JUKE BOX JURY

“Get Down and Get With It” Slade (Cotillion 44128)

It’s not too often that a single knocks me off my feet these days and while this one would’ve been considered second rate a few years ago it comes on today like a breath of fresh air. Who is Slade? You really got me, but who ever they are they rock just like the Stones used to in 1964, and not only that but Little Richard helped ’em write the song and the whole thing was produced by Chas. Chandler of Animals fame. If you think it sounds like it might be killer, yer absolutely right. Keep an eye on these guys.

“Please Mrs. Henry”/“Prayer” Manfred Mann (Polydor PD 14097)

And speaking of killer! Listening to this record it’s like “If You Gotta Go” and “Mighty Quinn” were out last summer and all that jazz-rock/art school/TV commercial confusion never happened to this monster group. Well actually they were never monsters, only potentially so. But Dylan was right when he said they do his songs better than anyone, and maybe now they’ll start fulfilling some of that potential. “Prayer” is pretty amazing too; if I were you I’d skip the next two issues of ROLLING STONE and add this record to your collection instead!

“Long Way From L.A.”/“Hill’s Stomp” Canned Heat (UA 50831)

Chris Welch of MELODY MAKER took offense at this record but to my ears it’s the least affected thing these boys have ever come up with. “Long Way” evokes the desire to be cruising Malibu with that old girl friend, to the tune of a rockin’ drivin’ beat. The flip is an up-tempo blues shuffle. Good enough for this reviewer.

QUICK SPINS: The English group Family was always a bit too effete for my teenage taste, but I have a friend in Minneapolis who thinks they’re “the best fucking group in the WHOLE WORLD!” so in case there’s others like him I oughta mention they have a new single, “Seasons”/“In My Own Time” (UA 50832) that’s not bad. :: Sam Cooke has a new record out. Naw Yeah, really! “Darling I Need You Now”/“Win Your Love For Me” (Cherie 4501). It’s distributed by Kent and that’s about all I know. Presumably it was recorded before his death (Not so. - Ed.) but I couldn’t tell you when or whether it’s been released before. Sounds pretty good. :: Mungo Jerry’s record for this summer is “Lady Rose” (Bell 45,123 and while some call him a poor man’s Marc Bolan he’s all reet in my book. :: This month’s award for best new group name goes to Raw Spit, whose “Songs to Sing”/“That Ain’t My Wife” (UA 50813) has little else to recommend it. :: McGuinness Flint have issued an excellent AM 45 in “Malt and Barley Blues”/“Rock On” (Capitol P-3139), not to be confused with the New Colony Six’s “Roll On”, also on the charts lately. Maybe what hit Manfred Mann has also struck all the ex-Manfreds, but whatever the reason these guys have outdone themselves this time. It’s not anything to rush out and buy, but a sign at least that they’re heading in the right direction. :: The group Graham Nash used to be in has got a new single out that’s the best they’ve done in quite a while. “Hey Willy” is a rocker, sounding a bit like Free but with overtones of Little Richard (Epic 5-10754).

THE OPTIMIST (for Richard Brautigan)

Whenever I see one of your poems I think there’s got to be a pony grazing somewhere inside you.

v. marlowe

Roy Brown is one of the oldest blues singers still around, having had hits in the late 40s, but his recent comeback on Mercury is* among the more successful. His latest is “Mailman Blues”/“Hunky Funky Woman” (Mercury 73219) and it’s quite good. Be sure also to get his album Hard Luck Blues (King KS 1130) which contains all the early hits with the exception of “Good Rockin’ Tonight”. :: A blues enthusiast friend has informed me that G.L. Crockett’s “It’s a Man Down There” (reviewed here last month) was originally issued in 1966. Apparently it’s out again. The guy has 3 or 4 other records, also on 4 Brothers, all worth getting. :: Brook Benton has a soft, moody version of “Please Send Me Someone to Love” (Cotillion 44130) and Mary Wells has a couple of good ones out too, “Mister Tough” (Jubilee 5718) and “I Found What I Wanted” (Reprise 1031). The one on Jubilee is better. :: Would you believe a cover record of a cover record? Would you believe a soul version of “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”? You get both from the Symbols (Bell 911) and it’s not a bad record either.

