Rockabilly Recommendations
 

I've been getting shit-loads of compilations of old Rockabilly records recently (mostly on the Ace label). Utterly wonderful stuff and, while I realise that in its mid-50s heyday LPs weren't where a lot of the good stuff was to be found, can anyone recommend me a good album - or maybe other compilations that venture into different 'hillbilly' styles?

HASIL ADKINS-OUT TO HUNCH
ricky nelson
buddy holly
if you can find it somewhere somehow then israeli musician charlie magira made some great rockabilly records a few years ago.
early 60's kim fowley records

I have a fair bit of early Buddy Holly but saw that Amazon has the Hasil Adkins LP you mentioned. Thanks, I'll order it now.

chop tops are my fav that I've heard, though that's a bit more psychobilly...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...illy_musicians

Thanks for that, but christ, is that list just a run through of every recording artist from the last fifty years or what? I mean, Bruce Springsteen?

Yeah, but you can click on their names and see their info.

Yeah, I wasn't knocking it. It's been really useful. Thanks. And this description of Hasil Adkins has made my day already:

"Recurring themes in Adkins' work include love, heartbreak, "hunchin'", police, death, decapitation, commodity meat, aliens and chickens."

I mean seriously, while i'm not altogether sure what 'commodity meat' or 'hunchin' is, I defy anyone to come with a better selection of topics than that.

this thread reminded me of psychobilly band Nekromantix. Had to download their album Return of The Loving Dead. Thanks!

I'd say buy as many Ace compilations as possible. I can honestly say that as a fan of rockabilly for the last 30+ years, the very best stuff can be found on compilations. There are two particularly good albums: "The Best of Ace Rockabilly" and "Rarest Rockabilly & Hillbilly Boogie" which Ace released as a single CD.

Another worth getting is "Gene Vincent Cut Our Songs: Primitive Texas Rockabilly & Honky Tonk"* (does wot it says on the tin!).

As for single artists, you have to start with the queen of rockabilly, Wanda Jackson. You could get her first two albums (Wanda Jackson & Rockin' With Wanda) which contain a combination of rockabilly, country and pop, but the one to go with is "Queen of Rockabilly" (on Ace again!) which has all of her rockabilly stuff from the early years and is simply breathtaking. She had such an incredible voice, makes me go weak at the knees.

Then get "Bill Haley: From Western Swing to Rock". Some rockabilly snobs may turn up their noses, but this great 4 CD set documents Haley's move from hillbilly in the 1940s to rock 'n' roll in the fifties. The hillbilly stuff is great even if you're not a fan of his "pop r n r".

Also check out Wynonie Harris, a blues shouter from the 1940s who greatly influenced rock 'n' roll (Good Rockin' Tonight covered by Elvis some years later, and the incredibly un-PC Sittin' On It All The Time) and Louis Jordan for the same reason (Chuck Berry nicked the opening riff for Johnny B Goode from Jordan).

*And while you're at it, the first two Gene Vincent and the Bluecaps albums are well worth getting.

Isn't the problem with whole albums that people in the 50s didn't really put out whole albums? My understanding of the whole shebang is that LP meant classical and 'pop' meant 45 up until maybe Buddy Holly or somesuch.

Pretty much. That's why compilations are the way to go!

Even if it's single artist compilations.

Awesome, thanks. The Ace comps I've got so far are the Rarest Rockabilly/Best of Ace Rockabilly (which really is superb), Good Girls Gone Bad, and Texas Rockabilly. I think i'll order the Wanda Jackson comp next, but can honestly see myself getting all of them eventually.

Thanks again.

Another good reason to buy Ace records is that they pay all the artists whose tracks they use, even if the tracks are no longer under copyright.

It is amazing, when I look through my CDs, just how many of them are on Ace. Surely one of the great unsung labels.

I love Ace. I've mentioned them and their records on here a few times (rockabilly and otherwise). This is an interesting but too brief read:




And on the subject of rockabilly, Mark Lamarr's programme is back on Radio 2 in the Autumn. Whatever you think of him, his Shake Rattle & Roll show is fantastic. He also did a good series on hillbilly music a while ago.

And his Alternative Sixties show is currentyly running on Thursdays.

i love psychobilly.
the meteors
batmobile
the quakes
the creepshow
and of course, the ever influential cramps

i also like this rockabilly;
carl perkins and the perkins brothers band
the saddlemen
roy orbison (when he plays rockabilly style)
the ventures
the diversions

I never liked psychobilly. It was the rockabilly equivalent of ska punk.

The Saddlemen (I presume you mean Billy Haley's Saddlemen) were a hillbilly/country band. Excellent stuff mind.

I know it's sacrilege to say so, but I was never a huge fan of Carl Perkins.

And I'm not aware of any of Roy Orbison's rockabilly material.

ew ew ew
speaking of which
the fucking english beat just came on my itunes
i hate them. but it was part of a box set that has nothing to do with them.

if you're going for psychobilly...the cramps are the only ones i consider worth listening to. they just rule.

eddie cochran
and gene vincent
and i like elvis but if you're not into it okay.

Yes, I agree. While I was a teenage Cramps fan (I'm now a wrong side of 30s Cramps fan) I was often annoyed at the way in which they were often being associated with that scene. I could never stand bands like King Kurt, or The Meteors - who always struck me as being rather lumpen and graceless. I remember going to Klub Foot at the Clarendon and feeling totally antipathetical towards their silly quiffs and surf shorts. The only band vaguely associated with the Psychobilly scene that I had any real time for were The Stingrays. Later on I tried to get into The Reverend Horton Heat, but gave up almost immediately in response to his/their beery machismo. At that time I was far more interested in bands associated with the Camden label, as well as the wealth of semi official compilations - such as the Las Vegas Grind series (which didn't exactly specialise in Rockabilly, of course, but had more in common with my long-standing Cramps obsession than much else that was being released at the time).

It's a real shame that shops such as Rock On in Camden are no more. I fondly remember many a Sunday afternoon spent pawing over exotically titled LPs that seemed to have been beamed down from another universe, let alone era. Good times.

More recent attempts to emulate Rockabilly are invariably lacklustre - as the utterly woeful Heavy Trash demonstrate. Personally, I think only The Cramps and Pussy Galore have done anything remotely interesting with the genre (and The Cramps increasingly less so, the further they've drifted into the realms of pure parody.)

I'll definitely pick up that Ace book (in fact I just ordered it off of Amazon). And while i'm certainly no fan of Mark Lamaar in general, I'll be sure to catch his radio show once it returns.