Gene Vincent

xgau picks, though w/o comments:

The Bop That Just Won't Stop (1956) [Capitol, 1974]
[CG70s: A Basic Record Library; CG80: Rock Library: Before 1980]

The Best of Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps [Capitol, 1985]
[CG80: Rock Library: Before 1980]

The Screaming End: The Best of Gene Vincent & His Blue Caps[Razor & Tie, 1996]
Sticking to 1956 tracks featuring the wild and quick guitarist Cliff Gallup and the propulsively light-handed 15-year-old drummer Dickie Harrell, 20 songs in 47 minutes add not so much flesh as spirit to the tales told of lesser rockabilly legends--Carl Perkins, Eddie Cochran, Johnny Burnette, Charlie Feathers, Rick Nelson and his studio pal Charlie Burton, every one of whom this gimpy weirdo outruns to the poontang. The compositions may not be much, but that's what they said about Bo Diddley. "Race With the Devil," "Jump Back, Honey, Jump Back," "Woman Love," "B-I-Bickey Bi, Bo-Bo-Go"--they be rockin', and in a dialect no one would get so right again. A

Billy Zoom on working with Gene, from his Mark Prindle interview:

...if I'd been skinny and looked good in spandex, I might have had a whole different career. I might have jumped into that glam thing. But I didn't. And I started - well, I got that gig with Gene Vincent in '75, and that turned out to be the most fun I'd had playing in a while.

Was he friendly?

Gene?

Yeah.

Yeah, Gene was a great guy. The rest of the band sucked. The rest of the guys in the band were a bunch of hippies who thought - they weren't sure who Gene was, but they knew he'd been famous. But they were profoundly embarrassed; they said this on numerous occasions - that it was so embarrassing to play those stupid old songs in front of people. But they thought that maybe it would look good on their resume, you know? Gene was fun. We'd get him, uh - my favorite thing, I wish I'd had a tape recorder back then but I didn't. Cassettes were still kinda new when I did that. I would have really liked to get him in the motel room telling stories. Hooking Duane Eddy up with a transvestite in Soho - and not knowing that it was a guy. He had funny stories like that. About Eddie Cochran, and having adventures and stuff. I liked Gene.

Cliff Gallup is so damn good

Can you imagine hearing Cliff Gallup on your dansette in your bedroom in the Home Counties in 1956 the way Jeff Beck did? It must have sounded like it came from outer space!

OTM

Terrifying.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9-ZQ9owbU0

His stuff was so great until he started ruining it by having Jordanaires style backing vocals on every single song. In fact it might even have been the Jordanaires, I hate those bastards.

― pisspoor bung probe prog (Tom D.), Sunday, 29 September 2024 17:11 (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

I've long thought exactly the same about Elvis from 1956. On Hound Dog for example you've got this stinging solo by Scotty Moore and the Jordanaires pouring syrupy shit all over it. Ruined so much of Elvis' 50s work