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Tommy Steele

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Tommy Steele – Doomsday Rock – The Brits are Rockin’ vol. 1

Tommy Steele

Bear Family BCD17581
Rock Around The Town – Giddy-Up A Ding Dong – Teenage Party (LP version) – The Trial – Tallahassee Lassie – Give! Give! Give! – Build Up – Knee Deep In The Blues – Rock With The Caveman – Take Me Back, Baby – Time To Kill – Hair-Down Hoe-Down – Swaller Tail Coat – Drunken Guitar – Kaw-Liga – Elevator Rock – Grandad’s Rock – Puts The Lightie On – On The Move – Cannibal Pot – Hollerin’ And Screamin’ – (The Girl With The) Long Black Hair – Rebel Rock – Two Eyes – Hey You – Happy Go Lucky Blues – Singing The Blues – Butterfly – Doomsday Rock – Razzle Dazzle – Come On Let’s Go – Honky Tonk Blues – Young Love – You Gotta Go

2019 saw Bear Family launching a new series called The Brits are Rockin’ dedicated to the British pioneers of the ’50s.
They couldn’t choose a better artist than Tommy Steele (real name Tommy Hicks) to begin this series with. If he wasn’t the best nor the most rocking, Steele was one of the first – if not the first – and he had a strong British identity to boot. Above all, unlike Tony Crombie, who was already 30 when he jumped on the Rock’n’roll bandwagon, Steele was a teenager singing for the teenagers.
Steele began his musical career by singing Hank Williams tunes and playing guitar various bands. George Martin signed him. He later recalled: “We sat with our coffee and watched this genial young man bounce on to the stage with his guitar over his pelvis, and my immediate impression was that he was a blond cardboard imitation of Elvis Presley. Tommy had a lot of energy, but he didn’t sound too great.”
Fortunately for the young lad, people at Decca saw some potential in Tommy and, following his test audition, they almost immediately signed him. Two days later, Steele was in the recording studio to cut his debut single “Rockin’ with the Caveman / Rock Around the Town.”
This 34-song/71 minute compilation album spans the years 1956 to 1960. It shows how versatile Steele was, playing styles as various as pop-tinged stuff, country and western, novelty songs, and more. But, of course, the most exciting songs, were his Rock’n’roll sides. Steele was a credible rocker, and tunes like Teenage Party, Rock With the Caveman, Doomsday Rock, Two Eyes are small classics. This album also proposes good live versions of Freddie Bell’s Giddy Up Ding Dong and Haley’s Razzle Dazzle and the weird and Link Wray sounding semi-instrumental Drunken Guitar.
At first, I was surprised that the songs were not in chronological order, but it happened to be a good idea. It avoids the problem of too many compilations, especially when they are copious like this one, to have ten solid rockin’ tracks at the beginning and, as the years pass, you find mellower material. This is not the case with this compilation, which alternates styles and paces as well as studio and live recordings.
As usual with Bear Family, it comes with a 40-page booklet richly illustrated, though, for some reason, there’s no sessionography.
This album definitely proves that the Brits, and Tommy Steele, could easily rock like their American counterparts.
Hopefully, this is the beginning of a long series.

Available on Bear Family’s website

Fred “Virgil” Turgis

Rhythmaires (the)

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Rhythmaires (the) – Breakfast in Bed

Pink and Black PWB 001 [1985]
Breakfast In Bed – Stormy Weather – Drivin’ To My Baby’s House – Trans-Europa Express (Live)

