Not that far in the past (2003), and hilariously futuristic. The concept: inspired smart-ass hijacks a text-to-speech program, fires up his beat software, and imagines Stephen Hawking as a gangsta rapper looking to cap creationists, arrogant teacher's assistants, Moby, and MIT punks. Though the beats could be fresher, and a little of this stuff may go a long way with you, I dare you to resist the lyrics. If you've ever seen a documentary on Hawking or heard recordings of his eerie, computerized voice, fix it in your mind, and try hear it delivering these bon mots: if not "The cosmos is expanding every second, every day/but their minds are shrinking as they close their eyes and pray/They call their bullshit science like the word could give them cred/if them bitches be scientists then cap me in the head," then how 'bout "I'm rolling through the hood on a Saturday night/got a 40 in my left hand, my dick in my right/some chronic in my lap, a pager in my cap/and a 9 millimeter in the small of my back." Bear in mind the latter's the intro for the tale of his stalking of some wack-ass scientific competitors! See http://www.mchawking.com for more details!

Though Frizzell was at the end of his rope (check out Daniel Cooper's fabulous, heart-breaking Lefty Frizzell: The Honky-Tonk Life of Country's Greatest Singer) when these recordings were made, and his legendarily warm and flexible voice was a shell of its former self (cf. Billie Holiday's '50s performances), his ability to write and sing penetrating cry-in-your-beer country music was undiminished. Assisted by long-time friend and advocate Sanger Shafer and ace acolyte Merle Haggard, he waxed a handful of classics here: the eternal "That's the Way Love Goes," the autumnal "Life's Like Poetry," the outlaw standard "Railroad Lady," and the all-too-autobiographical "I Never Go Around Mirrors" and "If I Had Half the Sense (A Fool was Born With)." Like his fellow alchemist George Jones, Lefty could take a song that looked unbearable corny and maudlin on paper and elevate it to the level of tragedy. Inspirational quatrains: "I can't stand to see/A good man go to waste/One who never combs his hair/Or shaves his face/A man who leans on wine/Over love that's told a lie/Oh, it tears me up to see/A grown man cry." It'll tear you up, too.

Mack's magic '58 Flying V and distinctive Magnatone amp-driven sound make "Wham!", "Memphis," and "Chicken Pickin'" among the few '60s guitar instrumentals to challenge Link Wray's supremacy. Those three, and several competing rarities, are all here on this ace Ace compilation of his Fraternity recordings, but what moved me to snap this up without hesitation are the prototypical white soul classics that feature his gritty but utterly convincing singing: the gospelized "Where There's A Will, There's a Way," and the tortured "Why," featuring agonized screams that would have done Julius Cheeks and Archie Brownlee proud and scared the shit out of Mick Jagger. Little wonder the purchase of the original (his first-ever record buy) inspired Stevie Ray Vaughan to such great heights.

They say John Lennon had his Dakota jukebox stocked with Alexander 45s at the end, and when his hurting country-soul vocals grab ahold of you on classics such as "You Better Move On" (covered by the early Stones), "Anna," "Soldier of Love," and "Shot of R&B" (all three of which wound up on Beatles records), you'll understand why. The man gets short shrift when the names of soul giants are bandied about, probably because his approach often defies categorization--"Shot of R&B" and "Pretty Girls Everywhere" are rock and roll, "Detroit City"'s straight country, and "Everyday I Have to Cry" and "Where Have You Been (All My Life")? are pop Gene Pitney woulda sung--but the catch of choked-back sorrow in his voice was one of a kind. Ace/Charley and Warner/Reprise offer competing comps, but this is the gem.

"I don't wear no Stetson/But I'm willing to bet, son/That I'm big a Texan as you are," Allen warns in his classic "Amarillo Highway," which leads off this 2-LP collection of off-the-wall avant-outlaw country. Why the warning? Well, when you're an artist (that's as in "artwork," like painting and sculpting), macho pinheads might think you lack cahones. Not the problem with Allen: he has a knack for stripping macho pinhead mythology buck-naked, for his and our own amusement, though he never totally excludes either of us from culpability [go directly to "The Great Joe Bob (A Regional Tragedy)" to hear what I mean: "...they told him 'Hi' in the halls/'Cause he could run them balls/But it was rumored down deep he was mean."]. That doesn't keep him from writing the first ever country songs about art ("Truckload of Art," "The Collector," and "The Beautiful Waitress," who gets a lecture on drawing horses) or taking two trips to France, one to India, and another to Viet Nam ), but mostly he sticks to solid ground ("FFA," "Flatland Farmer," "High Plains Jamboree," "The 30 Years' War Waltz," "The Wolfman of Del Rio"). A cornucopia of left-field country writing. And his artwork ain't too shabby, either.

Along with the Nomads’ Outburst, Axeman’s jarred me loose from my comfort zone and left me floating free in its world of weirdness. The best Cramps record the Cramps never made, it posited a world of graveyards and drive-in twins, of matricide and morte de Robbins (Marty, that is), of defiant drop-outs and sanctified truckers, against the banks ‘n’ bibles wasteland I was living in, and still makes me wonder if I oughtta move to Australia. The two ace covers that highlight the record sent me on a “Holy Grail” quest for the originals that ended only recently, leaving me in weirder worlds. Kittell’s slot-mouthed rendition of Leon “Lost Highway” Payne’s nutball “Psycho” (“…we were sittin’ on a bench, mama/Thinking of a game to play/Seems like I was holdin’ a wrench, mama/And my mind just walked away”) may be quieter than the Beasts’ slide-drenched version, but for deadpan horror it’s a musical match for Michael Rooker’s performance in Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, and…I don’t hear any irony. Its closing guitar notes are pure poison. On the other hand, the Beasts transmute “Good Times,” an Aussie protopunk nugget, from a hilarious goof on punk poverty with all the bite of Bob Hope into a bitter, desperate, but proud cry from the gutter. Cut live, it opens with fuzz from Plato’s garage--an uglier, cheaper riff I’ve never heard--moves on through muffed lyrics (replaced by a yammer that just heightens the desolate hunger in Tex Perkins’ vocals), and climaxes with a classic add-on (“I got one good suit/That’s wearin’ mighty, mighty thin/For entertainment, we go out/And fuck behind the twin/Good times…” Some enterprising archaeologist needs to make all three of these more easily available: The Axeman’s Jazz and the Kittell 45 are out of print, as is Get Primitive, the Pebbles best-of where the original “Good Times” is best heard.

Though Blake is one of the great unknown pianists in jazz, performing with both abstract and mainstream brilliance here, and this meditation on death (the title tune inspired by the passing of Thelonious' daughter) extremely moving, the main reason to scrape this from the bottom of the bargain bin (I got mine at half.com) is Ricky Ford's brilliant saxophone, which seems to alternately channel Ben Webster and Johnny Hodges while retaining a sound completely its own. A truly powerful and beautiful jazz record, sadly OUT OF PRINT.

