UVC8fX0&feature=fvst .

Ace has a few Starday sets - they've been slowly going through the Gusto vaults, and have barely scratched the surface of Starday/Dixie/custom pressings that came out. Early rocking workouts by George "Thumper" Jones: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lo_LpG-vks and Buck "Corky Jones" Owens: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olR96t-J0SM done under pseudonyms are some of the goodies you'll find. The King Records comps from Ace are also great listens - a couple V/A sets, and a Charlie Feathers/Mac Curtis set are essential for any RAB lover to have.
 
When I got into rock'n'roll r-a-b was my first love. Still love it but never got into buying original singles, with the exception of getting any Sun 45 that I find cheap... and a few others. A buddy here in Stockholm, who runs a used record store, is one of the biggest r-a-b collectors in the world so I've been there listening to his box of monsters on full blast. It's in every way as great fun as blasting garage 45's. I learned how to play guitar to Johnny Burnette R&R Trio and Buddy Holly songs when I was round 14... I knew the basic chords and from there I picked out the scales etc. The intro riff to Tear It Up was a struggle. Still is haha. Guys like Cliff Gallup, Carl Perkins, Paul Burlison and on and on are still my fave guitar players...Here's an old fave:
 
Cool & new (to me) spins! :cool:

I'm guessing most people have some if not all of the That'll Flat Git It series from Bear family. I also like two CDs of western Canadian '50s rock they put out 'Les Vogt & The Prowlers' and 'Real Gone Aragon', but I'm probably biased, always such thick booklets and you find out folkie Ian Tyson started out in a Vancouver R&B group on Aragon label!

Glen Glenn got to hang out with Elvis and his band back in the heyday, saw a bunch of his personal photos in a great book titled The Blue Moon Boys. The new Elvis Complete Louisiana Hayride combo book/CD http://www.memphisrecordingservice.com/ is really worth getting sounding better than previous editions with what has been around before and adding some new discoveries, the very first Elvis appearance on Hayride from 1954 is fantastic quality!

I've picked up some vintage Bill Haley Decca EPs and singles when I've run across them because they sound good to me and seem to be dirt cheap usually, but they're not so much rockabilly as white guys doing the Louis Jordan and Big Joe Turner 'jump blues' thing, lots of stand-up bass slapping however.
 
beccabear67 said:
Cool & new (to me) spins! :cool:

I'm guessing most people have some if not all of the That'll Flat Git It series from Bear family. I also like two CDs of western Canadian '50s rock they put out 'Les Vogt & The Prowlers' and 'Real Gone Aragon', but I'm probably biased, always such thick booklets and you find out folkie Ian Tyson started out in a Vancouver R&B group on Aragon label!

Glen Glenn got to hang out with Elvis and his band back in the heyday, saw a bunch of his personal photos in a great book titled The Blue Moon Boys. The new Elvis Complete Louisiana Hayride combo book/CD http://www.memphisrecordingservice.com/ is really worth getting sounding better than previous editions with what has been around before and adding some new discoveries, the very first Elvis appearance on Hayride from 1954 is fantastic quality!

I've picked up some vintage Bill Haley Decca EPs and singles when I've run across them because they sound good to me and seem to be dirt cheap usually, but they're not so much rockabilly as white guys doing the Louis Jordan and Big Joe Turner 'jump blues' thing, lots of stand-up bass slapping however.
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Bear's That'll Flat Git It series of RAB comps is excellent (with a caveat) - the lower numbered discs in the series were mastered by Boppin' Bob Jones and Duncan Cowell and they sound great. Some of the later discs not done by the guys mentioned above were mastered way too loud - they're maxed out and are harsh sounding. It's cool to hear stuff from the major labels that flat out rock as hard as the little indie label tunes - Joe Clay on Vik (RCA subsidiary), Ronnie Self on Epic - these guys could wail like nobodies business.
 