NOW WAIT FOR LAST YEAR: What year is it anyway? It’s seemed like 1961 for awhile now, with all the folksingers, coffee houses, hootenannies and would-be Bobby Vintons. But at the same time the chronology varies as you move from place to place and week to week. Last month it was 1962 with a slew of dance craze records, in New York it’s been 1957 for some time now, where you can see groups like the Harptones and the Dubs who’ve been disbanded since you were in nursery school almost any weekend, and over in England it’s 1956 all the way with a dozen groups putting out albums in the trail of the Wild Angels, whose lead singer has split off to form Mai Gray’s Hurricanes, while the Bizarro Express has passed its fail-safe point and entered the twilight zone for good with, the news that the Rock ‘n’ Roll Allstars have been booked to tour Red China next year (although “Papa Ooh Mao Mao” is not currently in their repertoire). But lately it’s been 1965 to me. I mean, not only is Joan Baez back on the radio and Sonny & Cher on TV, but John Lennon has a folk-rock song on his new album replete with Dylan style harmonica, Dylan himself is getting some of his old spunk back, and now here’s Pete Seeger with an outright protest song. I should’ve got wind of this when Jim Webb wrote a song called “P.F. Sloan” that the Association recorded a few months ago, but I had no reason to believe the Eve of Destruction was any nearer than the Dawn of Correction. Yet here’s old Pete, rid in’ that “Last Train to Nuremberg” (Columbia 4-45398) and singing stirringly of the war crimes America must face up to. The guilt is traced from Lt. Calley (as if “The Battle Hymn of Lt. Calley” wasn’t in itself a remake of “Ballad of the Green Berets”) thru Mr. Nixon right back to you and me, the taxpayers, making us all guilty. Sufferin’ catfish! All I wanna know, peace creep, is which side are you on anyway?

FORTUNATE SUN: I assume every rock fan worth his 45 spindle is aware by now that Sun Records, reactivated since last year, hasreleased a series of 25 or so albums containing all the original hits by such rockabilly greats as Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Charlie Rich and Carl Mann. What you’re possibly not aware of is that Sun had a hell of a lot of other records, many of them as good as the best of Lewis, that still languish in the vaults while they repackage the same tired old hits. Mindnumbing songs like “Flying Saucers Rock ‘n’ Roll” by Billy Lee Riley & His Little Green Men or “Sadie’s Back in Town” by Sonny Burgess, not to mention everything by Charlie Feathers, Malcolm Yelvington and a score of other forgotten waiters. There’s also about 50 unreleased songs each by Conway Twitty and Roy Orbison, and countless hours of Jerry Lee and Elvis. The only thing you can do about this is write tetters (not a bad idea: SSS Corp., 3106 Belmont Blvd., Nashville, Tenn. 37212) but there is something you can do if you’ve got all the Sun reissue albums and still want more.

There are nearly 70 singles'available in Sun’s “Golden Treasure Series”. These include everything ever issued by Lewis and Cash with the original B sides and the release dates printed on the label. There are also songs by Orbison, Rich and Perkins not included on their albums, and records by several artists who have had no albums of their own as yet. Of the Lewis songs not on albums, most are straight country ballads, but there are a couple of rockers of special interest. “I’ve Been Twistin’ ” is Jerry’s version .of “Boogie Chillem” (“mama tol’ papa, ‘let the boy boogie woogie!’ ”) and “It Won’t Happen With Me”, released in 1961, compares Jerry as a potential lover with some of the other stars of the day. “Now the only thing you’ll ever be to Ricky is just a fan/You’ll never get to hug and squeeze him, he’s a travellin’ man.” You gotta hear it. Then there’s “ The Return of Jerry Lee”, a bitter attack at critics of his marriage to a 13 year old cousin, in the form of a break-in record using bits from his songs.

A couple of fine Carl Perkins sides can be got only on 45s, a classic if rather corny ballad called “Sure to Fall” and a moderatetempo rocker titled “That’s Right.” And Roy Orbison fans have a treat in store when they turn over “Oobie Doobie” to find “Go Go Go”, a song Sam Phillips later claimed as his own when Jerry Lee Lewis recorded it as “Down the Line”, not to mention the double-sided surprise “Chicken Hearted”/"! Like Love”. If you’re a Charlie Rich fan you can get “Everything I Do is Wrong” and Jack Clement, one of Sun’s best songwriters (he wrote “Ballad of a Teenage Queen”), can be heard on 4 sides, the best of which is “Wrong”. Warren Smith recorded the classics “Ubangi Stomp” and “Rock ‘n’ Roll Ruby” (revived by Southwind last year) and you can now hear him sing the former song too on a Sun 45. Then there’s Cliff Thomas, rather a small fry as rockabilly singers go, but in good form on “Leave It to Me”/“Sorry I Lied”. And if you liked “Red Hot” on Original Memphis Rock & Roll (Sun 116) you’ll flip when you hear Carl McVoy sing “Tootsie”. Barbara Pittman was one of only five women to record on Sun and the best of the lot in my opinion, so her “I’m Getting Better All the Time” is worth getting if you’re into this stuff enough to have read this far.

You can get the release numbers for these and the titles of the other Lewis songs if you’re truly a conipletist by'.consulting the Phonolog catalogue in your favorite recotd store. All are in print and can be ordered with the greatest of ease. Meanwhile, if there are any other minor labels or reissue series’ you’d like to see covered in this column, please send in your suggestions.