rock-a-ballads
Various Artists – Rock-A-Ballads-Flipside Dreams and Loving Schemes Vol. 1
Bear Family BCD 17776
What Do I Want – Gene Dunlap and The Jokers / I Can See It In Your Eyes – Sonny James / A Thousand Guitars – Tracy Pendarvis and The Swampers / Lonely – Tommy LaBeff / Can’t Help It – Tommy Hill / I Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere – Ronnie Self / Someone Like You – Ronnie Hawkins / I Think Of You – Rudy Grayzell / A Cheat – Sanford Clark / My True Love – Jack Scott / Walkin’ After Midnight – Patsy Cline / Trying To Get To You – Weldon Rogers / Since I Lost You – Warner Mack / We Belong Together – Ritchie Valens / Crying Goodbye – Ric Cartey / Poor Little Fool – Ricky Nelson / Breeze – Vernon Taylor / Sleep Walk – Santo and Johnny / The Grave – Tony Casanova / More And More (I Love You) – Tooter Boatman / My Girl – Robin Luke / Anyway You Want Me (That’s How It Will Be) – Elvis Presley / Most Of All – The Prowlers with Les Vogt / Come Back Baby – Mac Curtis / Turn Back The Clock – Ral Thunder / Tragedy – Thomas Wayne with The DeLons / Bitter Tears – Rodney Scott /’ll Take Tomorrow (Today) – Ray Vernon / You Don’t Owe Me A Thing – Marty Robbins / Cold North Wind – Lonnie Dee / Nothin’ Needs Nothin’ (Like I Need You) – Marvin Rainwater / Sure To Fall – Carl Perkins
Many Rock’n’Roll and Rockabilly fans seem to only remember the most spirited and edgy songs from the genre. This tendency is felt even in the repertoire of contemporary groups where it is difficult to find artists capable, or with the desire, to write ballads. This is a great shame because by discarding the softer and calmer sides, they miss out on a significant part of the repertoire. The ballad (let’s use this generic term for convenience) is also the way to hear the singer alone in front of his microphone, with little or no artifice (except for a few backing vocals). Here, the voice can no longer cheat, whether in terms of emotion or accuracy.
This copious compilation (32 tracks and a 38-page booklet) is the perfect tool for discovering the richness of a repertoire that’s more subtle and varied than it seems, far from the clichéd caricature of the sugary ballad.
Of course, it features artists experienced in the exercise, with Elvis Presley at the forefront of course (and not far behind Marty Robbins and Ricky Nelson). This album alternates well-known pieces (Sleepwalk, Walking After Midnight) with rarer tracks, and also allows us to present a lesser-known side of artists such as Ruddy Grayzell, Sleepy La Beff, and Ronnie Self. It also contains its share of oddities and rarities, as evidenced by this version of Breeze, a Tin Pan Alley hit transformed into a rock-a-ballad by Vernon Taylor, Tony Casanova’s macabre The Grave, or Weldon Rogers’ almost out-of-tune Trying To Get To You.
The artists who make up this compilation are exclusively white, but this is volume 1, so we can imagine that, like the Rock compilations (reviewed here), volume 2 will be dedicated to African-American artists.
Buy it directly from Bear Family.
Fred “Virgil” Turgis