All three of the Blasters' ace studio albums on Slash/Warner have gone to the Big Cut-Out Bin in the Sky, as has the half-assed comp the big label issued to replace them. Ain't no justice, baby. They were only the best roots rock and roll unit of the '80s, boasting a front man who could sing out the top of his head, a rhythm section that could rattle the walls, a pianist who could actually roll, a sax man named "Walking with Mr." Lee Allen, and a shit-sharp guitarist who could write songs that'd knock your hat in the creek. They spoke the demon tongue of Big Joe Turner and Jerry Lee Lewis like they were to the jukejoint born. In 1997, fortunately, Hightone's Bruce Bromberg saw to it that this, the group's pre-Slash release (originally issued on Ronny Weiser's Rollin' Rock label in 1980), was returned to circulation, and--whaddya know?--it's still with us. The band isn't quite honed to its razor-edged rockabilly peak yet, but it was already in a class with the Stones, CCR, and Skynryd when it came to the title concern. If you already own the Slash releases, you'll have to hear "I Don't Want To," "Flattop Joint," and the original "Barn Burning," which hang with Dave Alvin's other classic originals, as well as hip covers of Bill Haley's "Real Rock Drive" and Magic Sam's "21 Days in Jail." If you don't have the Slashes, you don't have a choice: if you claim you dig American music without a Blasters record in the house, you're out there where the buses don't run. Here's hoping whatever the hell Warner is now gets a goddam clue soon. Inspirational Verse: "It can be sweet and lovely/It can be hard and mean/One thing that's for sure/It's always on the beam/That's American music/Right from the U.S.A."

Though it may be too "sophisticated" for all but the most omniverous out there in the congregation, Oscar's one sly, sexy, and cool son of a gun. A jazzier, much more discreet version of Andre Williams (who's currently way too content playing the damn-fool house-nigger for Garage USA--it ain't irony, guys, it's a racist stereotype you're encouraging him to be), Brown could cut political commentary ("Bid 'Em In," about slave-trading), put lyrics to jazz classics ala Eddie Jefferson (Nat Adderley's "Work Song," Bobby Timmons' "Dat Dere," Mongo Santamaria's "Afro-Blue"), reach back into the rap tradition (a perhaps-too-clean "Signifyin' Monkey"), honor King Louis Jordan ("But I Was Cool"), get lowdown ("Hazel's Hips"), even cross the River Styx ("Mr. Kicks"). His vocal chops don't threaten Jefferson or King Pleasure, the music's a bit loungey at times, but his intelligence, versatility, and charm win out. A lost master, and this 4-year-old comp's heading to the cut-out bin soon.

Speaking of belters...meet the man they call "The Country Caruso." Bush started out playing in the honky tonk bands of Ray Price and Willie Nelson, the latter of whose more obscure classics ("Undo the Right," "Darkness on the Face of the Earth," "What a Way to Live') Bush first brought to popular light, before exploding into the country charts in the late '60s. This compilation (budget-priced and headed for the cut-out bin--JUMP ON IT!) showcases his classic Power Play music, which Charlie Burton calls "the heroin of '70s honky tonk," and a booming voice designed to rattle windows and break hearts. Think of big-ballad Elvis, divested of monumental self-regard and -parody, strapped to classic songs straight from a smoky beer joint (in fact, Elvis actually covered Bush's "You Gave Me a Mountain) and kicked into a flooded mine shaft. That last weird phrase gets at the sense of doom with which Bush can endow a well-written song (sample "Jim [Beam], Jack [Daniels], and [Sweet Gypsy] Rose," "The Warmth of the Wine," or "You Ought to Hear Me Cry"). After surviving a near-career-ending throat ailment in the '80s, he's rebuilt his voice and can still make you cry in your beer, a claim to which his Watermelon release of '98, Talk to My Heart, can attest. He's got a couple of new 'uns out, too. Real country made by a living legend who's too little known.

Only three of Carrasco’s records--none of them these, the cream of his output--are in print, a crime on the level of cutting out “Wooly Bully” or “Louie Louie.” However, you can obtain them from Joe himself at the above website; he burns ‘em off from his own copies, but isn’t it about time you gave a little back on that front? Mezcal Road dates from ‘78, before he’d perfected his Mysterians-based “Border Wave,” but remains a compelling fusion of Texican swing, Chicano rhythm and blues, and mariachi rock and roll. Just try listening to “(Hello) Mezcal Road” (“my name is cabron”) or “Rock Esta Noche” or “Just a Mile Away” without reaching for the Jose Cuervo and turning the knob to 10. 1979’s Nuevo Wavo (previous entitled Joe “King” Carrasco and the Crowns, on Hannibal) is simply the best Farfisa record Question Mark never made, 19 cuts (many previously unreleased) of Sir Doug-cum-Ramones lunacy that never quits, including “Houston El Mover,” “Don’t Bug Me, Baby,” the pungent “Caca De Vaca,” and a punked-up cover of Buddy Knox’s “Party Doll.” On 1984’s Yabba Ding Ding (previously Border Town, on Big Beat), Joe does the impossible: he yokes his Tex-Mex ditty-fest to leftist politics without bringing the party to a screeching halt. Case in point: “Who Buy the Guns”(“that killed the nuns/yeah yeah”)? “We did! We did!” Or “Escondido,” in which Joe’s lovemaking on a Mexican beach is interrupted by the military drills of federales (“It’s no threat/The guns are real/They really love to click their heels....Tell El General, “No complaint!”). Or the self-explanatory “Cucharacha Taco.” AND it feaures cameo backup from none other than the King of Pop himself (on "Don't Let a Woman Make a Fool Out of You"). If I may be so bold, this was the most irresistible party music since Huey Smith convened the Clowns--that’s about as high a compliment as I can pay. NOTE: If you visit Joe’s site, check out his cool altars!

I have no excuse for waiting so long to review these records--I've been listening to them more frequently than pretty much anything else in the house for the last four years. If you're a Church member enamoured of the new "Detroit Sound" and haven't checked 'em out, you have no excuse, either, other than my own tardiness. The Cobras do for pre-British Invasion R&B and soul what Ray Condo and the Ricochets did for rockabilly and all manners of swing, namely unearth hot rocks and plant 'em squarely in your sweat lodge. The band gets with it, but ex-stripper Rachael Nagy is the star attraction, sporting husky vocal chops that, as Raymond Chandler once wrote, "would make a bishop throw a rock through a stained glass window," and breathing new life into nuggets from the likes of heroes as far-ranging as the Five Royales, Charlie Rich, Solomon Burke, Jackie DeShannon, Irma Thomas and the Oblivians. She flattens out a bit when she slows it down, but since when has that been more important than having a sense of dynamics? The point is, she hits sweet and direct, no complication and, call me a know-nuthin', but I've had enough of puzzles lately. If I could condense these two records down to their essence ("Putty," "Slummer the Slum," "Midnight Blues," "Hittin' On Nothing," "Hey Sailor," "Shout Bamalama," and two ACE Solomon Burke covers, "Home In Your Heart" and "Stupidity" would be a great start), I'd have a second Deee-troit record--along with the Dirtbombs' Ultraglide in Black--that'd top any of the White Stripes' three more ballyhooed jobs. They will rock a party; I've already tried 'em out on three benighted and unsuspecting gatherings. So get with it, bro.

Arlester Christian was the poor man's James Brown (James Brown Mach I, that is--pre-"Cold Sweat"). His screams and hollers didn't endanger the fine china; the Blazers didn't constantly threaten to lock into the Holy Rhythm and bring back Jesus. But, together, they could make the local folks boogaloo 'til they soaked their shirts. From the stutter-steppin' masterpiece "So Sharp" (Listen to the great James Gadson on the cans! Here and elsewhere!) to the original "Funky Broadway" to a chunka-chunkin' "You Are My Sunshine" to "Shotgun Slim" to the eloquently titled "Uhhh," this comp is full of down home, greasy party music. And if the music sounds like it's just itchin' to break into a jam, it was; the Blazers would metamorphose into the fabulous Watts 103rd Street Band, then power Bill Withers before he Flacked out (check out Bill Withers at Carnegie Hall for the hardest, folkest funk that ever hit that museum).

