Various Artists – Having A Rave Up!

Various Artists – Having A Rave Up!

Grapefruit

3CD/DL

Out now

New boxset subtitled “The British R&B Sounds Of 1964”. The year in question is charted with the help of The Pretty Things, The Kinks, The Zombies and a host of others both well-known and obscure. Ian Canty writes…

In a sense the onset of R&B in 1960s Blighty was arguably the first time UK music truly got wild. Skiffle was very accessible and energetic, but not exactly riotous and the reaction to US Rock & Roll’s primal upsurge was fairly sedate here for the most part. The first genuine UK sound Beat/Merseybeat was closely tied in with R&B and had its moments, but as it developed it became more built around melody. The British adoption of American Blues was on the face of it bizarre – what sounded totally real rendered by Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker didn’t come off quite the same when sung by a bunch of middle class students from Richmond for example.

However, it was a style that was relatively simple to emulate and was mainly built around mastering cover versions from the American artists’ catalogues. To compensate for the perceived lack of authenticity, these UK kids developed a no-holds barred playing style that sometimes broke down to out of control and exciting chaos, which added truly chaotic thrills to some hot and heavy club performances. The Rolling Stones’ breakthrough into the national charts during the second half of 1963 was the most visible sign of what was cooking, but it would be the next year before R&B really went overground, becoming a major force in cities up and down the UK. What we have here charts the progress during 1964, R&B’s big year in Britain.

Fittingly Having A Rave Up! commences with The Pretty Things, The Rolling Stones’ chief rivals for the British roughhousing Blues crown. Their debut 45 Rosalyn still shapes up as a fine example of the type anarchic, breakneck thrills UK R&B could offer and sets this collection up in just the right manner. On the third disc we also get the more successful but just as rowdy follow up single Don’t Bring Me Down, another pearl. The Pretties’ lengthy career is studded with brilliance, but these initial A sides hit the right raw spot. Another durable outfit, Don Craine’s Downliners Sect, come next with Baby What’s Wrong, inspiring Billy Childish along the way and then The Artwoods instil Sweet Mary with real cool.

Hailing from Bedfordshire, The Authentics had the same manager as The Yardbirds (who feature later on this disc with a lively Honey In Your Hips) and the liner notes point out their fierce stomp Climbing Through was mixed up with the latter on a comp. The Primitives apply a taut tension to Help Me, with some smart keys enlivening Manfred Mann’s stellar B side I’m Your Kingpin. Zoot Money seemed clearly a star in the making judging from his charismatic reading of Uncle Willie, but for some reason it never quite happened and Dave Berry’s Don’t Give Me No Lip would famously be covered by The Sex Pistols a decade on.

Oh Yeah! by the Hampton-based outfit The Others would become a Garage band staple after The Shadows Of The Night copied their version and Jimmy Powell And The Dimensions’ That’s Alright moves at a speedy tempo. The Graham Bond Organisation have become synonymous with all-night 1960s raves in Soho and Long Legged Baby gives the listener a hint as to what that may have entailed, with Looking For My Baby by The Second Thoughts easing off the accelerator in a very neat fashion.

An accomplished Chicago Calling by The Iveys is great but doesn’t really offer any real pointers to their future members becoming 1970s Rock & Rollers Fumble and on Baby I Go For You Blue Rondos exhibit some fine proto-Freakbeat guitar wrangling. Shel Naylor versions an early Dave Davies tune One Fine Day well, with this first disc finishing up by way of Group 5’s instro jam What’s That? and a rather polite take of Got My Mojo Working by Steel City group The Sheffields.

The Kinks were famously disparaged in the press as a duff R&B outfit, but their rendering of Beautiful Delilah that starts off disc two of this set is full of energy and is followed by David John & The Mood giving Bo Diddley’s Pretty Thing a near-skiffle style shuffle. An upbeat Reelin’ And A Rockin’ by Mickey Finn & The Blue Men is endowed with a freewheeling charm of its own and Art Wood’s more famous brother Ron was part of The Birds and wrote their power-packed gem featured here You’re On My Mind.

