Rip Carson – Savage American Rock/Stand Back
Savage American Rock
PART-CD 682.001 – Part Records [2009]
Don’t Hold My Baby – Full Of Sin – So Long – Come On Back – Green In My Pocket – All Alone & Blue – 2 Timin’ Woman – You Can Find Another Man – Gamble My Life Away – Keep Your Pain – I Gotta Rock – Down That Line – Get It Through To You – I’m Gonna Drink – Tornado Love – Whiskey ‘n Water
Stand Back
PART-CD 682.002 – Part Records [2009]
Little Red Hen – Heart Attack – Can’t Comfort Her – After School Rock – Saw Ya Walkin’ – La La Love Me – Another Bridge To Burn – Stand Back – Rock Me Right – End Of The Tracks – Stay For Me – Holler Little Baby – Don’t Leave Me – Voodoo Woman
Part Records reissue Rip’s first two albums previously released on Rockin’ Ronnie Weiser’s Rollin’ Rock and now long out of print.
Savage American Rock is Rip debut album. One can hear the influence of rockabilly masters like Johnny Burnette or Gene Vincent wildest sides. The band is excellent especially Danny Angulo’s lead guitar. Of course you’ll find some minor flaws inherent to many debut album. Rip’s voice lacks of confidence (even though he’s never clearly out of tune) and the songwriting is not totally original. Though every songs are credited to Carson or Carson/Angulo the careful listener will find resemblances between Full Of Sin and Carl Perkins’ Matchbox, All Alone & Blue and Tex Rubinowitz’s No Club Lone Wolf and You Can Find Another Man and Bob Dylan’s Dont Think Twice.
Those little reserve apart, it’s a good album.
Stand Back goes further on the wild side as prove the first two tracks, all in savage guitars, screams and hoarse voice. But it also shows a more melodic side of the man with tunes like Can’t Comfort Her, Saw Ya Walkin’, Another Bridge To Burn, Stay For Me. A style he’ll explore more thoroughly with his album “My Simple Life”.
A good album, more consistent than Savage American Rock that gives you the best of both world.
Rip Carson – My Simple Life
Golly Gee Records GGR
The Hate Inside Of Me – All I Ask – Sinking Down – Miss Heartbreak – My Simple Life – Let Me Be -The One I Want – I’ll Tell You – That Aint Enough – Stuttering Cindy – Poor Me- Keep Moving -Happy Heart – I’m Not Free
“My Simple Life”, is Rip best (and last) album to date and probably one of the best rockabilly records this genre has given us in recent years. The musicians are no strangers to rockabilly fans:veteran Paul Diffin (The Blue Cats, Sugar Ray Ford, Big Six, Marshall & The Shooting Stars) on bass and recording, Joel Morin (Dawn Shipley, Pep Torres) on guitar and Michael Faughnan (Lustre Kings) on drums. The mid tempo The Hate Inside Of Me starts the album and you know you’re not just listening to “another good record”.
I won’t go into a song by song review but you’ll find here great rockabilly tunes like Sinkin’ Down, That Ain’t Enough (two collaborations with Rip’s partner in crime: Ryan Sagat), Poor Me and I’m Not Free (with handclaps), a beautiful ballad that sounds like Sam Cooke meets Don Gibson (All I Ask) and two well chosen covers that suit perfectly Rip’s voice : Jackie Lee Cochran’ Miss Heartbreak and Charlie Feathers’ Stutterin’ Cindy. So, the result is quite simple: great musicians with great songwriting and great production work. Take a listen just to hear the instruments separately and you’ll see what I mean. What you have here is a piece of classic rockabilly. An album as important as Big Sandy’s On The Go, High Noon’s Show & Dance and maybe even Gene Vincent’s second album. You couldn’t say I didn’t warn you.
Fred “Virgil” Turgis