Virtually forgotten today (couldn't find one damned LP of his amongst the humongous vinyl collection at Nashville's Lawrence Records), in the '70s Stoney, a black Native American Irishman from Oklahoma, gave his label mate Merle Haggard a run for his money in the "Poet of the Common Man" sweepstakes (and Merle had an advantage: he could read and write). He sang with an utter humility in the face of adversity that could teach many a calendar cowboy a thing or two about country, and wrote about common graces, "A Two Dollar Toy," "Mama's Old Quilt," fishin', bootleggin', odd-jobbin' being just a few. To hear him sing "Hank and Lefty Raised My Country Soul" is to know why they were more blacks than whites at Hank's funeral; to hear him sing--no, utter, as one would try to articulate a holy vision--Jesse Winchester's "Mississippi, You're On My Mind" is to truly understand the phrase "connection with nature" for the first time.

A Memphis feast for the ears. Backed by Alex Chilton on unusually dirty guitar, Ross "Wet Bar" Johnson on drums, Jim Dickinson on keys, and critic extraordinaire Robert Palmer on "sugar cane stick" clarinet, Tav made amends for the trail of frustratingly uneven records he'd left in his wake since the band's birth in '79; rightly so, as this was the band's 10th anniversary show. In fact, it's a great live album like the Cramps never made, with local material Lux and Ivy would have given their eyeteeth for. "Oh How She Dances" (flat-out stolen, in more ways than one, from Dickinson's legendary Dixie Fried album), sets a magically sleazy freak-show tone that's sustained (with the exception of one stinky, off-key ballad) through the remaining hour-plus, with titillating stops to drink at the fountains of Jack Scott, Hank Mizell, Conway Twitty, Tommy Johnson, Sir Mack Rice, Muddy Waters, the Rock and Roll trio, and a then-unknown Reverend Horton Heat. Most neo-rockabillies forget how weird the original shit was; the Panther Burns have so much Memphis in their bloodstreams forgetting's out of the question. Historical bonus: a five-and-a-half minute, nearly entropic, feedback-charged brawl through Sonny Burgess's "Red-Headed Woman," from the band's first show in '79. Shamefully out of print--got mine off Ebay.

Seven years before his death, backed by his son Bubba and Jerry Lee’s Sun band, Feathers made maybe the best record of his life in 1991, even though few of the Feathers aficionados I know own it (you guessed it: it—and most of its companions in the series--is outta print, but scroungable for a pittance at half.com). It never gets quite as wild as “One Hand Loose” or as weird as “I Can’t Hardly Stand It,” but it never falls as flat as most of the man’s straight country stuff does. He just hiccups and wheezes and squeaks and booms along, with Roland Janes juicing the proceedings with some sharp chicken-picking every time they drowse toward sleepytime. The set list includes definitive remakes of Feathers classics (“A Man in Love,” “Uh Huh Honey,” and “Defrost Your Heart”), visits to the George Jones, Hank Williams, Jerry Lee, and Elvis songbooks, and even some cool traditional (“Cootzie Coo”) and pop (“Fraulein”!!!)

The Feelies were way ahead of the Velvets Renaissance curve with 1980's jittery Crazy Rhythms. 1986's The Good Earth and 1988's Only Life chased the jitters with a shot of REMmy strum 'n' blur, not an improvement if you ask me, though most critics said different. Before bowing out, the band dropped Time for a Witness in 1991 to what seemed like utter silence. Dunno why, 'cause they turned up the amps, yelled the vocals, and brought back their old extended rave-ups and slow builds for their punchiest record ever. Of course, it's out of print, so keep your eyes peeled. Includes an absolutely ace cover of "Real Cool Time"; it's a pity they never did their inevitable roots album, though you can check 'em teasing us in Something Wild.

Hip-hoppin' Dizzy Gillespies, bustin' rhymes and crackin' jokes at high velocity (even from right to left, thanks to wonder-of-nature Chip Fu, the fastest combination of brain and tongue the music's ever known) and style-jumpin' like they were born to it, they were The Revolution that Never Happened. Remember those early equations--made in the face of "rap ain't music" caveats--of rap with be-bop? This is the only unit that made those claims stand up straight. Who knows where these guys are now? Bargain hunters might opt for the single-cd greatest hits package (sure to be in print when these are long gone...which'll be sooner than later), but both original releases are packed with surprises. Not to be missed: "Movie Scene," which prophesies the Wu; "Ring the Alarm," the ultimate dance hall/hip-hop synthesis; "La Schmoove," a declaration to rank with Gillespie/Parker's "Ko Ko"; and the mind-boggling "Sneakin' Up On Ya," which features Chip's wildest improv, literally jammed packed with syllables, wheezes, and sputters.

Invented his own language (vout..oroooney). Sang, wrote, and played guitar, piano, drums, and the soles of his shoes (once, all in the same song, "Genius"). His best recordings remind one of the Marx Brothers in Duck Soup: serious structures reduced to a jiggling jelly of chaos by an anarchic madman. Whether he's whispering ("Tip Light"), barking ("Serenade to a Poodle"), chuckling (the title song), clucking ("Chicken Rhythm"), praising junk food ("Potato Chips") or twisting Japanese, Arabic, English, Greek, and vout itself for his own whacked-out purposes, the result is sonic comedy of the highest order. Rock ears should easily detect his influence on none other than Chuck Berry.

Yeah, I'm a Deadhead--what of it? This 4-CD live set proves I ain't no muddlehead on the matter. The consummate hippies rock their asses off here--I've never heard them rowdier, though I'm far from caught up with all of the live sets out there. Garcia not only is recorded at high volume, he actually sounds raw on the peak performances; Weir often sounds like he wishes he were John Fogerty (if not Little Richard). And the set list is prime: the pick of their underrecorded classics ("Ramble On Rose," "Mr. Charlie," "Jack Straw," "Cold Rain and Snow"), aces from Garcia's and Weir's solo hands ("Sugaree," "Deal," "Playing in the Band, "One More Saturday Night"), and killer covers ("Big Boss Man," "It Hurts Me Too," their Bo Diddley-beat medley, a more-than-credible "Rockin' Pneumonia"). Weirdly, it's the Dead standbys--"China Cat Sunflower," "Sugar Magnolia," and "Dark Star"--that are the only disappointments, and then only because they're truncated (cut off abruptly--not faded). At a budget price, though, I'm glad I own it.

There are few good reasons to fatten Mike Curb's wallet, but this is one of 'em. The label's released several short Hag cheapos, each with a kinda-koncept, and none of 'em half-bad. 18 Rare Classics harbors the long-gone "A Working Man Can't Get Nowhere These Days," All Night Long not only the killer Bob Wills title tune but the he-can't-mean-that "I'm a White Boy." Both, however, are loaded with soft stuff. Not so this 10-song tour of Merle's bluesy roots. After four swingin' dances with Wills tunes, three stops to drink at Jimmie Rodgers' eternal river (each great song bound to be unfamiliar to any non-obsessive), and one classic face-off apiece with Hank and the Delmore Brothers, Merle's own "Working Man Blues" and "White Man Singing the Blues" sound like the weak cuts. Budget-priced, too.

