"Gravy Train" Hillbilly Meets R&B Before Elvis 1946-1954

When Elvis Presley mixed black blues and R&B with white country in the mid-'50s, essentially bringing a new genre called rock & roll to the attention of the whole world in what was the pop equivalent of the Big Bang, few realized how long this little musical chemistry experiment had been fermenting. Presley had the looks, skill and charisma to make the kinetic hybrid of rock & roll reverberate in the public consciousness, but countless artists had been working this same territory since at least a decade earlier, as this extremely interesting collection makes clear. Songs like Billy Starr's startling and ramshackle version of "Hound Dog" falls wonderfully between Big Mama Thornton's original and Presley's sleek hit like the proverbial missing link, and there are countless other gems here, as well, like Hardrock Gunter and Roberta Lee's take on the Dominoes' "Sixty Minute Man," Zeb Turner's treatment of Peppermint Harris' "I Got Loaded," and Link Davis mowing through Roy Brown's "Good Rockin' Tonight" as "Have You Heard the News?" The joy and energy of new ground is obvious in every track, making Gravy Train more than a history lesson, and much more than a simple grafting together of stylistic genres. These hybrids rock, they swing, and they point the way to rock & roll in a manner that should have been as obvious as a train pulling into a station. A mystery train? Not if you had your ear to the ground. (Steve Leggett, Allmusic)trax:

1. Gravy Train - The York Brothers 2. Catch 'Em Young, Treat 'Em Rough, Tell 'Em Nothin' - Hank Penny 3. Rocket 88 - Bill Haley & The Saddlemen 4. Grandpa Stole My Baby - Moon Mullican 5. Have You Heard The News? - Link Davis 6. Sixty Minute Man - Hardrock Gunter & Roberta Lee 7. Chicken Blues - The York Brothers 8. Nosey Joe - Chuck Murphy 9. Well Oh Well - Moon Mullican 10. I Feel That Old Age Creepin' On - Homer & Jethro 11. Tremblin' - The York Brothers 12. Choo Choo Ch'Boogie - Kenny Roberts 13. Corrine Corrina - Merrill Moore 14. Red Light - T. Texas Tyler 15. I Got Loaded - Zeb Turner 16. Oh Babe! - Jack Hardy & The Ranch Boys 17. Boogie Woogie On A Saturday Night - Hardrock Gunter 18. I Don't Know - Tennessee Ernie Ford 19. Hound Dog - Billy Starr 20. Teardrops From My Eyes - Red Kirk 21. Who Drank My Beer (While I Was In The Rear)? - Tommy Duncan 22. For You My Love - Melvin Price & His Santa Fe Rangers 23. How Long (Must I Wait For You)? - Cotton Thompson 24. Outskirts Of Town - Tiny Colbert & His Entertainers 25. Fan It - Hank The Cowhand 26. Adam, Come and Get Your Rib - Wayne Raney 27. Rock The Joint - Bill Haley & The Saddlemen

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