"El Primitivo American Rock'n'Roll And Rockabilly" VA 1993

Sometime, around 1958, a record by a character called Bill Parsons came out on the Fraternity label. it was really recorded by Bobby Bare but that's a whole other story......The title was 'All American Boy' and basically said it all. The first lines were" You get a guitar and you put it in tune / You'll be rockin' and rollin' soon / Riding around in a Cadillac / Fightin' the girls offa your back". These words were a call to glory heeded by young men across the globe with Sears guitars, cheap 15 watt amplifiers and a drummer with a van. They hastened to cut-price, two-track recording studios with dreams of Elvis Presley glory and some deeply strange misconceptions of what constituted a hit rock'n'roll record.
Part of the problem was that the great ones made it all sound so goddamned easy. Elvis's vocal power might have been intimidating, but the likes of Buddy Holly, Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran brought such a deceptive simplicity to their work that it was possible for thousands of kids with sideburns, burning ambition and no talent to convince themselves that they could do it too.
EL PRIMITIVO is a collection of some of the ones who tried it in Nashville, Tennessee, between about 1956 and 1964. With baritone slurs stolen from Elvis and hiccups looted from Buddy Holly, they came to town and did their worst. Mel Robbins on 'Save It' thought he could borrow the teen-in-heat panting from Gene Vincent's classic 'Woman In Love'. Herbie Smith attempted a really bad Elvis and Chuck Howard seemed to believe he could create a fusion of the Coasters and Eddie Cochran on 'Out Of Gas' but wound up with a manic piece of hybrid pop chaos. The Embers' juvenile delinquent vocals on 'I Walked All Night' (my particular favourite) might have made them the Stooges' uncles if only the fuzz box had been invented to drown out the backing vocals.
With the exception of Mel Robbins, who became a respected session pianist, none of these guys found fame or fortune. Most probably went home and bored the shit out of every bartender and cocktail waitress they met for the next 25 years with stories about how they almost made it in rock'n'roll. What they did have is the vital core of rock'n'roll, absolutely impossible to synthesise, sample or repLace. - Mick Farren, 1993

trax:
1. Save It - Mel Robbins 2. Oh Yeah - Wally Jeffrey 3. I Wanna Dance All Night - Chuck Wiley 4. It's Love - Chuck Wiley 5. Bandstand - Cliff Nash and the Rockaways 6. Times Is Tough - Chuck Wiley 7. Are You With Me - Mel Robbins 8. I Wanna Shake It - Curtis Hobock 9. The Thump - The Embers 10. I Love You Dearly - Jimmy Hurt and the Del Rios 11. Baby Moon - Herbie Smith 12. Best Dressed Beggar In Town - Houston Turner and the Dixielanders 13. Door To Door - Chuck Wiley 14. Uh Oh - The Imps 15. I Walked All Night - The Embers 16. Explosion - Cliff Nash 17. Out Of Gas - Chuck Howard 18. Tell Me Baby - Cliff Nash and the Rockaways 19. Why Worry About Me - Chuck Wiley 20. Bandstand (alt version) - Cliff Nash and the Rockaways 21. That'll Get It - The Imps 22. No Time For Sister - Cliff Nash 23. I Love You So Much - Chuck Wiley 24. Jenny Lou - Cliff Nash