Answer to the question, "Whatever happened to Wreckless Eric?" Most rawkers who've laid ears to his "(I'd Go) The Whole Wide World" (which opens with "When I was a young boy/My mama said to me/There's only one girl in the world for you/And she probably lives in Tahiti..." and is intermittently punctuated with one of the all-time greatest yell-along choruses) would've thought he was eternal. But he was last seen ten years ago on Sympathy (I didn't say "heard," 'cause I sure didn't), and who knows how he was lured from his home in France to produce and co-write this witty little package of nuggets with an ex-Coolie in Austin and Atlanta. Harper is listed as singing lead, but it sure as hell sounds like the Wreckless One on the best cuts, and Tom Grey's performance on "clapped-out Vox organ" is punky pop stroke that has Eric's fingerprints all over it. Out of print, probably, though you might write Casino Music (881 Ponce de Leon Avenue, Atlanta, GA 30306) or e-mail the distributor (IchibanR@aol.com) if your interest is piqued.

Two discs of literally outrageous trash-talking, from-the-gut soul singing, and killer pop covers that's the best deal I've seen this year (less than $20). Recorded in '79 and '82, they document the woman who made Roxanne Shante and MC Lyte possible, and who makes Lil' Kim and Foxy Brown sound like dimwitted amateurs. Like Tom Waits' Nighthawks at the Diner, the 'tween-song raps are so funny and startling your mind may wander through the songs as you're waiting for the next one, but Jackson stays down and dirty and hilarious while she's singing, too. Her own "Logs and Thangs," "The Phuck U Symphony," "Lovers and Girlfriends," and "Ugly Men" show she's the brains behind the operation. "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy," "Hold the Line," "(If Loving You is Wrong) I Don't Wanna Be Right," "Passion," "Still," and "This Is It" show she can make the most adamantine Top 40-hater take it hard, over and over again and like it. The band can funk or rock and roll, and the Pointers back her up. Queen Bitch's Testament. Get it while you can.

Garland who? In ‘81, Jeffreys seemed on the verge of stardom with this record. His writing was in full flower, his vocals were graduating with distinction from the School of Adenoidal Soul (classmates: Elvis C, John Hiatt, Graham Parker, Joe Jackson), and cameos from Linton Kwesi Johnson, Big Youth, Lou Reed gave him the best in street cred. Plus, he had the Rumour’s rhythm section and Springsteen’s keybies backing him up. Nonetheless, Escape Artist sold diddley, and Jeffreys faded into the dustbin of rock history. On the basis of its merits, that should never have happened. As always Jeffreys celebrates modern love, street life, and “art for art’s sake” (the subject of the lost classic “Jump Jump”) with verve and detailed observation, and contributes again to rock and roll’s deep vault of songs about race (“Miami Beach,” with sterling narration from LKJ). As one would expect from the cast, it also rocks like no other Jeffreys record had before (or has since), especially on an ace cover of “96 Tears.” Out of print, and too damned bad--consult www.half.com .

It’s not unusual for the ol’ Reverend to completely miss the boat when it comes to cult heroes. I guess you might say that’s what makes ‘em cult heroes. After resisting for years without giving the man much of chance (hell, I didn’t even know he was black!), I’ve spent my summer so far making amends to Detroit’s ace rock and roll soldier, Mick Collins. It’s unlikely that I’ll be able to tell any visitor to this page anything they don’t already know about Collins’ current projects, the Dirtbombs (BUY Ultraglide in Black-- NOW!!) and the Screws (equally comfortable with hardcore punk, classic ‘50s R&B, and no wave jazz skronk, their albums are uneven but surprising like a muscle spasm--that’s Mick), but even the obsessive may have missed this little item. It’s a fast, cheap way to see if he moves you, and to know exactly what he’s about: democratic American music knocked out with do-it-yourself dirty noise. Collins’ Arto Lindsay-cum-John Lee Hooker guitar (he claims that after almost ten years, he still hasn’t learned to play--obviously he’s a smart son-of-a-gun) dominates the proceedings, but a squalling sax engages it in a battle of white-noise supremacy on the side-long cover of Sun Ra’s “Space is the Place,” which is more exciting than the various versions of the original I’ve heard. And the first side is bound to be the only occasion in rock and roll history where you’ll find Ray Charles and Government Issue songs elbow to elbow. My kind of rock and roller, for sure. Sorry I’m late. (This record is available through the fabulous and inexpensive Midheaven Mailorder site: http://www.midheaven.com ).

It's only fitting that at a time of rampant MC5 worship and emulation (OK...too often it's mimickry), the rock congregation should be obliged to get out and support the sole remaining original member--one of only two who haven't departed for the Grande Ballroom in the Sky)--who's continuing to kick out the jams. Some reliable sources warn that these records, from 1995-1997, are headed out of print (though CDNOW"s still got 'em listed). If so, you can do one helluva lot worse than snap 'em up. The Epitaphs are laced with mad guitar and loud riffing that cut deeper than our Swedish friends' with half the strain, but the true surprises are the pungent, political, prophetic lyrics and stories from outside the law, some by ex-Pink Fairy and Armageddon novelist Mick Farren but many of the best by Kramer himself ("The mailman put in a fresh clip/Turned and slipped/Through a crack in the universe"). And though Wayne ain't no Rob Tyner or Mitch Ryder, he can yell or talk his way through 'em in the great rock and roll tradition. The Hard Stuff packs the most metallic KOs, Citizen Wayne the most consistent songwriting (and the most experimental music, with David Was replacing Farren as catalyst--purists beware!), Dangerous Madness splitting the difference. It'd be a perfect time for the label to cherry-pick the three for dense, jaw-breaking compilation, though a live album's out that may serve the same purpose. Dodge Main is a hard-rock supergroup record that, while the guitar mix could use a little body, gathers some classic-but-not-too-accessible songs in one place for a rowdy tribute to the Detroit Sound: Fred Sonic Smith's addictive, stuttering "City Slang," the MC5's "Future/Now" and "Over and Over," Radio Birdman's "100 Fools," and the Stooges' "I Got a Right." Though the record stumbles a little over some ska- and reggae-metal, it rights itself with a positively inspirational Kramer original near the end, the defiant "Better Than That." Brother Wayne is right! Throw some coins in the dish post-haste.

Bob’s Cash-like baritone, an eye for tough-nut relationship conundrums, and one helluva six-string secret weapon in Tim Carroll (better known as an alt-country songwriter, but dissonantly digging in like Bob Quine gone to Nashville here) make this one of the great lost releases of 1997. His “Do You Think About Me?” bests the Waco Brothers’ cover, “Heaven’s Gate” serves Christers a knuckle sandwich, and “My Mother’s Husband” (a great existentialist tune) arm-wrestles his own conflicted feelings into reason. Don’t know what he’s up to now, but I sure wish he hadn’t gone away. Allison Moorer contributes ace background vocals. (See also Songs and Albums You Gotta Hear.)

The Queen of Bakersfield Country Music, and damn near the First Lady of Country Music itself, Maddox died in 1998, four years after this record was recorded, but she's in fine form here. She sings with much spunk, reprising the Maddox Brothers & Rose culinary classic "Fried Potatoes" and telling her (and their) story in the title song, as well as covering fellow Bakersfieldian Buck Owens twice and tragic legend Gram Parsons once ("Sin City"). She gets help from Haggard, Hamlet, Cash, and Berline, but she really doesn't need it: she was the definition of a pistol, apparently, from the cradle to the grave. If you're hesistant about taking a chance on a granny, try either of Arhoolies' Maddox Brothers & Rose comps (from the mid-to-late '40s), which sound like a hillbilly insane asylum break-out. You'll be back.