The Rhythmaires started around 1981 under the name of White Lightnin’, with Stuart Warburton on vocals, guitar ad saxophone, Phil Morris on double bass, Gary Leach on drums, and Paul Murphy on lead guitar. Murphy later joined the Crawdads. They took the name of Rhythmaires when Big Dave Machin joined the band on drums. This line-up lasted one year before the group split to reform as a six-piece combo. By 1984 the Rhythmaires were Warburton still on vocals, tenor saxophone and harmonica; Cyril Chadwick on alto and tenor saxophones; Ian park on rhythm guitar; Jeff Pilkington on lead guitar; John Wilton on double-bass and Dave Machin on drums.
With two saxes and two guitars and the solid rhythm section formed by Machin and Wilton, it was a compelling band that recorded this ep at Twilight Studio, Salford.
Penned by Warburton, the title track is a solid jive number, quite similar in the style to the Stargazers with a touch of jazz. Their cover of Stormy Weather is in the same vein, with some doo-wop backing vocals thrown in for good measure. Nice. B-side opens with another rockin’ original that leaves plenty of room to the musicians. A live cut completes this excellent ep.

Fred “Virgil” Turgis

The Slammers Maximum Jive Band

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The Slammers Maximum Jive Band - Hey There You !!!!

The Slammers Maximum Jive Band - Jive Time
The Slammers Maximum Jive Band – Jive Time

The Slammers Maximum Jive Band – Jive Time

El Toro Records ETCD2036
She Walks Right In – All of Me – Just A Gigolo – Swanee River Boogie – What’d I Say – Hook, Line & Sinker – Stagger Lee – Chicken & the Hawk – Boogie Woogie Country Girl – Shortenin’ Bread – Buona Sera
If you dig contemporary bands like The Stargazers, the Big Six and Ray Gelato’s Giants Of Jive and of course Louis Prima and Louis Jordan this one is for you. Recorded live it proposes a good set of danceable music. I really enjoyed the excellent “Swanee River Boogie” (think Jerry Lee meets a Jive band), “Hook, Line and Sinker” which is full of joy, the instrumental “Shortnin’ Bread” with great saxes (both juicy and screaming) and the rockabilly “Boogie Woogie Country Girl” with a heavy slap bass and piano. That’s too bad they only play covers, and extremely well known ones, cause these guys (and girl) are good musicians and a little bit of originality would have been good. This said, I must say I couldn’t help but tapping my feet while listening to it, so I guess this is the more important, don’t you think?

Fred “Virgil” Turgis

The Slammers Maximum Jive Band - Hey There You !!!!
The Slammers Maximum Jive Band – Hey There You !!!!

The Slammers Maximum Jive Band – Hey There You !!!!

Hey There You ! – Bim Bam – Choo Choo Ch’Boogie – Oh Marie – Straighten Up And Fly Right – Such A Night – Ain’t Nobody Here But Us Chicken – Shortnin’ Bread – Boogie Woogie Country Girl – Swanee River Boogie – Corrine, Corrina – What’d I Say – Bloodshot Eyes – Linda Lu – All Of Me
All right boys, grab your dancin’ shoes, push the furnitures on the wall, roll the rug, you’ll need a maximum of space cause this guys (and girls) are here to make you dance. Captured live on the stage of the Warrington Blues Festival in 2007, this cd shows the Slammers Maximum Jive Band at their best: full of energy, excitement and with a communicative “joie de vivre”. You can hear from every note they’re happy to be here (and the listener regrets he wasn’t there to see them that day), and I think this is the key of the success of such a recording.
There’s no radical departure from their studio album, but as I said, the live recording really advantages them. The powerful rhythm section supports the solists who trade solos. All of them are great players, but I’d like to make a special mention to Claire Hamlin whose talent shines on her rendition of Swanee River Boogie and Ray Charles’ What’d I say. Add James Gray warmful vocal and you’ll have every ingredients for a great band. The show starts with Freddie Bell’s Hey There You, and you’re off for 49 minutes and 15 songs of jumpin’ jivin’ rhythm blues, with a touch of rockabilly here and there, that won’t let you a second to catch your breath. I’ll look forward the next one.

