Last Train From Memphis CD

LAST TRAIN FROM MEMPHIS - Last Train From Memphis
Foot Tapping FT094

Track listing: CRAZY LITTLE MAMA / I'M COUNTING ON YOU / LAST TRAIN FROM MEMPHIS / IF YOU WANT IT ENOUGH / YOU KNOCKED ME OUT / PROMISE ME DARLING / KISS ME / LOVE MY BABY / SAY YOU'LL BE MINE / TENNESSEE ROCK 'N' ROLL / A LITTLE BIT OF LOVE / I GET THE BLUES / THE STRUGGLE / OVER YOU / FAY WRAY

Last Train From Memphis are a newly band who individually have been mainstays on the European rockabilly scene. They comprise Rob Chapman on vocals, Paul Gaskin on guitar, Thomas LaVelle on piano, Wayne Hopkins on bass and Rob Tyler on drums and between them their CV’s include The Houserockers, Blue Moon Boys, The Playboys, Dave Phillips & The Hot Rod Gang, Restless, The Outer Limits and others.

What I love about this band is the full blown nature of their sound. Like the very best of the Sun artists that obviously influenced them, they’re more than just a slapping trio, with a rolling piano underpinning the songs and giving them an extra dimension. The other stand out aspects of this band for me, are Gaskin’s guitar and Chapman’s voice, which has a real Hayden Thomspn quality to it.

Chapman wrote ten of the tracks here, including the sensational opener. Crazy Little Mama is one of the best Sun styled modern songs I’ve heard with great guitar and vocals. You Knocked Me Out is another fine tribute to the 706 sound. The Struggle shows the bands versatility and reminded me of Carlos and the Bandidos with it’s Mexican feel and guitar sound that Malcolm Chapman would be proud of.

Say You’ll Be Mine is a superb powerhouse piano rocker and one of the albums high spots. I really enjoyed the slower, Promise Me Darling which sounded like early Charlie Rich. Fay Wray, Last Train From Memphis and A Little Bit Of Love and the jazzy ballad I Get The Blues are all okay without being world beaters.

Of the covers, Johnny Burnette’s If You Want It Enough and Bobby Helms’ overrated Tennessee Rock ‘n’ Roll stick faithfully to the originals and Al Ferrier’s Kiss Me is a fine choice. LaVelle’s piano puts a pep in the step of Elvis’ I’m Counting On You which Chapman again handles really well. Best of the lot though is Love Me Baby which fits the band to a tee and Chapman pays a brilliant tribute to Hayden Thompson. It’s uncanny how much he sounds like him – its as if the Boonesville Flash has found a time machine.

So all in all, a great debut release that should be helped later in the year when the band start touring. To me their sound is sort of a mix between the Kingcats and Jack Rabbit Slim. I look forward to hearing more from them in the years to come.

JERRY KING & THE RIVERTOWN RAMBLERS - OCALA BABY

JERRY KING & THE RIVERTOWN RAMBLERS - OCALA BABY
EL TORO RECORDS ETCD 4096

Ocala Baby is the latest release for Cincinnati quartet, Jerry King and the Rivertown Ramblers, on the great El Toro label. The band consist of King on lead vocals and rhythm guitar, Jason Roeper on lead guitar, "Jumpin" Jeremiah Brockman on double bass and "Swingin'" Dave Johnson on drums.

For anyone who’s never heard them before, they are a rock ‘n’ roll band with a less frenetic sound than most bands go for. These intersperse their rockers with a fair number of ballads and mid tempo numbers with backing vocals. If you had to compare them with any 50’s act I’d probably place them in the Ral Donner category. The youTube clip at the bottom features a great song of theirs from a few years ago and will give you the flavour of their sound.

Throughout their career they’ve tended to write their won material and on this latest they’ve written all fifteen numbers. There’s not a bad song amongst them, which is an amazing feat when you consider that this diverse album sees them sing rockaballads, piano led rock ’n’ roll, some straight ahead rockabilly and even a couple of country influenced tracks.

Guest Christopher Girton helps get the album off to a great start with some pumping piano. The best of the genuine rockabilly numbers is Epilepsy Betty. Do You Mind is a lovely ballad that shows King’s vocals to great effect and again sounds like Hayden Thompson and competes with I Can’t Do this Anymore for best ballad. Tell Me That You Love Me is a Johnny Cash Sun era styled slowie, while Will I Ever Love Again and I Apologise are pure Ral Donner.

Her Whispers is a neat song that’s hard to categorise, so why bother! Just put it in the “bloody good” box. My favourite track at the moment is Kisses Of Fire, which has the western sound that Mack Stevens excels at – in fact, this number sounds like Hayden Thompson being backed by the Mack Stevens band.