They say the era of the autonomous songwritin' singer dawned with Chuck Berry, but here we have an eloquent collection of songs, sung in a suave, subtle, and sly tenor by the composer himself, seven of which went Top Ten R&B between '50 and '54. And Mayfield wasn't just your average country songwriter: titles like "Life is Suicide," "Lost Mind," "The Hunt is On," "The River's Invitation," "Wasted Dream," "Memory Pain" (memorably covered by not only Johnny Winter but John Lee Hooker), "You Don't Exist No More," and "Nightmare" merely suggest the lyrical depths he plumbed decades before Cohen and Cave. Ray Charles and Johnny "The Tan Canary" Adams swore by him...why shouldn't you?

McCoury's music is so alive he makes Ricky Skaggs sound like the Kenny Rogers of Bluegrass. Not only does he sing like he's possessed--and I mean possessed-- by Big Mon's ghost, but his band can flat move (as they proved to benighted ears on Steve Earle's The Mountain), and no mountain-music unit has ever had such adventurous taste in other people's songs. Folks as diverse as Robert Cray (a haunting, revelatory "Smokin' Gun"), Red Lane (a chain-gang tale of bloody revenge), Tom Petty, Jimmy C. Newman, Ray Price, and Skeets MacDonald get the treatment here, and McCoury's "The First Time She Left" and son Ronnie's title tune stand proudly alongside. The best place to start for the beginner.

Readers of Richie Unterberger's Urban Spacemen and Wayfaring Strangers are likely to come away hungry for the music of East L. A.'s premier '60s garage band, particularly after the author's vaunting of lead singer Little Willie G's versatility (as great a balladeer as he was a rocker) and the inclusion of the band's truly wailing, nearly carnivalesque--imagine "Palisades Park" with turbo guitars!--"Jump Jive and Harmonize" on the book's supplementary CD. Well, calm down. The ballads are painfully dated. Take that back--they suck. However, if you don't mind paying $15 for 9 rockers, including "Jump Jive and Harmonize," "Whittier Blvd." (a blatant rip-off of the Stones' "2120 South Michigan Avenue" that bests the source), and the best white-boy version of "Land of 1000 Dances" ever waxed, be my guest. My stronger advice would be to seek out the book (and its more-scintillatin' predecessor Unknown Legends of Rock and Roll, which also has a cool companion disc), which, despite the fact that I've impugned Unterberger's credibility slightly, is mighty entertaining and educatonal reading.

Billy Childish will be hollering rock and roll and strumming those three sacred chords through bad equipment when he's 100 (he stays so active he might just make it). Of his many incarnations, Thee Mighty Caesars is my favorite (though there ain't much difference between 'em), and this '85-'87 comp is their testament . 33 songs at barely over 70 minutes, thrust across by just bass, drums, and guitar from the Davies Family Bull-in-a-China-Closet School, yobby yowling vocals--they're punk if anything is, and with enough beer and volume you may doubt the title's a joke. One kinda wishes Childish'd lay off the bad gurls; when they cover the Ramones and the Clash, the words stick out like sore thumbs. But nobody else has gotten this close to The Golden Garage.

1966. Frankfurt, Germany. U.S. Army base. 5 soldiers fed up with the miltary machine. They monk-ify their coifs. They pick up bass, guitars, drum, and organ and blast out some of the nastiest, weirdest, and most exhilarating pop noise of the decade. Isolated from a lot of what was going on stateside, they nonetheless anticipate lots of future punk directions, particularly those of the closely contemporaneous Velvet Underground. Then, within a year, it is over. That's rock and roll. Classic anti-war song (not that many came outta the garage, y'know): "Complication." Prophetic titles: "Shut Up," "I Hate You," "Drunken Maria."

One of the most powerful rock and roll records of the Eighties. Play Ministry or Big Black (or, hell, Metallica or Megadeth) back to back with this muthahumper and it becomes clear what little twits Albini and Jourgensen and their ilk were (are? Can you even hear the "Where Are They Now?" file rattling?). Though Bill Laswell's production on this record apparently didn't meet with band or critic approval, I think it turns a diesel truck into a panzer tank. Besides, Lemmy is eternal: he's aged less embarrassingly than Keith or Iggy (no bandanas or "flamingo" stage moves or poetry readings or bad metal), and, along with his whiskey roar and thunder bass, the sumbitch can flat-out write a rock and roll song. This album's great smoking headbangers alone, "Nothing Up My Sleeve," "The Claw," and "Built for Speed," equal "Ace of Spades" or "Killed By Death," but his political/philosophical bone really starts to act up here (and would continue to through the equally underrated Rock and Roll, No Sleep at All, and 1916). "Deaf Forever" is Lemmy's "Ozymandias," as well as one helluva great pun and anti-war song, and the title song synthesizes Flipper and Slayer as it puts its boot on the necks of the Unholy Trinity: government, military, and organized religion.

The premier tenor man in jazz goes into the studio with an avant-garde/soul-jazz version of the MGs, with the late great Don Pullen playing the Booker T. role and going wayyyyyyyyyyyy out on Hammond B-3. If any rocker out there has ever dug side one of Melting Pot, s/he's more than ready for this. Is it wank? Jazz-sturbation? HELL NO! Murray can honk dirtier than Oblivian guitars, he's got a sack full of catchy (!) songs that'll burrow deep into your medulla oblongata, and the stratospheric level of imaginative improv never flags, even (especially!) on the two cuts that surpass 10 minutes. Secret weapon: the drummer, who's taken everything Cecil Taylor's had to throw at him in the past and doesn't miss a trick here; in fact, lots of the tricks are his. Now available only as an expensive Japanese import.

You may be sick to death of ska, or complain its function is too limited (when's the last time you actually danced to it?). Who knows: you might not be able to get enough of it--it has hung tough through several revivals, and there may be more. In either case, you owe it to yourself as a citizen of the world to check out these two releases (the first, of course, out of print) by an ace dance band with improvisatory chops that thinks nothing of skanking compositions by guys named Monk, Mingus, Coltrane, Adderly, (Eddie) Harris, even Ibrahim, and mixing them up with their own pretty damn salty originals. They don't stop with jazz, either; they take Huey "Piano" Smith, Otis Redding, and Rudy "The Hangover King" Toombs to Jamiaca, too (and touch home with Toots). If you're a hardcore jazzbo or r&b purist, you may resist, but you'll be missing the fun (purists always do). Note to James Carter: next time you're in the Big Apple, look these men up, 'cause they're your brothers in spirit.

This bloody chunk of garage glory from Sweden distracted me from the Holy Punk Triumvirate of the Minutemen, Husker Du, and the Replacements in ’84, which at the time was like separating white from rice. Savage covers of the Third Bardo (“Five Years Ahead of My Time’), the Standells (“Sometimes Good Guys Don’t Wear White”), the Kinks (“I’m Not Like Everybody Else”), Alex Chilton (“Bangkok”), and whoever did “Don’t Tread on Me” surpass the explosiveness of the originals, and the band’s own “The Way You Touch My Hand” and “Where the Wolfbane Blooms” don’t embarrass the company. Plus “Rat Fink A-Boo-Boo,” one of the all-time great Thunders rips. I haven’t been out of the garage since, though I’ve yet to hear an American garagepunk record better than this. Still going strong, too: ‘94’s Powerstrip, on Sympathy, is what it says it is. This LP is out of print, so haunt the used palaces, but much of its contents are on Amigo’s 2-CD Showdown:1981-1993.