Fred “Virgil” Turgis

Jeff Potter – Great Big Beat

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Jeff Potter - Great Big Beat
Jeff Potter – Great Big Beat

El Toro Records – ETCD 8010
She’s Got A Great Big Beat – All Right With Me – When The Moon Comes Up – Golden Roll – I Can’t Believe – She’s So Explosive – Time On My Hands – Somebody Loves You – High Octane – Kinda Lovin’Man – Let’s Go To The Moon – Modern Busy World – Get Some Rest – Some Of The Time – The Romp

Jeff Potter (who plays piano, guitar, drums, organ) with the help of a cast of fine musicians (including Betsy-Dawn Williams and guitarist extraordinaire Graham Tichy) offers here a very good self penned album full of piano led rock’n’roll (“High Octane”, “She’s Got A Great Big Beat”), doo wop (“She’s So Explosive” with excellent bass vocal from Tichy),ballad (“I Can’t Believe”, “It’s A Busy World”) and a couple of instrumental thrown in for good measure “Golden Roll” (a tune with a strong Bill Dogget’s Honky Tonk feel on which Potter plays organ) and the rockin’ (with a 60’s vibe) “the Romp”. You can hear the influences of Jerry Lee Lewis (of course), Fats Domino, Buddy Holly (on “Some Of The Time”) and more modern bands like The Blasters. Truly a great rock’n’roll album.

Fred “Virgil” Turgis

The Number 9 Blacktops – Cool On My Right

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number-9-blacktopsPart-Cd 6108.001

Steel Belted Radicals – Kentucky – Berlin – Big Rig – Monster Truck Takeover – Frankfort Avenue – Queen Of Hearts – Rock ‘N’N Roll Band – Come On Already – Out Of Sin – Boomland

Produced by Supersuckers frontman Eddie Spaghetti and with a bass player proudly sporting a Motorhead t-shirt, don’t expect the Number 9 Blacktops to play doo-wop.
This is raunchy and straight-in-your-face rock’n’roll with big guitar (Skinny Jim their singer-guitarist is endorsed by Gretsch), warm and round bass (electric, that is) and hammer-pounding drums. Imagine a hard hitting rockabilly band ingested, digested and regurgitated by ZZ Top, add a dash of surf (there’s a couple of instrumentals), a bit of early Reverend Horton Heat and a solid dose of country-punk ala Jason and the Scorchers and you’ll get a close idea of the sound of this album. And the whole thing is rounded in less than 30 minutes. Yes, this is Rock’n’roll! Highly recommended though clearly not for the purists.

Fred “Virgil” Turgis

Nervous Breakdown – Dirty Beats

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Nervous Breakdown - Dirty Beats
Nervous Breakdown – Dirty Beats

PART CD 688.001
Nervous Breakdown Bash ~ You Bring Me Down ~ Do The Bop ~ Wild And Bad ~ Bad Side Of The Blues ~ Treat Me Like A Man ~ Dirty Beats ~ Rock ‘n’ Roll Queen ~ Baby You’re Mine ~ It’s Alright ~ Leave Me Alone ~ Bird Doggin ~ It Must Be Hell ~ Supersonica (instr.) ~ Where Have You Been?

This German quartet (guitar – double bass – drums – sax) plays modern rockabilly and rock’n’roll at a frenzied beat that sometimes borders on old school psychobilly (when the “billy” was still present). The saxophone brings a very personal touch and gives them a sound of their own, but if I had to make a comparison, I’d say they could be the little brothers of Hot Boogie Chillun. You’ll also hear some Sonics influences too.
Formed in 2005 they’ve waited 5 years to release their debut album and it shows. They are very well rehearsed and tight. You can hear that a special attention has been put into the arrangements and the sound is powerful, far from your usual “let’s release a record 2 months after we got together…” one often finds.
The other positive point is that 12 of the songs are very well crafted originals.
Nervous Breakdown take every good aspect of 80’s neo-rockabilly and take them into the 21st century for a sound that owes nothing to the past. A band to follow.

Fred “Virgil” Turgis

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