A fine collection like this will always remind us that, no matter how long you’ve been around and listening to R&B, there’s still a helluva lot we’ve missed. The journey from disk 1 to disk 6 is an education, made more so by Nick Duckett’s 24 pages of comprehensive notes which forms the central section of the package. Here’s 160 – yes, 160(!) tracks starting with Rip It Up by Little Richard in 1955 all the way to Huey ‘Piano’ Smith and his Clowns Talk To Me Baby in 1962.
This exquisitely packaged 6 CD set, presented in a handy hard-back book format, pushes every button a fan of Blues, R&B or Rock “n’ Roll might have. The tracks on discs Five and Six reflects the final move towards more soulful productions and present the best music produced in the city before the entire scene finally scattered and the musicians dispersed in 1963-64.Īfter spending the last couple of months basking in the aural joy of this label’s Rhythm & Blues Chronology series covering the 1940s, I’ve reached the conclusion that anything which comes off the Rhythm and Blues Records production line is bound for ‘top of the stack’ status. On discs Three & Four, we find the music on the cusp between the end of the rock’n’roll era and the birth of soul music. Its two-beat patterns combining military band and Caribbean rhythms underpin the early recordings of Louis Armstrong as much as they do those of Little Richard and James Brown.ĭiscs One & Two of this set cover the classic period the New Orleans r&b and rock’n’roll and feature records which most people would now identify as quintessentially New Orleans. At the heart of these three widely different varieties of music lies the rhythmic complexity of second line parade drumming. Sweeping statement that may be, but as the birthplace of jazz, funk and arguably rock’n’roll, it really has no other contenders. More than any other city in the world, New Orleans has been responsible for shaping the sound of twentieth century popular music.
FROM ROCK’N’ROLL TO THE END OF THE CARNIVAL
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