"Bad Boy Of Rock 'n' Roll" by LARRY WILLIAMS – US Specialty Recordings from 1957 to 1960 Including Previously Unreleased And His Singles Issued on London American in the UK – Musicians include John 'Plas' Johnson with Jesse James Jones on Tenor Saxophones, Jewell Grant on Baritone Sax, Willard McDaniel on Piano, Rene Hall and Irving Ashby on Guitars with Art Neville of The Neville Brothers (February 1999 UK Ace/Specialty CD Compilation of Remasters) - A Review by Mark Barry...

This Review Along With over 200 Others Is Available in my

SOUNDS GOOD E-Book on all Amazon sites

"MANNISH BOY" 

BLUES, VOCAL GROUPS, DOO WOP, ROOTS

RHYTHM 'n' BLUES and ROCK 'n' ROLL ON CD 

Exceptional CD Reissues and Remasters 

Thousands of E-Pages

All Details and In-Depth Reviews From Discs 

(No Cut and Paste Crap)

<iframe style="width:120px;height:240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" src="//ws-eu.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=GB&source=ss&ref=as_ss_li_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=mabasreofcdbl-21&language=en_GB&marketplace=amazon&region=GB&placement=B00NED95TW&asins=B00NED95TW&linkId=0061fb4ca8224304480e8a6f1c505bce&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true"></iframe>

<iframe style="width:120px;height:240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" src="//ws-eu.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=GB&source=ss&ref=as_ss_li_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=mabasreofcdbl-21&language=en_GB&marketplace=amazon&region=GB&placement=B00000ILYQ&asins=B00000ILYQ&linkId=d41e378881c99fbbfa32ed1537e9a753&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true"></iframe>

"...You Make Me Dizzy Miss Lizzy...The Way You Rock 'n' Roll..."

You can only begin to imagine the mental liberation the hugely clued-in young Beatles must have felt in their Liverpudlian bones when they first heard the Rock 'n' Roll joy of Larry Williams. Those London American UK 45s – sailor-imported Specialty Records US originals jumping off a precious turntable in a mate’s house - yellow labels spinning around - pumping out the raucous naughty sound of  "Boney Maronie", "Bad Boy" and "Just Because". Wow!

I dare say (and likened to that other showboat of the Specialty label Little Richard) - Larry Williams must have come across as one of the original wild children of 50ts Rock 'n' Roll. Certainly this CD compilation from England's Ace Records captures that daring-do as song after song sings of the Heeby Jeebies, Peaches and Cream and Hootchy-Koo (before he even gets to making love underneath the apple tree). Lots to document, so let's have at the "Short Fat Fannies" and "Dizzy Miss Lizzies"...

UK released 1 February 1999 - "Bad Boy Of Rock 'n' Roll" by LARRY WILLIAMS on Ace/Specialty Records CDCHD 709 (Barcode 029667170925) is a 24-track CD compilation of 1957 to 1960 Remasters that plays out as follows (53:52 minutes): 

1. Short Fat Fannie 

2. High School Dance 

Tracks 1 and 2 are the A&B-sides of a May 1957 US 45-single on Specialty 608 - also his debut UK 45-single with the same tracks on London American HLN 8472 in August 1957  

3. Bony Maronie 

4. You Bug Me Baby 

Tracks 3 and 4 are the A&B-sides of an October 1957 US 45-single on Specialty 615 - also his second UK 45-single with the same tracks on London American HLU 8532 in January 1958  

5. Dizzy Miss Lizzy 

6. Slow Down 

Tracks 5 and 6 are the A&B-sides of a February 1958 US 45-single on Specialty 626 - also his third UK 45-single with the same tracks on London American HLU 8604 in April 1958

7. She Said "Yeah" 

8. Bad Boy 

(Tracks 7 and 8 are the A&B-sides of a January 1959 US 45-single on Specialty 658 - also his fourth UK 45-single with the same tracks on London American HLU 8844 in April 1959)

9. Let Me Tell You Baby 

10. Just Because 

(Tracks 10 and 9 are the A&B-sides of his US debut 45-single on Specialty 597 in February 1957 – note running order)

11. Hootchy-Koo 

12. The Dummy 

13. Peaches And Cream 

Tracks 11 & 12 are the A&B-sides of a June 1958 US 45-single on Specialty 634 

Track 13 is the A-side only of a September 1958 US 45-single on Specialty 647 

No UK issue 45s for Tracks 11, 12 and 13, however "Peaches and Cream", "Hootchy-Koo" and "The Dummy" did turn up on the 4-track "Larry Williams" EP in the UK on London REU 1213 issued May 1959. The missing track is "I Was A Fool" - B-side of the US 45 for "Peaches And Cream" but not on this CD

