Since
Roddy Jackson put out just three singles on
Specialty, you wouldn't think it easy to compile an entire CD of his work. With typical industrious ingenuity, however,
Ace has managed to scrounge together a 16-track collection. It includes not just both sides of all three of his late-'50s
Specialty singles, but also a bunch of previously unissued outtakes and demos from the same era, as well as an alternate take of
"I've Got My Sights on Someone New." Jackson really didn't have enough going for him to be a major rock & roller, as both his material and vocals were pretty derivative of
Little Richard and
Jerry Lee Lewis, with some
Eddie Cochran and
Elvis Presley thrown in for good measure. Still, he did have some unhinged energy, and could muster vocals that were about as raw as any
rock & roll heard on large indie labels such as
Specialty at the time. The material ranges from frenzied rockers to milder, toned-down tunes that seem aimed at smoothing
Jackson out for the
pop market. But despite the involvement of a young
Sonny Bono in these sessions on both the production and songwriting end, none of the songs are so memorable that they can be marked out as cuts that should have been heard by a much wider audience. One of the previously unreleased items is a recording described as the "original demo" of
"She Said Yeah," later cut for
Specialty by
Larry Williams and covered in the '60s by
the Rolling Stones; in this form, it's more of a lewd piano-based rollicking
boogie-woogie number. ~ Richie Unterberger
![Swing Is the Thing [Retrieval]](http://prodimage.images-bn.com/pimages/0608917905328_p0_v1_s90x140.jpg "Swing Is the Thing [Retrieval]")
