Various Artists – Leather Jackets And Diesel Smoke

Various Artists – Leather Jackets And Diesel Smoke

Righteous Records

CD/DL

Out now

New double CD set in Righteous Records’ the “Lux & Ivy” series, mixing Rockabilly, Country and Kitsch to varying degrees. Ian Canty writes…

For this fresh episode in the by now well-established Lux & Ivy series, Righteous Records eschew an overriding theme for once and instead group together a disparate band of out there 50s and 60s snapshots of North American culture. The more cynical among us may wonder if The Cramps’ royalties actually ran to being able to buy their own industrial estate in order to provide storage for this apparently gargantuan vinyl stack. But what can’t be doubt if the pure fun that the scouring through these collections of the good, bad and just plain nuts provide. Crucially, the vast majority of the contributions here ring true as stuff Lux & Ivy may well have dug.

Popular Kansas Rock & Rollers Conny And The Bellhops smash through a wild Shot Rod (engineered by Elvis’ guitarist Scotty Moore) to get Leather Jackets And Diesel Smoke’s party started, with Tyrone Schmidling’s ultra-basic but classic Rockabilly hoe-down You’re Gone, I’m Left taking us further inwards. Part one of Rat-A-Ma-Cue, an atypical 1960 waxing by C&W singer Pat Patterson, comes next and the concluding half is also included on disc two of this set. Twangin’ Machine, a guitar instro by The Acccidentals, keeps this hot start going and then Dean Beard And The Crew Cuts kick up a sleazy sax ruckus with Rakin’ And Scrapin’

Verve Records released the speedy Pop of Teenie Weenie Jeanie by Chuck & Gary in 1958, but coming next is the queasy schmaltz of The Devil’s Old Suitcase by Pam Thum which is best avoided. The R&B grit of Junior Lightning & The Empires restores some sense of order with their flipside of their Ragged And Hungry 45 Somebody Changed The Lock and then Monkey On The Moon by Gene Hall propels us with Boogie Woogie to the stratosphere. Jazz Exotica seasons The Blasts’ similarly space-themed Canaveral Rock, with the prolific Country singer Bonny Guitar aka Bonnie Buckingham giving her item Johnny Vagabond some prime six string plucking allied an assured voice performance.

Linda Green’s nonsense song Honey Buggie is a charmingly daft piece of daft early 1960s Pop and the guitar mayhem of Texas band The Raiders’ wild Hocus Pocus really hits the spot. Donnie James’ energetic Walk Baby Walk emerged on the obscure Abbey imprint based in Hollywood and it is followed by a trio of muscle car cash-ins, led by the cool of A Hot-Rodders Dream by Ray Burden. Doo Wop influences Tall Tonio And The Mell-Dees’ Hot-Rod-Car and as a contrast, the driving C&W of Hot Rod Race by Charlie Ryan completes the three. Ryan specialised in this kind of thing, also scoring a hit with Hot Rod Lincoln.

Novelty record Chilli Dippin’ Baby by Joyce Poynter comes next, with R&B Dance marvel Charlie Chan by The Sounds then truly impressing with its sense of brio. This very enjoyable first disc is curtailed by a neat early Garage/Rock & Roll instrumental groover Big Bowl Of Soul by The Huntsmen and Sweetie Jones’ sorrowful Soul ballad I’ve Been Wrong.

Original Rocker Ronnie Pearson’s super debut blast Hot Shot kicks off disc two of Leather Jackets And Diesel Smoke in style and The Cat’s Were Jumpin’, a Georgia recorded 45 by John Worthan, acts as a neat enough follow up. You Don’t Love Me by Willie Cobb is probably better known as the basis of Dawn Penn’s belated UK hit single No, No, No, with James “Rube” Gallagher keeping the energy level high with his up-tempo B side Ford & Shaker.

Teen Machine shows Surf Rock pioneers The Gamblers had that guitar instrumental sound down to pat back in 1961 and Sandy Nelson’s edgy sax-enhanced power surge The City is its perfect partner. Next we veer slightly towards Jazz/Soundtracks with The Big Sound Of Don Ralke and their number Zooba, with teen actress Lada Edmund’s manic Pop novelty Foxy sporting Garage Punk organ hints a good few years before that style truly emerged.

Next we swerve into Exotica with a selection from Elisabeth Waldo’s LP Realm Of The Incas called Incan Festival Dance and a percussion excursion Bongosera by Grupo Afro-Cubano. An album titled Folk Songs For Far Out Folk would seem to be prime fodder for Lux & Ivy and thus the windy strangeness of Foggy, Foggy Dew by Fred Katz turns up here. The stop-start Bluegrass item Oh Death by John Reedy And His Stone Mountain Trio is also made for The Cramps’ pair, with the extraordinary 1955 B side by Pearl Reeves & The Concords I’m Not Ashamed being R&B attitude done just right.

Leather Jacket Cowboy by Pepper Pots picks up the Blues/Jazz baton in an instrumental mode and the car motif comes back again with the advent of Texas C&W veteran Doye O’Dell’s speedy Diesel Smoke, Mike Page’s story of betrayal Long Black Shiny Car and a storming Women In Cadillacs by Connecticut R&B merchants The Nite Riders. The mutant Country/Rockabilly sound of Bill Flagg’s Go Cat Go bottles all the excitement of 50s Americana into one small package and Hank Blackman And The Killers’ Itchy Koo is one cool keyboard-led Doo Wop thriller. This set draws to a close with the oddball C&W Pop of Vancie Flowers’ Wet Back.

This swoop through USA’s 50s and 60s back pages that is Leather Jackets And Diesel Smoke reveals itself along the way as being one of the best in the Lux & Ivy series. There are only a couple of tunes which jar and the good stuff is very good indeed. Though selections from the vinyl stack must be dwindling a bit by now, there is still plenty of life on offer here.

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