14. Little School Girl 

Track 14 is the B-side of "Ting-A-Ling", a February 1960 US 45-single on Specialty 682 - no UK issue

15. Hey Now, Hey Now - PREVIOUSLY UNISSUED 

16. Marie Marie - First Issued 1986 in the USA on the LP compilation "Unreleased Larry Williams", Specialty SP 2158

17. Took A Trip (Take 9) - PREVIOUSLY UNISSUED 

18. Jelly Belly Nellie - First Issued 1986 in the USA on the LP compilation "Unreleased Larry Williams", Specialty SP 2158

19. Oh Baby (Take 10) – PREVIOUSLY UNISSUED 

20. Heeby Jeebies (Take 3) – PREVIOUSLY UNISSUED 

21. Hocus Pocus – first issued on the 1990 US CD Compilation "Bad Boy", Specialty SPCD 7002 as part of "The Legends Of Specialty" Series

22. Steal A Little Kiss 

23. I Can't Stop Lovin' You 

Tracks 22 and 23 are the A&B-sides of his eight US 45-single on Specialty 665 in April 1959 – also his fifth UK 45-single with the same tracks on London HLU 8911 in January 1960

24. Give Me Love 

Track 24 is the B-side of "Teardrops", October 1959 US 45-single on Specialty 677

NOTES: 

Tracks 15, 17, 19 and 20 are PREVIOUSLY UNISSUED 

All Tracks in MONO and transferred from original analogue master tapes 

Larry Williams on Piano and all Lead Vocals, John 'Plas' Johnson with Jesse James Jones on Tenor Saxophones, Jewell Grant on Baritone Sax, Willard McDaniel on Piano, Rene Hall and Irving Ashby on Guitars, Ted Brinson and Ralph Hamilton on Bass with Earl Palmer and Edward J. Hall on Drums. Other notable players included Lee Allen and Norman Rich on Tenor Saxophones, Art Neville of the Neville Brothers on Piano with Roy Montrell on Guitar and Richard Payne on Bass. 

Releases by Larry Williams was about party-music and the short but highly informational liner notes provided by STUART COLMAN in the 8-page booklet gets this across with tearful admiration and gusto. There is even a repro of the so-rare UK 78" for "Bony Maroney" on London American Recordings HL-U 8532. Sat next to that are session-notes from the Cosimo Recording Studios in New Orleans where Art Rupe (leading light at Specialty Records) sent Larry to work with a young Art Neville of The Neville Brothers. Presentation-wise - for sure 1999's Ace CDCHD 709 could have done with more photos and memorabilia repros (if it was re-done in 2021, it would be) - but there's enough to be getting on it. 

And the DUNCAN COWELL remasters from original analogue tapes rowdies up proceedings very nicely indeed. These tunes are party time and although the original-recordings aren't admittedly Audiophile by any stretch of your Supertramp imagination, they will rock the proverbial joint in your nightclub/living room just the same. Rough 'n' ready around the cauliflower ears, just like John, Paul, George and Ringo liked them...

The hits are here "Short Fat Fannie" and "Bony Maroney" - but how cool is it to hear "Just Because" and know why John Lennon recorded it for his 'Rock 'n' Roll' album project of 1975. Then there are those forgotten B-sides like "You Bug Me Baby" and of course "Bad Boy" - a tune the Fabs covered and loved. As you listen too to "Slow Down" and even that unreleased cut "Took A Trip" - your hear his R&B influence reaching out over the decades and why those British 45s on the London American label are worth so much dosh. 

"You make me dizzy Miss Lizzy...the way you Rock 'n' Roll...you make me dizzy Miss Lizzy...when you do the stroll..." - Larry Williams sang all those decades ago. And both the Bad Boy and his jivin' troupe of hip-shakin' ladies are doing so still...

"The Rill Thing/King of Rock And Roll/The Second Coming" by LITTLE RICHARD (2016 Beat Goes On Reissue - 3LPs onto 2CDs - High Def Remasters by Andrew Thompson)

This Review Along With 100s Of Others Is Available in my

SOUNDS GOOD E-Book on all Amazon sites

SOUL, FUNK and JAZZ FUSION - Exception CD Remasters  

Just Click Below To Purchase for £3.95

Thousands of E-Pages - All Details and In-Depth Reviews From Discs 

(No Cut and Paste Crap)

"...The Beauty On Duty..."

Soul and Funk Albums from LITTLE RICHARD

A typically generous and beautifully presented set from England's 'Beat Goes On Label' covering the Georgia Peach's stay at Reprise Records between 1970 and 1972 (3LPs Remastered In High Def from Original Sources onto 2CDs).

