Of all the amplified harmonica blues guys that transversed the audio highway back in the '50s and early '60s, two guys who truly deserve a bigger tip of the hat than they've received thus far are
Kid Thomas and
Jerry McCain.
Thomas was a pompadoured,
Little Richard-styled howler, short on subtleties and long on wind power.
McCain made records for a variety of labels that constantly blurred the line between what was blues and what was rock & roll. This 21-track CD captures some of their best from a variety of sources. The
Kid Thomas section kicks off with
"Rockin This Joint Tonight," and one of the fastest, howlin'est, and downright ornery records ever made. Backed by nothing more than a guitarist and drummer bathed in a wash of tape echo,
Thomas blows a 36-bar harmonica solo at breakneck tempo. If none of the other nine tracks included here match the intensity of this one -- well, perhaps it's because nothing really could. The remaining eleven tracks by
Jerry McCain come from homemade demo tapes circa 1955 that were originally released on White Label Records back in the early '80s as the
Choo Choo Rock album, one of the great unsung records of all time. Their CD debut is made even more noteworthy with the use of better-sounding masters than the original vinyl version. Featuring grinding, distorted guitars, crashing drums, and lyrical texts concerning themselves with going crazy to rock & roll, rock & roll as salvation ("Rock & Roll Ball," "Geronimo's Rock"), and going crazy from outside worldly pressures ("Bell In My Heart," "It Must Be Love," and the pre-Excello "My Next Door Neighbors"), these eleven masterpieces answer the musical question: what would a rock & roll album by
Little Walter have sounded like? Beyond essential. ~ Cub Koda
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