Deep, disorienting, and strange music from the Black Ark--did it produce any other kind? This record’s predecessor, Super Ape, is a bit too slick and features too little Scratch. Here, however, Perry interferes with the groove just enough to fuck with your synapses, whether he’s bouncing things off the studio wall, boosting the echo, jacking off the console knobs, or mumbling random encouragement to the ladies who sing Chaka’s “Tell Me Something Good.” One great dub record.

You ever wonder how exciting radio used to be when humans played the records? And not just any human--madmen commandeered the mikes. When they cut in on a record, it was ‘cause the music moved ‘em so much they couldn’t help it. Over the air, it really did sound like a wild party. Pitching CV Wine and Beer, reeling off dedications, wisecracking and motormouthing, Dewey, the man who broke Elvis, was one of the best. “Friday’s payday and bath day,” he says to lead off the first record; “I got a morphine shot in me and I can’t see too good,” he admits before spinning the next. That’s rock and roll, Dad. Though there’s no Presley here--other than the story of Phillips getting his granny his autograph--hey, he’s not the show: Piano Red, Amos Milburn, Roscoe Gordon, Sister Rosetta Tharpe (did Jerry Lee ever cover “Strange Things Happening Every Day”?) and Lowell Fulsom (among others) are more than acceptable substitutes, but it’s Phillips who’s the livest wire. “’Bout swallowed my gold tooth,” indeed. Things wind down in the later broadcasts as Phillips’ dipsomaniacal habits begin to get the best of him, but the 30 minutes is worth the price of admission. Criminally out of print.

A one-of-a-kind record: wistful garage-rock! The poor man's Replacements made several hard-rocking, good-humored, catchy records in the late '80s, '88's Johnson being the best-reviewed, but this one, recorded in the wake of the band's dissolution, is my favorite. Sloppy roots records aren't normally long on any mood but petulance, but the boys apparently knew the jig was up, and nearly every song here is shot through with sweet regret. The three-beer-buzz of passionate amateurism doesn't last forever, and, rather than denying it, the Brothers damn near turn this into a concept album using it as a theme. Out of fucking print.

For a good long time, it's been easier to find an atheist in church than to locate a nice comp of the rough early R&B of this band. A crying shame, that, `cause they definitely hold their own with the Stones and the Animals. Hooligan vox, guitar that cuts clean and deep, rowdy bass, and a drummer who digs the roll as much as the rock-you know you need it, baby. They were writing their own material early-their own R&B, not pop to offset their covers-and the funny thing is, the originals beat the covers, a claim the Stones couldn't consistently make until a bit later. Confident, too, and punky: if "Get a Buzz," "Come See Me," "Rosalyn," and "Buzz the Jerk" aren't prime proto-garage grease, I'll let my divinity degree expire. I know the Stones looked like punks, but did they ever cut anything that sounded this coated with grime? Secret Weapon: lead guitarist Dick Taylor, who, playing clean or dirty with equal skill, usually left an open wound. A criminally underrated band that abandoned their ruffian attack way too early for kinda-psychedelic stuff, they are beautifully represented on this budget buy that may not stick around long: 2 cds at just over $13 at CD Universe (click to check out the deal.

About damned time, I say. The toughest record the bros would release after the juggernaut of their first four is now available in punchy Bill Inglot-honed living color. With numerous add-ons, of course, among them “Street Fighting Man,” the lost classic “Smash You,” and, in a fitting and timely nod, Dee Dee’s raging versions of “Planet Earth 1988” and “Too Tough to Die,” the best shit he EVER waxed. Post-9/11, I can’t think of a sentient person who doesn’t need to hear “I’m Not Afraid Of Life,” and it may sound brand new to most, ‘cause this truly great release didn’t exactly fly off the racks in the first place.

Alt-country starts here. In fact, given the recent successes of Wilco and the Old 97s, it's a wonder it's taken Rhino this long to reissue the pioneering works of a neglected wellspring band. Chip and Tony Kinman made their first splash on the L. A. punk scene as the Dils ("Class War" and "I Hate the Rich" are ripe for revival), then tired of the straightjacketing and applied their bad attitude and good politics to their love of honky-tonk country music. In the lyrics of songs like "Rank and File," "The Conductor Wears Black," "Long Gone Dead," and "Sound of the Rain," they demonstrated a rarely equalled talent for stealthily and subtly merging political insights with everyday subject matter, while Chip's high tenor merged with Tony's deadpan baritone for some of the oddest and most intriguing harmonizing since John and Exene. Musically, they were no great shakes, and at times the melodies are so chipper (no pun attended) you're reminded the recordings were made in the early '80s. Still, this is real rock and roll history, and, given the odd lack of politics in the vision of their aforementioned offspring (a pity, 'cause Gram had em), we could use more songs like "The Conductor Wore Black." Inspirational lyrics: "He took my ticket/And I'm on to stay/He don't thank me/And he don't look back/Don't act surprised/When he tells you where you're going/On this train the conductor wears black." NOTE: Contains complete contents of the Slash albums Sundown and Long Gone Dead, plus four bonus tracks. Limited edition (2500 copies) available only from Rhino Handmade (www.rhinohandmade.com).

It’s only a compilation, but it just happens to be one of the most perfect records rock and roll has produced. It also happens to be out of print, though you can round up all of its twelve cuts if you shell out about 50 bucks for a fatted-up box. The singing? Exquisite, erotic. The writing? Astonishingly precise, subtly complex, verbally surprising: the sheer mastery of “The Love I Saw in You Was Just a Mirage” bears out Bob Dylan’s claim at the time that Smokey was America’s greatest poet. The playing? It’s the Funk Brothers--with Miracle-ulous augmentation--at their finest, raising songs that seem like filler (“Going to a Go-Go,” “Whole Lot of Shakin’ in My Heart,” “Come On Do the Jerk,” and remember, they weren’t filler, they were hits) to party-classic status. The song selection? Well, besides the aforementioned, how do “The Tracks of My Tears,” “I Second That Emotion,” “Ooo Baby Baby,” “Choosey Beggar,” and the underrated “More Love” grab you? If you really think you’re tired of Motown, that The Big Chill and countless other soundtracks and commercials spoiled Smokey for you, seek this out, give it a listen, then think that. Soul music so good it’s almost painful to listen to!

Always thought this was the most underrated Stones album. They've never been more whimsical ("Menace? Who, us?"), it's studded with forgotten classics ("Connection," "Please Go Home," "Miss Amanda Jones," and Keith's first -ever lead vocal on the trippy "Something Happened to Me Yesterday"), and Charlie is ON POINT! And it was Brian's last hurrah as a truly contributing member. Plus, the remastering deserves the hype--it's like somebody's wiped the tar tinge off a smoker's picture window. If you're flush with cash, you might spring for the UK version of Aftermath, too (like I did), not only 'cause it's great, as you oughtta know, but because you don't have to trade in your domestic version, due to different tracks. The bastards: only THEY could get a hardened cynic excited about making them even filthier and richer by buying music I've already bought TWICE before!