Not surprisingly across three albums it's a tale of two cities - the great and the dismissible - with thankfully more keepers than ditchers. In fact there's very little Rock and Roll as we know it on offer here – these forgotten LPs are more about Little Richard's version of early 70ts Funk with a little old-time R&B style thrown in. Song after song comes at you like its Ike & Tina Turner having a jam-tight-butt-shake - and not as you would expect from one of the Original Rock & Rollers from the Fifties - Chuck Berry twelve-bar.

In fact Soul Boys the world over have been discovering these hip-shaking dancers for years now – Little Richard finding his inner 'sock it to me' Isley Brothers groove - his Allen Toussaint voice and winning (most of the time). There are times when it's shockingly different. Take the instrumental title-track "The Rill Thing" from 1970 – it's the kind of chugging Funkathon that would have customers rushing to the counter of any West End record shop demanding to know which 'Meters' song this is and on what album - only to find that you're listening to the Muscle Shoals House Band having a 10-minute Alabama jam without any lead vocal from LR.

And of course then there's that other aspect to any Little Richard record - the sheer fun of the man on those spoken passages where he sings the praises of – well – himself. Richard Penniman has always thought he's God and I'm quite sure a smiling God would be only too willing to agree (LR's modest declaration of 'The Second Coming' not withstanding). There's a lot to wade through indeed - so once mere mortals unto the beauty on a rooty...

UK released 22 July 2016 (29 July 2006 in the USA) - "The Rill Thing/King Of Rock And Roll/The Second Coming" by LITTLE RICHARD on Beat Goes On BGOCD 1235 (Barcode 5017261212351) offers 3LPs Remastered from first generation tapes onto 2CDs and plays out as follows:

Disc 1  (61:30 minutes):

1. Freedom Blues

2. Greenwood, Mississippi

3. Two-Time Loser

4. Dew Drop In

5. Somebody Saw You

6. Spreadin' Natta, What's The Matter?

7. The Rill Thing

8. Lovesick Blues

9. I Saw Her Standing There

Tracks 1 to 9 are his album "The Rill Thing" (credited as The "Rill" Thing on the label) - released August 1970 in the USA on Reprise RS 6406 and October 1970 in the UK on Reprise RSLP 6406.

10. King of Rock And Roll

11. Joy To The World

12. Brown Sugar

13. In The Name

14. Dancing In The Street

Tracks 10 to 14 are Side 1 of the album "King Of Rock And Roll" - released September 1971 in the USA on Reprise RS 6462 and November 1971 in the UK on Reprise K 44156.

Disc 2 (62:04 minutes):

1. Midnight Special

2. The Way You Do The Things You Do

3. Green Power

4. I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry

5. Settin' The Woods On Fire

6. Born On The Bayou

Tracks 10 to 14 are Side 2 of the album "King Of Rock And Roll" - released September 1971 in the USA on Reprise RS 6462 and November 1971 in the UK on Reprise K 44156.

7. Mockingbird Sally

8. Second Line

9. It Ain't What You Do, It's The Way You Do It

10. The Saints

11. Nuki Suki

12. Rockin' Rockin' Boogie

13. Prophet Of Peace

14. Thomasine

15. Sanctified, Satisfied Toe-Tapper

Tracks 7 to 15 are the album "The Second Coming" - released September 1972 in the USA on Reprise RS 2107 and in the UK on Reprise K 44204 (although allocated a 'K' catalogue in the UK by WEA - I've never seen a British pressed LP - so it's more likely that US copies were imported into Britain and 'K 44204' stickers put on the back of them). 

This 2CD set will allow fans to sequence 6 x 7" singles issued around the three LPs:

1. Freedom Blues b/w Dew Drop Inn - June 1970 USA 7" single on Reprise 0907 (reversed sides in the UK on Reprise RS 20907)

2. Greenwood, Mississippi b/w I Saw Her Standing There - August 1970 USA 7" single on Reprise 0942

3. Green Power b/w Dancing In The Street - November 1971 UK 7" single on Reprise K 14124

4. Shake A Hand (if You Can) b/w Somebody Saw You - December 1971 USA 7" single on Reprise 1005 

5. Mockingbird Sally b/w 1. Rockin' Rockin' Boogie 2. King Of Rock and Roll - August 1972 UK 3-Track 7" single on Reprise 14195

6. 1. Rockin' Rockin' Boogie 2. King Of Rock and Roll b/w 1. The Saints 2. Mockingbird Sally - 1974 UK 'Warner Giants' 4-Track EP on Reprise K 14343

The outer card slipcase adds a real classy feel to this release (as it does to all BGO reissues) and the 12-page booklet with new STUART COLMAN liner notes repros the original LP artwork. The praise-heavy blurbs on the rear of "The Rill Thing" by Pete Johnson and "The Second Coming" by RA "Bumps" Blackwell have been printed too in all their plugger-positive glory. Coleman gives a good insight into Little Richard's state of play when he went with Reprise after years in the chart wilderness - it's just such a shame that after "The Rill Thing" - the albums began a very obvious nose dive with the 2nd studio platter being merely good while the third leaves a lot to be desired (despite its ludicrous title).