Great band, great album, great label. Nuff said.

Behind the scenes with Hayden Thompson at Hemsby

Shaun and I were invited along with Rod Pyke, to attend a final rehearsal by Hayden Thompson at Hemsby around 10 years ago, we chatted for ages before he sat at the piano and regaled us with impressions of JLL and Charlie Rich (an awesome On My Knees and a stunning Midnite Blues), had great stories such as being with JLL when he cut GBOF and that JLL gave him his red waistcoat that Hayden had admired, he sang several requests (songs that he didn't have time to do on stage at Hemsby such as his brill Boy From Tupelo) and did hilarious take offs of Elvis and especially Johnny Cash.

He stayed chatting for ages and even posed for pics with all of us having upturned collars and a sneer. This couple of hours was probably the most enjoyable Hemsby experience of all for me personally, a charming and gracious man, very like Carl Perkins.

Hayden is still a high class act on stage and on record, he's cut some great rockabilly and country cds in the last few years and apparently another rab cd with the great Barnshakers is in the pipeline. Here`s a great clip of Hayden doing Midnite Blues recently in Finland,superb backing which augurs well for the new CD.

Flip.

Various: Good Rockin' Tonight - Red Hot Rockabilly
Fantastic Voyage - B002BANBV2

I’ve just been sent a review copy of the latest in a long line of rockabilly box sets and have to say it one of the finest compilations you could dream up. Compiled by renowned rockabilly Lucky Parker, 'Good Rockin Tonight-Red Hot Rockabilly' is a 3CD 75 track set including much sought after tracks from the likes of Sun, Decca, Capitol, Columbia, Mercury, RCA and Brunswick labels.

Fantastic Voyage was launched this February, a subsidiary of Future Noise Music which itself only came into being in January. The labels will feature releases of r&b, soul, blues, jazz and rock 'n' roll to punk, electronica and rock. A new imprint, Year Zero will be launched in September, dealing with the punk era onwards.
As I said, there’s been no end of rockabilly compilations taking advantage of the 50 year copyright ruling, but Good Rockin' Tonight - Red Hot Rockabilly, is one of the best. We get the full variety of the genre from the uptempo hillbilly side to the flat-out high-octane rockabilly blasters. They all come from the prime-time period of rockabilly, 1954 to 1958.

From the country side of things we get such classics as Ferlin Huskey’s Slow Down Brother, Webb Pierce’s Teenage Boogie, the Farmers Boys’ Cool Down Mame and Brenda Lee’s Little Jonah. From the dance-floor stomping market we get such shot-in-the-arm rockers as Ray Harris’ Come On Little Mama and Jack Earls’ Slow Down. There’s a whole slew of tracks that have gone on to become classics in the last few decades – Cast Iron Arm, Sixteen Chicks, Bop-A-Lena, and one of my all-time favourites, Love Bug Crawl b Jimmy Edwards (uuumm, what a thrill).

Sun records always looms large on compilations like this and here we get to bop to Warren Smith’s Miss Froggie, Sonny Burgess’ We Wanna Boogie and Hayden Thompson’s Love My Baby and a dozen or so other essentials.


Towards the end of the second CD you get two examples of backing vocals – they’re fine on the late-great Janis Martin’s Alright Baby but spoil Bob Luman’s Red Cadillac and a Black Moustache (the undubbed version would have fit the bill much better).

My two heroes, Jerry Lee and Elvis are well represented with not a dud between them. In actual fact there’s only one dud here, Billy Lee Riley’s over-rated Baby Please Don’t Go. I adore Billy and am saddened to here of his continued illness, but this song isn’t in the same league as the likes of Trouble Bound, Pearly Lee and countless others.

This is a must have item for new fans and for established rockers it’s a great collection to leave in the car to brighten up any journey. 74 classics out of 75 is a five star release in anyone’s book. Released this week, file under Essential.

Hayden Thompson is back in the studio

I've just has an email from Mika Myyryläinen of Sony Music Finland regarding my review of Hayden Thompson’s recent country CD. Mika said that he “just wanted to let you know Hayden will visit Finland to record a follow up to his first CD on Bluelight label.” As good as Hayden’s voice is at country music, it was warming for the rockers among us to when he added, “The musicians will be the same bunch as on the country CD, but this time the songs to be recorded will be more or less rockabilly.”

At this time the release date has not been set yet, but it will most likely it will be spring 2010. Good news, because Hayden Thompson is one performer who has not lost a voice and sounds as great today as he did fifty years ago.

