Vol.47 – That’ll Flat Git It! Rockabilly & Rock ‘n’ Roll From The Vaults Of Starday Records
Bear Family – BCD17671
Have You Seen Mabel – Rocky Bill Ford / Sneaky Pete – Sonny Fisher / You’re Gone – Rudy Grayzell / I Ain’t Gonna Take It – Sleepy LaBeef / Hole In The Wall – Amos Como and His Tune Toppers / Don’t Sweap That Dirt On Me – Buddy Shaw / King Of The Ducktail Cats – Larry Nolen and His Bandits / Ice Water – Glenn Barber / How Come It – Thumper Jones / Find A New Woman – Arnold Parker & The Southernaires / My Heart Gets Lonely – Edie Skelton / That Aint It – Rock Rogers / Honky Tonk Stomp – Hal Payne / Rock And Roll (Tennessee Style) – Lou Walker / Teenage Cutie – Lucky Wray with Link and Doug Wray / It’s Saturday Night – Bill Mack / Down In The Hollow – Bill Browning / Tu-La-Lou – Slim Watts / Doggone Dame – Truitt Forse / Sixteen Chicks – Link Davis / Lie To Me Baby – Johnny Tyler / My Blackbirds Are Bluebirds Now – The Davis Twins with Sleepy Jeffers / Sweet Talking Daddy – Cousin Arnold & His Country Cousins / Woman Love – Jimmy Johnson / Little Red Wagon – Sonny Fisher / Don’t Big Shot Me – Link Davis / Ducktail – Rudy ‘Tutti’ Grayzell / Feling No Pain – Glenn Barber / Half My Fault – Lloyd McCollough / Baby Please Come Home – Al Runyon / Kitty Kat – Bill Mack / Wanderlust – Tommy Castle / I’m Through – Sleepy LaBeff
Vol.48 – That’ll Flat Git It! Rockabilly & Rock ‘n’ Roll From The Vaults Of Starday Records
Bear Family – BCD17715
Trucker From Tennessee – Link Davis / Fat Woman – Bill Mack / Little Rock Rock – Rock Rogers / Shadow My Baby – Glenn Barber / Don’t Be Gone Long – Bob Doss / Rockin’ Daddy – Sonny Fisher / Want To Be With You – Cliff Blakely / Let’s Get Wild – Rudy ‘Tutti’ Grayzell / Mad Dog In Town – Rocky Bill Ford / Blues Around My Door – Cecil Bowman and The Arrows / Chicken Bop – Truitt Forse / Rock It – Thumper Jones / True Blue – Frankie Miller / Sugar Buggar – Fuzzy Whitener with Jerry Dykes and his Band / I Don’t Want A Sweetheart – The Raindrops / Pink And Black – Sonny Fisher / You Gotta Pay – Benny Barnes / Little Bitty Man – Lou Walker / Grasshopper Rock – Link Davis / Jitterbop Baby – Hal Harris / Pretending Is A Game – The Davis Twins with Sleepy Jeffers / Uranium Fever – Rudy Gaddis / All because Of You – Rocking Martin / Rock Candy Rock – Fred Crawford / Cat Just Got Back In Town – Bill Mack / Sometimes – Utah Carl / Sweet Sweet Love – Leon Payne / All Alone – Sleepy LaBeff / I Can’t Loose – Sonny Fisher / A Real Cool Cat – Sonny Burns / I’ve Done More Accidentially – Tommy Castle / Hey Doll Baby – Ray & Lindy / You Get A Thrill – Phil Sullivan / Go Away (And Leave Me) – Jack Kingston
Considering the hot Rockabilly legacy of the label, I was surprised to find out that Bear Family never released a volume dedicated to Starday Records in their ongoing series “That’ll Flat Git It”. This is now done with not one but two volumes (47 and 48) for a total of 67 tracks. Unless you’re an avid single hunter, you won’t find a better collection on the market, knowing that each volume also contains a huge and detailed booklet.
The label avoids monotony by placing tracks from a same artist on both records, meaning you don’t have the “big” names on one volume and the more obscure artists on a second one.
