The "Desperate Rock'n'Roll" comps of the '80's were central in rekindling interest in wild and obscure rockabilly, in the wake of the psychobilly explosion of the time (see:Cramps, Meteors, Guana Batz etc). Around 20 of them were released until they fell out of print, being independent releases of dubious legality. Apparently, they're back. Doubtlessly that return was sparked by EU copyright directives stipulating that recordings older than 50 years become copyright-free - In 2011 it was extended to 70 years, but that does not affect recordings that have passed to public domain already. This led to the release of an over-abundance of overlapping low budget jazz, folk and rockabilly compilations. The relation of this particular one to the older "Desperate R'n'R" series is unclear as the tracklist does not correspond to the one given by discogs.com for the original LP or CD comps. A few tracks here did appear in "Desperate...vol.1" and the cover in volume 3. You'll be thinking you know most of these songs, but you'll be mistaken: many of those are shameless rip-offs of contemporary hits by Elvis, Eddie Cochran, Little Richard etc. A few of those are gigantic rockers on their own right: Mel Smith's "Pretty Plaid Skirt" is a wild bongo-driven monster that naturally caught The Cramps' ear. Stormy Gale's "Flipsville" proves that girls can rock as hard as boys - incidentally, I tried to find some information on these artists and all I came out with were bios of a British comedian and of a former porn-star The name of Johnny Winter is also familiar. Could the wild R&B "Voodoo Twist" belong to the famous albino blues-rocker from Texas? He must have still been in high school at the time, but so was Ritchie Valens. I say it's him alright. If so, he was already a pretty good guitarist. The music is mostly pure rockabilly, but there are forays into other areas as well: Hillbilly country (Deacon & The Rock 'N' Rollers, Don Bishop, Eddie Cleary), instrumentals (The Swanks, "Lemon Lime" by The Tempests), comedy (Sputnik Monroe), R&B (Winter, Roy Kildaire, Teddy Reynolds). Tony Shepperd's "Zach (Zack)" has a bit of an exotica flavour and "Rockin' In The Jungle" (by artist unknown) sounds like a precursor to the Cramps, both thematically and musically. More early psychobilly is dispensed by Bobby Wall ("Baby It's Too Much") and the Musical Linn Twins ("Rockin' Out The Blues"). If wild rock'n'roll is your thing and you're willing to explore the dark corners of the genre, this is a CD for you...
**** for Pretty Plaid Skirt (Mel Smith), Why Not (Grover Cleveland), Flipsville (Stormy Gale), Zach (Tony Shepperd), What About It (Roy Kildaire), Oh Babe (Lester Robinson), Rockin' Rochester U.S.A (The Tempests), Puppy Dogs (Teddy Reynolds), Voodoo Twist (Johnny Winter), Rockin' In The Jungle (Unknown),
*** for Rockin' Out The Blues (Musical Linn Twins), Nothing But Money (Jessie Knight), Ghost Train (The Swanks), The Worryin' Kind (Merv Benton), Call Your Daddy Baby (Kenny McKenna), Got Something For You Baby (PIinky & Jim Jenkins), Nightmare (Don Bishop), Baby It's Too Much (Bobby Wall), Raise Some San (Jay Nelson), Lemon Lime (The Tempests), I Don't Care (Eddie Cleary)
** for I Don't Wanna Leave (Deacon & The Rock 'N' Rollers), Rock On (Johnny Rebb), Corvette Baby (Bob Cass & His Corvettes), Sputnik Hires A Band (Sputnik Monroe)
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