Roy Brown - Good Rocking Tonight [vinyl/flac rip]

I just did a rip of this for Clifford and thought y'all might like to hear it.

" Covering Brown's most fertile period of 1947-1954, Good Rocking Tonight is the second of three Route 66 volumes covering rare sides by the jump blues star. Same as the first collection, Laughing But Crying, this disc nicely fills in gaps left by high-profile titles from Rhino and King. The focus is on a mix of rough-and-ready R&B and after-hours blues, with alternate takes of hits like "Good Rocking Tonight" and "Mighty, Mighty Man" giving collectors something to relish. Most impressive, though, are breakneck-tempo cuts like "Whose Hat Is That" and the infamous "Butcher Pete, Pt. 2" (the blues lyrical taste for sexual double entendre reaching over-the-top levels on the latter). Besides matching the speed of bebop, the frantic energy of these and many other sides Brown cut during the late '40s and early '50s shores up the singer's place as a rock & roll pioneer. On the other hand, Brown also influenced the gospel-based world of soul with pathos-ridden and urbane blues like "Brown Angel." And putting further pay to the singer's impressive flexibility -- not to mention his admitted admiration for crooner Bing Crosby -- he delivers a velvety cool vocal performance on "Teenage Jamboree." In light of all the musical wealth herein, then, it's definitely a shame this and the other Brown titles on Route 66 are only to be found in the used bins..." AMG

Larry Darnell - I'll Get Along Somehow

When the Chubbman first posted this I promised that I had an addendum. Of course, being me, it took a little longer than anticipated and so I am driven to move this back to the front so y'all will notice.

I have great affection for these Rt 66 LP's so I won't duplicate anything, but Unky Cliff (aka Captain Excess) has another of those cheapo Bayou Records discs that has stuff unseen elsewhere. Every label has it's niche.

The add-on has 14 additional tracks, almost doubling you up.

link in comments

Roy Brown - Laughing but Crying

Amazingly enough this collection doesn't overlap the previous two discs of Roy offered here. This is slightly later material but still high quality. As is true with most of these guys, Roy fades thru the 50's, lesser material to work with for one, and difficulty in adjusting to the teen market which becomes all important in the 50's. These guys had been singing adult 'blue' themed lyrics all their careers and if you listen to Roy attempt School Bell Rock, you will hear a perfect example of how they didn't quite fit the new themes. The same thing happened to the majority of the 40's r&b pioneers.

"This Roy Brown import offers something of a rough-guide compliment to Rhino Records' own hits-heavy career retrospective of the jump blues shouter. Laughing but Crying's somewhat obscure Deluxe, King, and Imperial sides may suffer a bit from poor sound quality -- especially the early Deluxe sides -- but the imperfections are soon forgotten because of the sheer quality of the music and Brown's gospel-soaked delivery. In fact, Brown's innovative use of gospel phrasing in an R&B context has distinguished him as the original soul singer and in turn made him a major influence on future soul luminaries like James Brown and Jackie Wilson. The Swedish R&B label Route 66 shores up the claim with this overview of Brown's career through 1959, which includes prime, early jump blues cuts like "Roy Brown Blues" and an incredibly salacious slice of double entendre entitled "Butcher Pete, Pt. 1." In addition, there are medium-tempo blues like "Special Lesson No. 1" and "Laughing but Crying," which showcase Brown's signature technique of shouting and stretching words and phrases in mid-sentence for dynamic effect. To round out the varied program, there's the early rock & roll number "Hurry Hurry Baby" and a Bing Crosby-style ballad entitled "A Fool in Love." Roy Brown made a variety of powerful records, many of which are included on Laughing but Crying and Rhino's Good Rocking Tonight: The Best of Roy Brown; together, these two fine reissues provide a pretty complete picture of the great R&B singer."