Talking about the best-known artists, let’s start with them to examine what we find in these two compilations.
George Jones found fame and fortune (and booze) in the country music field. But he recorded a Rockabilly single under the name of Thumper Jones. These tracks (How Come It and Rock It) are two of the best Rockabilly tracks ever put on wax. On How Come It, Jones’ vocal is totally freewheeling, and Hal Harris’s scorching guitar is on par. Rock It opens with the same kind of acoustic guitar strum than That’s Allright. Then, all of a sudden, Jones explodes into a frantic and manic performance while Harris’s guitar wraps the whole thing off.
Another artist who had a bunch of Country hits is Frankie Miller. You can find most of his recordings on Sugar Coated Baby (BCD15909) and Blackland Farmer (BCD16566) a three-cd set that gathers his complete Starday recordings. True Blue is one of those little gems, a country shuffle with a hot twangy guitar courtesy of Glenn Barber.
If you had to define Rockabilly in all its rawness and wildest glory, there’s a chance that the name of Rudy “Tutti” Grayzell would come on the table. You’re Gone and Ducktail are two superb pieces of primitive Rockabilly whereas Let’s Get Wild is completely crazy, mixing wild rockabilly, doo-wop backing, and Rudy’s over-the-top vocals to top it all. Rockabilly madness at its finest.
Larry Nolen also seemed to be proud of his ducktail. With his band, the Bandits, he recorded King of the Ducktail Cats, a song that proves, with its steel guitar solo, that even when these cats recorded Rockabilly, their hillbilly and western swing roots weren’t very far. The same can be said about Find A New Woman by Arnold Parker & The Southernaires.
Link Davis also had strong Western swing roots having played with Cliff Bruner and his Texas Wanderers and the Crystal Spring Ramblers. He easily adapted to the new Rock’n’Roll trend as proven by the sides he recorded for Starday with Herb Remington on steel, another Western swing transfuge. With the combination of steel and sax, Sixteen Chicks, co-written with Wayne Walker, reminds me of Bill Haley’s Saddlemen. Don’t Big Shot Me is in the same vein, sounding like Western swing on steroids (which could be another definition of Rock’n’roll). Grasshopper Rock is also a superb Rock’n’Roll with a groovy saxophone part from Link, while Trucker from Tennessee (a reference to Elvis) is wilder and more frantic. It features a short albeit crazy sax solo and a superb guitar part courtesy of Hal Harris. Worth noticing is the piano that seems to have a life of its own playing an altogether different tune.
Davis (and Harris too) also appear on Glenn Barber’s Starday 45-249. Shadow My Baby and Feeling No Pain, are two of the greatest Rock’n’Roll ever made. Imagine a deranged version of Bill Haley and his Comets, and you wouldn’t be far from the result. Ice Water, Barber’s other tune is equally great with a hot steel guitar solo, falling somewhere between hillbilly bop and proto-Rockabilly.
Sonny Fisher’s brand of Rockabilly keeps things essential: frenzied and mean vocals, scorching guitar, thumping bass, and primitive drums. With only eight sides (five are included here), Fisher’s recording legacy is rather small but that’s more than enough to consider him as one of the geniuses of the genre.
Much less known than Sonny Fisher, Al Runyon offers Baby Please, a Rockabilly that is just as wild and urgent.
If you dig powerful slap bass, Ain’t Gonna Take It by Sleepy LaBeff (as his name was spelled then) is for you. It’s a mean and threatening piece of Rockabilly akin to Long Blonde Hair. The man often cited Sister Rosetta Tharpe as one of his main influences, but both on the melodic All Alone and I’m Through, one can hear the influence of Johnny Cash (as well as echoes of That’s All Right on I’m Though). However, this influence does not overwhelm the singer’s imposing personality.
Around the same time, LaBeef recorded Johnny Cash tunes for the Dixie label (see Sleepy LaBeef Rocks – BCD15981).
Lucky Wray was Vernon Wray’s alias. Teenage Cutie recorded with his brothers Link and Doug is a fine mid-tempo supported by Link’s excellent Duane Eddy-tinged guitar.
This is for the most well-known name. But those two compilations are loaded with more obscure and lesser-known artists.