What's not ridiculous is the fabulous Audio – High Def CD transfers from Original Sources by BGO’s Engineer ANDREW THOMPSON. I've had the Rhino set for years and the Remasters here pip it by a squeak - but it's an improvement in bottom end and muscularity that you can feel. These CDs sounds stunning - and fans will need to own them.

Album number one opens on a winner – the single that put Little Richard back into the US R&B charts after a 13-year absence - "Freedom Blues" - a co-write with his doppelganger and inspiration of old - Esquerita. A funky 'everybody's got to be free' groove starts up with guitars and keyboards - as LR proceeds to wax lyrical about dumping the past and embracing the new. A great guttural scream like only LR can omit ushers in the Sax Solo and resistance is futile. Written by Arthur Lowe and Travis Wammack - "Greenwood, Mississippi" is the most out-and-out Ike & Tina Turner guitar groove on the album - a tremendous funky-rock dancer to make you shimmy your booty thang to a backdrop of fuzz guitars. You can understand why Reprise in the UK switched sides for their opening single - putting the Rock 'n' Roll based "Dew Drop In" on the A-side instead of "Freedom Blues" in a country undergoing a huge Rock 'n' Roll Revival. Yet you can't help but feel the American side got the choice right. Little Richard's own "Somebody Saw You" is a Wilson Pickett strut with shimmering guitar notes and a seriously tight rhythm section. But the album is dominated by the aforementioned ten-minute work out that is Side 2's "The Rill Thing" - a truly fantastic instrumental that in reality has very little to do with LR - and yet is on his album. In fact when you go to the next song - a Country-Funk Tony Joe White take on the Hank Williams classic "Lovesick Blues" complete with a brass fade out - it feels weird to hear LR singing at all. The album ends on a reasonably cool take on that "Please Please Me" opener "I Saw Her Standing There" - Little Richard sanctifying The Beatles and just about getting away with it.

You can't help feeling that the 'King' on his throne artwork and title of album No. 2 dumbly emphasises a genre (Rock & Roll) that actually doesn't show up much on the record (it's another Funk LP ala The Meters). His cover of the traditional "Midnight Special" comes armed with CCR's warbling guitar underpinned by righteous sisters singing 'chugga-chugga'. He then goes after Motown by going all 'gotta' James Brown on The Temptations and their "The Way You Do The Things You Do". Better is the 'sock it to me' single "Green Power" where the funky rhythm and lady singers sound like they mean business at last. Another Hank Williams song "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" gets wildly rejiggered but it feels like a cover too far. Better is his Bass and Brass cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Born On The Bayou" - where he talks his 'beauty' and his 'title' and the 'kind of excitement that shakes the world' before it breaks into that familiar CCR swing. It's a good way to end an otherwise patchy album.

Despite its farcical title – no one was interested in his self-proclaimed nonsense in 1972. The album came out in September but the first Billboard review didn't appear until December - no doubt someone trying to flag failing sales. It opens with his own "Mockingbird Sally" where it feels like he's actually channelled some of that Specialty wildness once again - a piano-pumping Rock 'n' Roller. The Funk returns with "Second Line" - a co-write between him and Bumps Blackwell. "If Ain't What You Do, It's The Way You Do It" is terrible - clearly an outtake left in the can with his voice sounding like a guide - and a poor one at that. He re-arranges "The Saints" into a bopping 'marching in' travesty best forgotten. Better is the wah-wah-guitar funky "Nuki Suki". As an example of rare grooves from the vaults - Atlantic used it on the 2001 CD compilation "Right On! Volume 3" (it also appeared on the Rhino 4CD Box Set "What It Is!" in 2006). But my own poison is the great rhythm behind "Prophet Of Peace" and the track Soul Boys dig - the seven-minute instrumental "Sanctified, Satisfied Toe-Tapper" - an obvious attempt to recreate some of that ten-minute "Rill Thing" magic from album number one (they just about pull it off).

When all is said and done - you're left with the impression that if Little Richard’s record company (and him) had embraced Soul and Funk full on and not tried to rebrand his genius as the 'latest' version of an old Rock 'n' Roller - with some pruning and sassier material - we'd be talking about these albums in a more genuinely reverential light and not as a curio – an afterthought 47 years on from the event. 

Rhino's "King Of Rock and Roll: The Complete Reprise Recordings" 3CD set in 2005 was the last time these recordings were covered - but that was a limited edition and has been deleted and acquiring high prices for years. So a welcome reissue then and far funkier than you'd imagine. The beauty on duty people...even half-cocked he was capable of magic...