Jeff Beck makes an early recorded appearance as part of The Tridents soon after. The previously unreleased Tiger In Your Tank gives him a chance for the kind of six string grandstanding he would go onto make his name by, with Southampton band The Soul Agents putting in a classy organ-led Soul shouter in Let’s Make It Pretty Baby. Cov Freak maestros The Sorrows are caught early on with their demo cut of Don’t Start Me Talkin’ and The Merseybeats prove they had real grit on the raucous Shame, Shame, Shame. Pete Meaden’s charges The High Numbers are represented here by their Mod-friendly flop 45 I’m The Face, with the fuzzed up Come Back Baby finding Screaming Lord Sutch in good fettle.

It is noted in the liner booklet that the Willie Dixon number You’ll Be Mine was the root of Marc Bolan’s Jeepster, but Long John Baldry & The Hoochie Coochie Men do the original justice, with the Pre-Procol Harum band The Paramounts posting an impressive version of A Certain Girl. The Hollies are another group that built a long run of hit singles but experimented with R&B early on, like on decent LP track Memphis and before he joined up with The Primitives, Mal Ryder was backed by The Spirits on the harps-a-wailing Forget It.

A Garage-style cover of Duane Eddy’s Peter Gunn by Liverpool’s The Remo Four hits the spot and the unissued demo of Voodoo Blues by Shades Of Blue feels like an ideal companion piece. The Excerts’ chugging 24 Manhattan Place, Lester Square & The G.T.s’ rootsy cut of Do The Dog and Watford’s own Cops N Robbers with a groovy Down The Road Apiece ends this disc.

The final part of Having A Rave Up! is kicked into action by the return of The Downliners Sect and the Bo Diddley-style Sect Appeal. The Yardbirds also come back to stomp through I Ain’t Got You, with The Sneekers from Mitcham rattling through Bald Headed Woman with real intent. The Animals’ Blues cred is well known of course and they turn in a busy She Said Yeah here and although The Zombies probably aren’t the first band you would think where earthy R&B romps are concerned, they do a good job on their track Woman. The Clique’s Punky See That My Grave Is Kept Clean is a whole bundle of fun and Mod hero Steve Marriott pops up in his group before The Small Faces The Moments on a neat Money Money.

Moodiness is replete on How Many More Times by The T-Bones and chart stars The Nashville Teens prove Tobacco Road wasn’t a fluke with a muscular T.N.T.. The self-penned groove of That’s What I’ll Do by The Bad Boys is a convincing twist on the Blues sound, whereas the high energy Honey Hush by Christian’s Crusaders represents the high energy Soul that was gaining traction as the 60s went on. Exeter’s The Saxons come over on Right Throughly as something different and suitably chilled, with Don’t You Mix It With Money by The Talismen being wrapped up with an infectious dance beat.

The Mike Cotton Sound featured Jim Rodford, who would later play bass with The Kinks in the late 1970s. Their go at Pretty Thing is fairly wild for what was originally a Jazz outfit. Billie Jean by The Fuzz is a swirling and attractive item and Rod The Mod makes a Jazz-leaning appearance with The Hoochie Coochie Men on a live cover of the Jimmy Reed tune Bright Lights, Big City. Bo Diddley was of course a huge influence on UK R&B and his theme tune gets a sparky going over from The SW4 and a slow and steady Every Night by The Excerts passes muster.

Portsmouth band The Original For-Tunes adjusted their moniker from The Fortunes when finding out about the other band of the same name. They only reached the demo stage, something that the potential of their harmonica-led cut Evil makes one consider a bit of a shame. A fast Sticks And Stones by Four Just Men is pretty good, but gives no real indication of their future as Psych legends Wimple Winch and the curtain comes down on Having A Rave Up! with Long Tall Shorty by The End, a mysterious outfit with an identity that remains lost in the mists of time.

I realise that Cherry Red crank out these three disc sets at a fearsome pace, something which can on occasion be a determent to the material contained within. But Having A Rave Up! works by zeroing in on just the point when UK music first attacked Popular Music with true venom. In a way this foreshadowed the development of Punk like nothing else before it, being the true sound of teenage abandon that stuffy old Britain had never previously reached. The energy and invention of the best of this set shines through and even on the lesser items, one can appreciate them having a go and picture the mayhem of the band knocking out this raw stuff live. In this way Having A Rave Up! bottles the lightning of 1964 UK R&B perfectly.

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