Looks like I'm coming @ rockabilly from a different angle than most of you guys. We were listening to Hank Williams & Lefty Frizzell records on the mid 1960s along with the teenbeat sides we normally talk about here. I think most of you guys started listening to this stuff as it was coupled with the 1976 "punk " scene, and tend to like the more "rocking" stuff. For me, the main guy that kicked things off was old Hank with "Move It On Over" & "My Bucket's Got a Hole In it". Anyways, my taste veers a lot more toward the "hick" or "country" end of things than the all-out blasting guitar white rock & roll end of the spectrum. Current favorite spins are :

Gene Henslee - Dig'n & Datin'
Ben Hall - Moo Mama
Rock Rogers - That Ain't It
Rex Hale - Darn Them Bones
Hoyt Webb - Baby Won't You Slow It Down
Lawson Rudd - Shake This Town
Royce Porter - Lookin'
Bill Mack - It's Saturday Night
Jimmy Stewart - You Ain't Nothin' But A Nuthin'

Loads more too, these are the current "Hit Parade"

Ned
 
Ned said:
Looks like I'm coming @ rockabilly from a different angle than most of you guys. We were listening to Hank Williams & Lefty Frizzell records on the mid 1960s along with the teenbeat sides we normally talk about here. I think most of you guys started listening to this stuff as it was coupled with the 1976 "punk " scene, and tend to like the more "rocking" stuff. For me, the main guy that kicked things off was old Hank with "Move It On Over" & "My Bucket's Got a Hole In it". Anyways, my taste veers a lot more toward the "hick" or "country" end of things than the all-out blasting guitar white rock & roll end of the spectrum. Current favorite spins are :

Gene Henslee - Dig'n & Datin'
Ben Hall - Moo Mama
Rock Rogers - That Ain't It
Rex Hale - Darn Them Bones
Hoyt Web - Baby Won't You Slow It Down
Lawson Rudd - Shake This Town
Royce Porter - Lookin'
Bill Mack - It's Saturday Night
Jimmy Stewart - You Ain't Nothin' But A Nuthin'

Loads more too, these are the current "Hit Parade"

Ned
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Move It On Over is proto-rockabilly in my book; sounds like you're in favor of a little more billy and a bit less rocka. :cool:

As for the '76 punk angle, I was a pest of 13 and hadn't bought more than a handful of 45s at that point; the rockabilly bug bit later when I got hold of some Kicks magazines (seems like the garage bug bit at approximately the same time) - guess I'll blame Billy and Miriam for my listening taste these days.
 
Ned said:
We were listening to Hank Williams & Lefty Frizzell records on the mid 1960s along with the teenbeat sides we normally talk about here.

Ned
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I got exposed through my Dad's records and there was a stack of Hanks (Williams, Snow, Thompson) in with the Rock & Roll along with Johnny Horton, Spade Cooley, Red Foley, Stonewall Jackson, George Jones and even Grandpa Jones. We never did have much Lefty around somehow though which seems strange as he had so many great original songs, just had If You Got The Money Honey. You might really like Al Terry on the Hickory label.

My Dad also had/has many obscure things like Jimmy Cavello & His House Rockers, Chuck Miller, and The Prisonaires, but also Wilf Carter, Elton Britt and Slim Clark who were the top yodellers. He was haunting thrift shops as early as 1953 though and even had some radio pals who would dispose of old records taking up space by giving them to him and his other jd friends. There're probably still 78s and LPs I haven't seen never mind played (I mostly was obsessed with just the 45s on my detachable speakers with handles box growing up).

There's a new slick colo(u)r magazine out of England that is all pre-Beatles Rock, titled Vintage Rock. The first issue had a lot of stuff on British acts along with U.S. big names that might not be of interest to everyone but I thought it was pretty ginching. Cliff Richard was fantastic early on I think. I'm hoping there will be a second issue at least.
 
I love rockabilly!
I play slap bass in a rockabilly trio. It's a lot of fun!
Here's a really cool song that the cramps covered......in fact if you want to hear some originals of amazing rockabilly,get the "Songs The Cramps Taught Us" volumes. Lux Interior had an incredible ear for the wild sounds of the late 50's and sixties!
This has such a haunting melody...it's hard to get it out of your head!
 
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