Hal Harris’ guitar is featured on many of the rocking sides released by Starday. Jitterbop Baby finds him behind the microphone and he is a more than capable singer. With hiccupy vocals, powerful slap bass, and his guitar to the front, the song had everything to become an instant classic, so why Starday never released it, remains a mystery to me. The song finally got the credit it deserved when it was finally released in the 70s, generating a huge amount of cover versions.
Harris’ magic guitar is also heavily present in Bob Doss’ Don’t Be Long Gone, which he also co-wrote, contributing two hot solos. The song is a superb example of stripped-down Rockabilly with heavy slap bass.
That Ain’t It and Little Rock Rock are two crazy pieces of Rockabilly with wild vocals. It’s no wonder that Leon Payne, an established country and western songwriter (he wrote Lost Highway which Hank Williams recorded) decided to hide under the moniker of Rock Rogers. Released under his real name, Sweet Sweet Love is mellower, reminiscent of Johnny Horton, with a full country and western band (fiddle, steel, honky tonk piano, and the omnipresent Hal Harris doing a fine picking part) to back him.
Talking about Hank Williams, it seems that Ruddy Gaddis admired him a lot. His Uranium Fever borrows heavily (not to say copy) the melody of Kaw-Liga. Also lacking inspiration, Ray and Lindy modeled their cover of Hey Doll Baby on the Everly Brothers version of the song, making it useless. Slightly more interesting is Phil Sullivan, although You Get A Thrill seems to be inspired by Johnny Cash’s Ballad Of A Teenage Queen, not the best song to copy to write a good one, if you ask me.
Hal Payne only recorded one single for Starday (and I don’t believe he ever recorded anything more). His self-penned Honky Tonk Stomp is a very loose piano led Rock’n’Roll with saxophone and a sizzling hot guitar solo, borrowing, for the bridge, arrangements, in a rough version, to Lester Young’s Jumpin’ With Symphony Sid.
After a stint with Imperial (see That’ll Flat Git It vol. 12), Bill Mack moved to Starday. His first single for the label was a fantastic Rockabilly double-sider with Kitty Kat on side A backed with Fat Woman. The best was yet to come with Cats Just Got Back In Town. With its aggressive vocals and wild guitar, the song sounds halfway between Carl Perkins and Junior Thompson. It’s Saturday Night is equally good but more in the Hillbilly Bop vein, with steel guitar and fiddle.
Fred Crawford’s Rock Candy Rock is another excellent Rockabilly similar to the Meteor label.
I first became aware of Cliff Blakely through Big Sandy’s cover of High Steppin’ which is the B-side of Want to Be You, a boogie-woogie-laden rocker with Cliff’s sister, Dorothy pounding the piano.
With Rocky Bill Ford, we delve into weird territories. Have You Seen Mabel is completely wild, trying to assemble things that don’t necessarily work together. But somehow, it works. Mad Dog In Town sounds like a Hank Williams tune, modeled to follow the Rock’n’roll craze with relentless drums, moaning steel guitar, and a heavy horn section. Almost as surprising is Fuzzy Whitener with Jerry Dykes band. Although he sports a cowboy hat and western tie, with his raunchy black vocals, scorching sax, and boogie-woogie piano, he’s probably one of the closest things to Rhythm’n’Blues released on Starday. In a similar vein, we find Hole In The Wall, by Amos Como and His Tune Toppers. It’s certainly a little wobbly and feels like the pace fluctuates, but the energy and enthusiasm are definitely there.
On the other side of the music spectrum, you find the Davis Twins & Sleepy Jeffers. Jeffers takes the lead on the dispensable My Blackbirds are Bluebirds Now. More interesting is Pretending Is A Game led by the vocal harmonies of the twins which adds a touch of Elvis’ That’s All Right for great results.
All Because of You by Rocking Martin is a swinging Rockabilly with sparkling jazz guitar and piano parts.
Excellent to say the least.
Both Rock’n’Roll Tennessee Style and Little Bitty Man are bouncing Rock’n’Roll with sax, piano, and guitar akin to Bill Haley and the Saddlemen/early Comets.