Still the best white funk band in rock and roll history. Since they didn't strip naked on stage and resort to shameless minstrelsy, they didn't ride controversy to fame like the Chili Peppers. Since they didn't ride an irresistible r&b instrumental to the top of the charts, they don't have a place in official history like the Average White Band. But they pack more memorable, interesting, intelligent, funny, and funky songs onto a 90-minute mix tape than both groups put together. This, their major label debut, was their best. Angling their Ohio Players-inspired music into Aerosmith territory (thanks to David Ellison's encyclopedic guitar) they visited "The Ed Sullivan Show," the dinner table, a corporate layoff, the friendly skies, the stock car races, the hospital, and the tundra, as well as spending quality time with some hot chicks. An imaginative tour de force, musically and lyrically, and shamefully out of print. Verse for Our Age: "I won't be holding the bag/Choo-Choo Charlie/When the corporation enema come down/'Cause the power falls into the hands/Of thin-dicked little weasels/But the monkey wrench is me here at the end."

Rushing, with Big Joe Turner, was one of the greatest big band shouters of the swing era, most famous for fronting Basie's titanic Kansas City band. His raspy vibrato is simultaneously thunderous and vulnerable--there's always a chuckle, a smile, or a wink (or all three) couched in every belted phrase--and, as befits an Okie, there's no polish necessary to his selling a song. This reissue pairs two late-'50s sessions, one with a power-packed all-star "big brass" orchestra (the reeds ain't too shabby, either: just Coleman Hawkins and Buddy Tate!), the other an organ combo spearheaded by Basie alums Tate and Jo Jones, with Sir Charles Thompson runnin' the keys like The Phantom of the Roller Rink. A great way to get familiar with 20+ classic songs from the first two decades of recorded jazz, too. Turn it up to 7 or 8 and be prepared to be waylaid by some aural joy.

"Georgia on a Fast Train." "Honky Tonk Heroes." "Black Rose." "(I'm Just an) Old Chunk of Coal." "You Asked Me To." "Ride Me Down Easy." All outlaw-country classics, all straight from the pen of Billy Joe Shaver, all present on this long-gone but absolutely KILLER live album. Though they've been covered by the likes of Willie, Waylon, Cash, Anderson and even The King, they've never been better rendered than here. Shaver's singing has gained power and savvy over the last quarter century, and his son Eddie's guitar--more dirty blues than pickin' country--adds a core of emotional commitment missing in other versions. Plus, the lesser-known songs ain't chopped liver: "The Hottest Thing in Town" may be the hottest song a musician's ever written about his mom, and "Love You 'Til the Cows Come Home" is recommended to Charlie Burton.

Pugnacious, political, and punchy, Ireland's forgotten heroes from the Days of '77 were one of the few bands to pick up the gauntlet the Clash dropped. Must-hears "Suspect Device" and "Alternative Ulster" explode with rabble-rousing punk rock fury, and "Nobody's Heroes" pins sheepdom to the mat well in advance of our own Minor Threat and Bad Religion, Jake Burns' temper-tantrum bark giving the listener no room to back out. This two-CD compilation (like most) loses a little steam early in the second disc, as the songs gets longer and the tempos slower, but it's a budget-priced testament to not sitting on your ass suffering.

Tarheel (real name Alden Bunn) was an enigmatic black equivalent of Elvis Presley, totally comfortable with nearly every genre of American music. He started out early in the decade in gospel, sailed smoothly into R&B with the great Apollo label, groaned the blues on "Eyesight to the Blind," and dealt out intriguingly dark-toned doo wop (check out the two-part "Can't Stay Away") in tandem with his wife Anna at decade's end on Fire. Most imprtantly, he cut two of the hottest bopcat singles of the late '50s, "Wildcat Tamer" and "#9 Train" (quick: name two other black rockabilly singers!), each sporting guitar solos that scorch the eardrums (Robert Palmer attributes them to Tarheel; AllMusic Guide to Jimmy Spruill).Though this comp covers only Slim's years on Fire and Red Robin, you can hear the blues in his wop, gospel in his bop, soul in his pop...and loud, snapping six-string all over the place (I'm siding with Palmer). An underappeciated master, for sure--and SURPRISE! It's in print, and cheap.

Brother Ray, JB, Jackie, Solomon, Otis, Sam Cooke, Marvin, Wilson, Sam & Dave, Smokey you probably know--if you been hittin' the church regularly. The Saints of Soul...minus one. Tate hailed from Macon, GA (JB, Otis, and Little Richard territory); whatever was in the water down there was touched by the hand of God. These are his Jerry Ragovoy-produced sessions for Verve, and I'd stand 'em up against Redding's Dictionary of Soul as one of the most exciting and varied soul collections ever assembled. If Al Green's or Robert Cray's singing has ever straightened your short hairs, you simply must sample Tate's falsetto leaps and emotional shifts (you'll get the impression Cray had to have studied at Howard's feet). If you've ever heard soul classics like "Stop!" "Ain't Nobody Home," "Get It While You Can," or "Look at Granny Run Run" (by folks like Hendrix, B.B. King, Joplin, and Cooder) and muttered to yourself, "Damn, that's a good song," well, here's where they came from. And the band, particularly the guitarist and horn section, can straight up wake the dead. The inevitable question: Is he still alive? No one I know seems to know...but if he is, he oughtta be a living legend. Judging from a quick web surf, this CD, the only recording of Tate's recently available, is out of print. Keep your eyes peeled when rifling the cut-out bins, folks--it'll be the best $3.99 you ever spent. (Note: Tate's been recently discovered preaching in a little church west of Philly and reportedly has scored a record deal. I wait with bated breath.)

Taylor is as close to classical music as The Church will get, but even so, we will be damned loyal to any apostate who's been at it for almost half-century. This double CD reissue documents a 1962 concert in Copenhagen at which the frenetically imaginative pianist and his drummer Sunny Murray realized while improvising (you can actually hear the epiphany on "D Trad, That's What) that a steady, swinging, repetitive pattern of percussion wasn't necessary, that in fact it could limit improvisatory exploration. Chuck Berry would have none of it, of course, but we're against fascism, even if it is only rhythmic fascism.

Next weekend, somewhere in a bar or at a state or county fair in America, septuagenerarian marvel Hank Thompson and band will be kicking ass with his classic blend of hillbilly boogie, honky-tonk, and Western swing, playing to an audience (and there is one) still hungry for REAL country music. Even his new records still have snap. Forty years ago, Thompson and his Brazos Valley Boys recorded the first live album ever by a solo C&W artist, and it ranks with George Jones Live at Dancetown USA (Ace), Ernest Tubb Live 1965 (Rhino), Shaver Live at Smith's Olde Bar (Zoo; RIP Eddie Shaver!), The Killer's The Greatest Live Show on Earth (German Bear Family), and Mack "Meat Man" Vickery's loooooong gone Live at the Alabama Women's Prison (Mega) as one of the essential recordings of the music caught uncensored in its element. I know what you're saying: "Vegas?" Buy it and you'll see what I mean--there ain't a helluva lot of difference between a casino and a correctional facility, y'know. On this particular set of evenings, Thompson's wiseass Okie drawl was in fine form, the Boys were absolutely on point (with steel guitarist and bandleader Billy Gray and drummer Billy Stewart especially fine), and the material was a mix of Hank's best and visits to the catalogues of Tubb, Williams, and a legendary picker named Travis, who just happened to be sitting in. Another inspirational guest was the ambient noise provided by The Golden Nugget itself. You can't afford not to have this if you're a self-respecting honky-tonk fan; pop a top and head to Half.com, where I found mine.