Jerry Lee Lewis - The Road Begins

Jerry Lee Lewis - The Road Begins
El Toro Records- ETCD1022

1 End of the Road
2 Crazy Arms
3 Born To Lose
4 Turn Around
5 Matchbox (Carl Perkins)
6 Your True Love (Carl Perkins)
7 Silver Threads Among The Gold
8 Hand Me Down My Walking Cane
9 Roll Over Beethoven (Carl Perkins)
10 Straight A's In Love (Johnny Cash)
11 Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On
12 It'll be Me
13 I Love You Because (Johnny Cash)
14 Great Balls Of Fire
15 You Win Again
16 I Want You Baby (Billy Riley & his Little Green Men)
17 Flyin' Saucers Rock & Roll (Billy Riley & his Little Green Men)
18 The Crawdad Song
19 Deep Elem Blues
20 I'm Feelin' Sorry
21 Put Your Cat Clothes on (Carl Perkins)
22 Love My Baby (Hayden Thompson)
23 Mean Woman Blues
24 Dixie
25 Crazy Arms (Million Dollar Quartet session)
26 End Of The Road (Million Dollar Quartet session)
27 Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On (Steve Allen TV Show)
28 Don't Stay Away ('Til Love Grows Cold) (demo 1952)
29 Jerry Lee's Boogie (demo 1952)
30 I Don't Hurt Anymore (demo 1954)
31 I Need You Now (demo 1954)

El Toro Records continue to go from strength to strength with their releases of both old catalogues and some of the best current bands. Obviously this little peach sits fair and square in the first category. Most fans will have everything here many times over but who can be arsed to create a playlist that captures the early years of the Ferriday Fireball like this.

Jerry Lee blew into Memphis with a single minded, confident vision of fortune and fame that he just knew he was going to attain. The compilation features the earliest classics from his time at Sun like Crazy Arms and It'll Be Me, together with some that weren't destined to classics for a few more decades, like Deep Elem Blues and The Crawdad Song. When the Killer wasn't criss-crossing the country on Sun package shows he was used by Sam Phillips as a session man. We get some perfect examples of it here, backing the masters Johnny Cash (JLL's participation is dubious however) and Carl Perkins as well as being a key component in the sides of Billy Lee Riley and Hayden Thompson. The Thompson and Riley tracks stand-up against the others and prove that they could just as eaasily made the big time, if fate (and Sam) had played a different hand.

Elsewhere there's a few from the legendary Million Dollar Quartet session and Shakin' from his tv debut on the Steve Allen Show (see below). The two private accetates from the teenage tearaway from New Orleans in '52 and Shreveport in '54 show that Jerry Lee was already an accomplish pianist in need of a sympathetic ear and a decent studio. Enter, Sam Phillips and his Memphis Recrording studio, where the road really did begin. A brilliant release.

Memphis Cats on youTube

Charlie Feathers - That Certain Female Some crazy guy called Mike miming in the car to this Charlie Feathers anthem. Manic. Sonny Burgess - We Wanna Boogie Sonny Burgess & fellow pianist Kern Kennedy playin at High Rockabilly 2005 (Spain). Billy Lee Riley - Pearly Lee - 20.10.07 Roermond NL BILLY LEE RILEY with THE BELLHOPS (NL)!! front row footage Carl Perkins- Blue Suede Shoes 1956 Prime time CP. hot version from the quartet that was faster thant eh single. Eddie Bond - Slippin´In in Green Bay 2007. Sadly too short a clip but the bright suit was enough to get me going. Junior Thompson - Raw Deal on 78RPM A milestone in rock history! 78rpm Memphis Rockabilly 1956! A very scarce record that definiates the rockabilly sound that came out from the small labels in the southern US in mid 50'swhat a great site to see this 78 spinning round as the legendary song balsts out of the speakers. Just wish it was my 78! Hayden Thompson - Love My Baby Original Sun Rockabilly Star at The Rhythm Riot 2006 Jack Earls & the Ragtime Wranglers - Take me to That Place Live at the Rockabilly Rave Camber UK, October 2004. Barbra Pittman - I'm getting better all the time Ms Pittman at the Rave. This was the first time I saw this lady and unfortunately the last. At times she's excellent. That voice is still there wanting to rock! You also see a tiredness (is that the right word) in her voice. I'm glad I filmed this. Miss Mary Ann and Lynette Morgan look more than happy to supply backing vocals... great rocking version, and probably the first handclapping solo I've ever enjoyed. Carl Mann - Mona Lisa/I´m Comin´ Home Carl Mann rocking it up at Screaming Fest Saturday the 9th of June 2007. Narvel Felts - My Babe - Green Bay 2005 That's Ashley Kingman from the Fly-Rite Boys on lead guitar. Johnny Burnette - Hound Dog From 1956 this is prime time Memphis rockabilly. no wonder the flying saucers were scared to land.