There’s not much to say about the Raindrops. The band is good but drowned amidst the high quality of the other releases, they seem rather tame. The same can be said about Benny Barnes’ mellow rocker. Also on the mellow side, but more interesting is Utah Carl, whose smooth vocals almost contradict the backing band and its sizzling guitar.
Wanderlust by Tommy Castle is a haunting and eerie Hillbilly (think Ramblin’ Man, but weirder) backed with I’ve Done More Accidentally, a hillbilly bopper that mimics some of the Rock’n’Roll gimmicks of the time, notably the guitar trying to sound like Joey Ambrose’s saxophone.
Buddy Shaw recorded three singles for Starday. Don’t Sweap That Dirt On Me is a superb tune on the thin line between hillbilly bop and Rockabilly. In a similar vein, Jack Lingston recorded Go Away (And Leave Me) a muscled Hillbilly with harmony vocals and Honky Tonk piano.
Supported by a galloping brushed snare and with blazing steel guitar and guitar solos, Cecil Bowman and The Arrows run through Blues Around My Door, a hillbilly tune tinged with western swing effortlessly. Cousin Arnolf and his Country Cousins’ Sweet Talking Daddy also features a brushed snare, almost swingin’ in that case, but when you think that the tune will evolve into a hillbilly bop/rockabilly tune comes an odd bluegrass banjo that seems a tad out of place.
There is a rushed and improvised side that seduces when listening to Truit Force. Doggone Dame is a mean blues number while Chicken Bop is an uptempo number on which each member of the group seems to give free rein to their imagination.
Johnny Tyler’s Lie To Me offers a very interesting combination between Tyler’s smooth country vocals and the mean blues instrumentation of the song.
Bill Browning’s Down the Holler is firmly anchored in the hillbilly idiom, sounding like a cross between Homer & Jethro with a dash of Bluegrass.
Lloyd McCollough seemed to have itchy feet when it came to settling with one label. After Von, Ekko, and Republic, he called Starday his home the time to cut one single before moving to Sharp (and quite a few after that). Half My Fault isn’t particularly remarkable but the vocals are.
Slim Watts recorded three singles for 4 Stars, before recording Tu-La-Lou a pop rocker for Starday.
Let’s finish this long overview with Woman Love by Jimmy Johnson. Written by Jack Rhodes, this tune, which appears here in a very rudimentary and primitive version, will become a torrid jewel in the expert hands of Gene Vincent and his Blue Caps. The Screaming Kids fans who don’t know this original version (rather a demo) will jump on it to compare the versions.
Bear Family really has to be congratulated for the selection, because out of the 67 tracks, there are really very few that could be removed (I would say five, at most, and even then…). Even when the tracks are of lower quality, they always remain interesting, surprising, or have exciting instrumental parts.
Fred “Virgil” Turgis
That’ll Flat Git It – Vol. 33 – Rockabilly And Rock’ n’ Roll From The Vaults Of Renown & Hornet Records
Bear Family Records – BCD 17589 [2020]
Betcha’ Didn’t Know Wayne Handy – I Want Everything My Baby’s Got Jim Thornton – Buzz Me On The Telephone Irving Fuller & The Chorvettes – That Other Woman Buck Tickle – Somethin’ Special Don Duncan – Stop Walking All Over Me Harold Pope – Bad Boy Steve France with The Hornets – Say Yeah Wayne Handy – Silly Dilly Don Ray with The Hornets – Upturn Eddie Smith with The Hornets – Cold North Wind Lonnie Dee – Who Put The Pep In The Punch Joe Franklin & The Hi-Liters – The Pad Bobby Strigo with The Blue Notes – Do You Ever Think Of Me Clyde Moody – The Day I Die Daryl Petty – I’m Going Home Hughie Owens with The Blue Notes – Problem Child Wayne Handy – Our Southern Way Of Living Jim Thornton – Tears Falling Down, Down, Down Harold Pope – Border Beat Eddie Smith with The Hornets – Dream Boy Steve France with The Hornets – Traveling Blues Dannie Maness – Making Fun Of Me Bobby Rose – True Blue Joe Franklin & The Hi-Liters – I’m Not Ashamed Lonnie Dee – I’ll Never Be The Same Wayne Handy – Baby Let Me Powder Your Nose Jim Thornton – Flaming Love Daryl Petty – Love Is A Flame Ken Willette with The Blue Notes – Hobo Bill Dannie Maness – Seminole Rock’n Roll Wayne Handy & The Melody Masters – Dance Me To Death The Hi-Liters – I Think You Oughta Look Again Wayne Handy – You Turn Me On Steve France & The Varatones – Repeto The Varatones
Launched by Bear Family many moons ago, this series chose the quality over the exhaustivity; thus, each album contains all killers and no fillers. By volume 27, they expanded the “Rockabilly from the vault of” subtitle to “Rockabilly and Rock’n’roll from the vault of.” And here we are, with the 33rd volume, dedicated to Renown and Hornet Records (the latter being a subsidiary label of the former) from North Carolina.