Unlike its numerous kinfolk, this comp lives up to the title! Kicking off appropriately with Larry Dale's "Let the Doorbell Ring," in which the revelers ignore the cops outside, winding through novelty doo-wop (the original "Stranded in the Jungle") and pre-rock R&B (including early Little Richard and Etta James), giving air to aficionado faves like Young Jessie, Floyd Dixon, and Joe Houston, and peaking with the driving finale, Roy Montrell's "Every Time I Hear that Mellow Saxophone," it is what it advertises. Of course, furriners put it together, so unless you've got $25-30 to blow on a single CD (if you can find a distributor), better start haunting the bins, Daddy-O. Either way, it's worth it.

Between when Harry Smith’s anthology went out of and came back in print, Yazoo carried (and continues to carry) the torch. Excellent album art, annotation, and sound, but, beyond that, ace compiling are its hallmarks. These are three of my favorites, in order. If anyone should question the influence of country blues on rock and roll, he owes it to himself to make himself familiar with the rock anthology, where he can discover the genesis of classic tunes “by” the Stones, Allmans, Ry Cooder, Led Zep, Cream, Canned Heat, and Bob Dylan. The Johnson set reveals the King of the Delta Blues Singers as not only an ace synthesizer with impeccable taste, but an inspired and picky thief; in other words, not as much of “an original” as the hype maintains, which in no way diminishes the luster of the man’s work. The conceit of the “rap” record is a bit of a stretch, but at the very least it establishes that talking shit over a rhythm is not only a black but a white tradition. Big selling point: the three overlap with neither each other or the Smith anthology. Along with Revenant’s fourth Smith volume and American Primitive “raw gospel” set, these are the perfect companions to that musical monument. Featured performers: Memphis Minnie, Tommy Johnson, Bukka White, Charley Patton, Henry Thomas, Kokomo Arnold, Skip James, Blind Blake, Cannon’s Jug Stompers, Blind Willie Johnson, the Allen Brothers, Blind Willie McTell, Speckled Red, Butterbeans & Susie, Jimmie Davis (before he got religion--and politics), Son House, Leroy Carr, and Frank Hutchinson. Caught you drooling!

Recommended wholeheartedly to hardened agnostics and atheists as well as steel and slide guitar enthusiasts. After listening to this, you find yourself saying, "If there were a church like this in MY town, I'd be there come Sunday morning." Recorded at two House of God churches, where this kind of music is a staple, not an occasional treat, these artists definitely FEEL the spirit, and nowhere in American music--nowhere--are guitars played with such total abandon. It's blues on fire with the spirit of the Lord, and even hardcore sinners will find it difficult not to get up and move around when you put it on. It's also the tradition Robert Randolph (who makes an appearance) comes out of; his recent appearance on Austin City Limits transformed the television audience like no guest I've ever seen.

The wham of this Memphis kid! All of 16 when the earliest of these titles, including the classic “Scratchy” and its B-side “Firefly, were recorded in 1961, Wammack’s the least well-known guitar god in the history of American music. Under Roland Janes’ guidance at Sonic Studios in Memphis, he cut some of goofiest, fuzzed-up, vibrato’d-out six-string instrumentals ever: imagine what a hormone-crazed boy who’s awakened to find he can suddenly play would play, and you have it. Drunk on Lonnie Mack’s Magnatone sound, he had so many whacky ideas he couldn’t do nothing but crowd ‘em into a 2-and-a-half minute picking flurry, and even taught old dogs like “Night Train” and “Louie Louie” new tricks. What the hell happened to him? Went on to play sessions for Clarence Carter and the Wicked Pickett at Muscle Shoals and eventually run Little Richard’s road band. Maybe it’s time for some enterprising young archaeologist to track him down, get him in the studio, and find out what he’s learned.

Make no mistake about it: Ware blows the most massive horn in jazz. He also leads one of the sharpest and most experienced small groups in jazz (he, pianist Matthew Ship, and bassist William Parker have been together for 13 years), and fearlessly sails spiritual and improvisational waters into which few have dared to dip a toe since Trane shuffled off this mortal coil in '67. Every album I've heard that this unit's put out since '92, when this one was released (during Ware's first tenure with Columbia; the second just got terminated after a grand total of two records), has been a feast for heart, mind, and ear. Ware unleashes torrents of gospel-charged energy that the combo, which miraculously seems to move and breathe as one organism, shapes into subtle structures that compare more than favorably with Coltrane's post-Love Supreme work. The climax within such structures is usually a release into what Ware calls "bliss"--a state of serenity they (and you) have earned. If you're wondering what this has to do with rock and roll, well, fine, but if you're familiar with what the Drifters did to "White Christmas," Jackie Wilson to "Danny Boy," Sid Vicious to "My Way," or Husker Du to The Mary Tyler Moore Show theme, you just might wanna hear Ware disassemble "Autumn Leaves" here (or "The Way We Were," on 1998's Go See the World--a 14-minute, 34-second demolition and reconstruction). If you still have to ask, you'll never know.

Talk about out of step. Drunk on Paul's Boutique (an off-the-wall masterpiece no one else has really dared hitch his star to) and The Low End Theory, high on a smorgasbord of hallucinogens (not exactly the hip hop drug of choice then or now), slangin' his own guitar and feeling no need for a nom de mic, Warfield dropped this in 1993, and it was dead in the cold, cruel, narrow straits of the rap game. Too bad--it's a closet classic on the level of Critical Beatdown or Oar. It achieves a flow worthy of its musical and chemical influences, with samples and references (Caligula, The Wicked Pickett's "Engine #9, "Ode to Billie Joe," Gus Van Zant) and his own six-string ideas planted like aural land mines to keep your head up. The much-better-known (but just-as-gone) Jungle Brothers tried something similar the same year on J Beez Wit Da Remedy (highlighted by a great Stooges sample, a hip hop first-and-last), but left the rails before the CD was over. My Field Trip to Planet 9 still sounds fresh, even though you can probably find it in the $1 overflow bin at your local used-music oasis. Out of print.

Ever dreamed of having Muddy Waters bellowing the blues right in your living room? That dream can half come true with this extraordinarily present '63 session, pairing Waters' acoustic slide with Buddy Guy's deft picking and backing 'em both with Willie Dixon's bass and Clifton James' drums. It's as in-your-face as blues records get, with remastering that earns its second chanceand Waters chilling and killing you with masterly renditions of "Long Distance Call," "Good Morning Little School Girl," "Big Leg Woman," and "Feel Like Going Home." Tacked on is a louder, electric get-together from '64 that produced "You Can't Lose What You Never Had" and "The Same Thing." The music here makes all current music sound like it's made by Romper-Roomers.

Hendrix was truly a sonic genius. But you'll be a little less impressed by his originality when you're swarmed by the lead cut here, "Space Guitar," cut when the future "Superman Lover" was a mere 19. Freaking loud, blazingly fast, strutting multiple mind-blowing effects (and, believe me, that doesn't do it justice), it was laid on the listening public in 1954. Yep: 1954. Nothing else here approaches its futurism, but the rest are classic examples of Los Angeles R&B, circa 1952-1963. Along with the maligned Ike Turner, Watson is the most underrated of the '50s guitar heroes, perhaps because his past was drowned by his success as a purveyor of funky "pimpsongs" (the aforementioned, "I Don't Wanna Be a Lone Ranger," "A Real Mutha For Ya," all classic in their own right) in the '70s. Here's where to catch up. Note: He could write, sing, and play a ballad, too--"Cuttin' In" is a lost classic of early soul, a must-hear for fans of Toussaint McCall's "Nothing Takes the Place of You" (revived by John Waters in Hairspray).