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VARIOUS ARTISTS
Die Ariola Star-Club Aufnahmen (Bear Family)
Reviewed by Alan Wright
Bear Family has, for some time now, been one of Germany's greatest exports. These folks lovingly create amazing testimonies to giants in the history of blues, rockabilly, country, rock 'n' roll, R&B, soul and pop. Their CDs often are loaded with as much music as they can cram on, which often includes rare recordings that make fans salivate, thick booklets with great notes and detailed session info, and above all, they sound fuckin' amazing!
When I got this box set, my eyes just about popped out of their sockets. The set includes four CDs, a poster, and a beautiful hardcover book, in both German and English, filled with exciting history and pictures and detailed info on all the groups featured on the set. Basically, this is culled from releases on the legendary Star-Club label. The first CD focuses on King Size Taylor and the Dominoes who had roots reaching back to their days as a skiffle group but later featured a predominantly more rock and roll line-up with two guitars, bass, piano, drums, and later, saxophone players. They cover all sorts of R&B and early rock 'n' roll songs that many of the Star-Club bands, the Beatles included, would do in their sets. Stuff like "Unchain My Heart," "Bad Boy," "Stupidity," "You Can't Sit Down" all reek of the dingy basement club atmosphere that these guys fostered (or festered in, perhaps). They have a heavy sax-dominated sound, as well as some jazzy influences, but are overall quite a blast. Out of 24 songs, only two are originals written by Taylor: "I'm Late" and "Sky Boat Song."
The second CD focuses on the Bobby Patrick Big Six, Giants and Team Beats Berlin. Bobby Patrick Big Six get the most songs, having apparently committed 19 songs to wax for Star-Club. Bobby himself played trumpet and sang, and since they also had a sax player, as well as the standard guitar-bass-drums, they had more of an early soul filtered through Beat sound. They tackled tunes by Sam Cooke, Booker T., Fats Domino, Curtis Mayfield, and for a complete left-fielder, Hank Williams Sr.! The Giants only do two songs, one of which is a mediocre version of "Sherry Baby" (also covered by King Size Taylor, but his is much faster in tempo!), not my most favorite of songs. The poppy but very catchy Beatles-esque number following it, "Put Yourself In My Place" is much cooler. The Team Beats Berlin do a great original organ-driven pounder "Sweety Meaty Baby" that features a wild guitar solo and crowd cheers! Their cover of Gene Vincent's "Say Mama" is also rockin' stuff!
The third CD features the Rattles, who were already faves of mine from various compilation appearances, as well as a great "best of" LP I've had for a few years. I'd heard hardly any of these songs before this, though. Obviously heavily influenced by Chuck Berry they cover no less than seven of his tunes, as well as totally kick-ass, grungy takes on things like "Dizzy Miss Lizzy," "Twist and Shout," "That Is Rock 'n' Roll" and even "Da Doo Ron Ron!" A completely deranged take on "Red Hot" is also a highlight. Even their attempts at poppier material, such as a great version of "Tell Me What Can I Do," shows off crack musicianship. I also like their versions of "Then He Kissed Me" and "Spanish Harlem," set to a frenetic Beat backdrop. Their sole original song, "Sunbeam At The Sky," has these great trash-can sounding drums and killer guitar. Very cool, these guys.
Lastly, the fourth CD has stuff by the Roadrunners, Bats, German Bonds, Broom Town Band, Four Renders, Big Goff and the Tigers, and the Phantom Brothers. The Roadrunners had a Bo Diddley-Little Richard-Larry Williams fixation, doing wild takes of "Rip It Up," "Long Tall Sally," "Roadrunner," "Slow Down," and "Dizzy Miss Lizzie." Great vocals, honking sax, pumpin' piano, unhinged guitar and a great rockin' backbeat fuels their covers, making their set second only to the Rattles for me. The rest of the CD is made up of the original "Beat Band Battle" LP, and has two or three songs apiece by each band. You gotta love the hyper-charged version of "Farmer John" by the Bats, which kicked the album off. What follows are some more great slabs of Beat frenzy. The German Bonds' versions of "Some Other Guy" revivals the Big Three for pure unbridledness, and just dig their takes on "I'm A Hog For You" and "Sweets For My Sweet!" The Broomtown Band were originally a skiffle-ish combo, but by their contributions to this they'd become some kind of crazed skiffle-rock combination, with great pounding bass work! They take on the traditional tune "Forellen Twist" and Little Richard's "Long Tall Sally" with primitive gusto. "Hippy Hippy Shake" by the Four Renders is certainly much wilder than the Swinging Blue Jeans' version, and they too worshipped at the altar of Mr. Berry by covering "Go Johnny Go." Big Goff and the Tigers check in with three cool covers, including a hypercharged version of Johnny Kidd and the Pirates' "I'll Never Get Over You;" but the best is saved for last with two songs by the notorious Phantom Brothers, they of "Chicago" fame, and extremely long hair for the time. Here, they pay homage to ol' Chuck (and probably the Rolling Stones) with "Oh Carol" and Johnny Kidd with "Shakin' All Over." Overall, this is a fantastic set for fans of early to mid-60s Beat music, and although it's probably rather pricey, no Beat fan's collection can be complete without owning this!!
© 2002 - Alan Wright