Wayne Hardy is the Renown artist who was the closest to have a hit with “Say Yeah.” Paradoxically, this is not the best of his six songs included here, but the guitar solo is worth the inclusion of the song. More interesting are songs the blues-oriented stuff like “I’ll Never Be the Same” or the Indian-tinged Seminole Rock’n’Roll.
By the time he recorded for Renown, Jim Thornton could be considered as a veteran. Nevertheless, his “I Want Everything My Baby’s Got” is a fantastic Rockabilly stomper, whereas his other two sides are more in a Hillbilly vein, though with some Rock’n’Roll in it for “Our Southern Way Of Living.”
Another veteran is Clyde Moody, who played with Bill Monroe in 1940. He revives the old 1920s standard “Do You Ever Think Of Me,” also covered by Jimmie Davis and turns it into a pop-rocker with sax, prominent bass, and galloping guitar.
Also on the rural side of the label is Dannie Maness. Both songs, a cover of Jimmie Rodgers and an original waltz in the style of the early Ernest Tubb, sound quite anachronistic here. Harold Pope seems slightly more modern. His two songs mix timeless hillbilly with a sixties sounding pedal steel for great effect.
In a more country-pop manner, Lonnie Dee contributes with two superb songs. “Cold North Wind” evokes the great Roy Orbison while “I’m Not Ashamed,” and its Spanish guitar leans more toward Marty Robbins.
Buck Thickle also shows some Orbisonian influences, but more from the Sun period, combined with a hot rocking saxophone. Also worth noting is the sharp guitar solo.
Don Duncan’s “Something Special” is really, well, special. The kind of weird Rockabilly that one can find on “Songs the Cramps Taught Us.”
Darryl Petty’s sixties rocker “The Day I Die” conveys the same kind of strange atmosphere. By comparison, his other tracks, a good, albeit classical, doo-wop, seems a bit tame.
Petty also played piano and occasionally sang with Joe Franklin and the Hi-Liters. “Who Put The Pep” could be just another rocker before a wild and frantic piano erupts and takes the song to a whole new level. The same piano can be found on “Dance Me To Death” that lives to its title.
Steve France is one of the most exciting artists in this collection. His “Dream Boy” has hints of Elvis’ Money Honey but with a severe dose of angst and gloom. “Bad Boy” is a threatening Rock’n’Roll with a mean guitar. He also recorded a single with the Varatones in a Surf vein. The B-side, “Repeto,” also included here, is an instrumental drenched with reverb and screaming saxophone.
That leads us to Eddie Smith, who recorded with the Hornets, one instrumental single. “Upturn” is a fast-paced number that kicks off with a similar intro than “Beat Out My Love” and then evolves into a half surf/half garage terrific tune. The flip, featuring a superb snare part, is a medium-paced instro that shows the influence of Link Wray.
The remaining tracks contain pop-rocker (Don Ray) Rhythm’ n’Blues with juicy sax in the style of Fats Domino (Hughie Owens with The Blue Notes) and, yes, even a song with a Cha-cha beat (Bobby Rose.)
Except if you don’t listen to anything beyond 1958, there’s plenty to discover and enjoy in this compilation.
Order it here.
