9. Count Basie – The Atomic Mr Basie [1957]
Nice tasteful cover there,they couldn't have a picture of a model of an atom or something instead? Reminds me a lot of the cover for A-Tom-ic Jones only not as funny.
Why am I prattling on about Tom Jones?
Well because there's not really much I can say about this. I quite enjoy big band jazz and at first I found this album to be much better than the Duke Ellington album I heard before. Well at first it did anyway.
The first 2 or 3 songs really kick off the album in style and really got my hopes up that this would be a great record. Sadly though it doesn't last & it felt like to me that the energy drops after that and soon resorts to being background music. I can't say I didn't enjoy this but it failed to grab me in any significant way after such a promising beginning.
Rating 2.5 / 5
8. Buddy Holly & The Crickets - The "Chirping" Crickets [1957]
Well I never claimed there was never going to be any bias in this list, I mean why bother making it otherwise if I was just going to blindly agree with what everybody else thinks.
Some albums are good because of the music on them, some albums are good because of the memories associated with them. Although I have never heard this album in my life I am familiar with the material on it. That's because in my house when I was a kid Elvis was never the king of Rock n Roll according to my Father, Buddy Holly was.
Listening to this brings back many memories of going through my parents record collection as a small child just discovering records for the first time (More singles than albums) and seeing album covers of this bespectacled geeky guy staring back at me in that kind of over-coloured half portrait/half photo thing that they tended to do on albums in the 50s.
The music as you would expect is faultless, it's like being pummelled in the face with hit after hit after hit. Oh Boy!, Not Fade Away, Maybe Baby, That'll Be The Day... and hell we're still only halfway through the album after all that. Like I said this is an extremely biased review but I loved hearing all this stuff again and I have no hesitation in making it the first album on this list to get full marks.
Rating 5 / 5
7. Frank Sinatra – Songs For Swingin’ Lovers [1956]
So after just 6 albums we find ourselves with our first album by an artist who has already been listed on this countdown earlier and it couldn't be more different to that album. It's called 'Songs For Swingin’ Lovers' and it certainly does swing rather a lot. This is also the first album in the book that I have already heard previously as I came in to doing this list.
If anything you could almost say too much.
I'm noticing a growing trend among these early albums in that record companies tend to find a theme and stick to it for the whole album resulting in albums that sound the same pretty much the whole way through. It's like they're not quite sure how to how to handle this new format just yet and that the concept of having light & shade, peaks & troughs over the course of 45 to 50 minutes of music is still something to be gotten to grips with.
As for this album, well.... this is exactly the kind of thing you want when you think of a Frank Sinatra album, full of swing and energy with that big band feel. I wouldn't exactly call myself a fan of his (I much prefer his daughter Nancy and her work with Lee Hazelwood) but I recognise at least 5 or 6 of the songs on this album that have gone down as classic. Stuff like 'Pennies From Heaven', 'I've Got You Under My Skin', 'Anything Goes', All classic Sinatra songs. Even a the lesser known songs like 'It Happened In Monterrey' still make this album well worth listening to.
But this album does have one fault and I touched upon it earlier, it's just crying out for a change of pace. A few of the ballads on 'In The Wee Small Hours' would have been perfect to make this a much more rounded and complete sounding record. But taking the album in front of me for what it's worth. I have to say it's pretty damn good.
Rating 4.5 / 5
6. Duke Ellington – Ellington At Newport [1956]
I get it, I really do
I realise that jazz isn't really my thing. It's not that I dislike it, it's more that I don't have enough experience of listening to it to really understand what makes a good jazz album & what makes a bad one. I mean don't get me wrong, I would love to be able to, but I'm just not there yet.
The first thing I notice about this album is that it has around 40 tracks and lasts for over 2 hours. There is no way I can digest that much jazz in one sitting. However like a lot of jazz albums from that time record companies have added and added tracks to albums to the point where they are barely recognisable from the original album. So I decided to ignore all that and just listen to the handful of tracks that made up the original album which clocked in at a much more manageable 44 minutes.
I get it that Duke Ellington is a jazz icon and I'm sure this album must have influenced a hell of a lot of people. But to my uneducated ears it simply made some pleasant background music. I wish I could say that certain parts of it grabbed my attention such a a particularly well played solo or a pleasing melody, but nothing grabbed me unfortunately. I'm not saying this is a bad record at all, just that after it had finished I struggled to recall anything memorable from what I had just heard.
Sorry
Rating - 1 / 5
5. Fats Domino – This Is Fats Domino [1956]
Or
5. Fats Domino – This Is Fats [1957]
The book seems conflicted as to which album they are talking about here. They list the cover and the title from 'This Is Fats' from 1957 but the album tracks listed and the year of production given is that of 'This Is Fats Domino' from the previous year. No matter, I'll listen to both.
Of the two albums 'This Is Fats Domino' is the superior record as it seems much more varied in style as well as content. It also has more memorable songs. The first two songs 'Blueberry Hill' and 'Honey Chile' really start the album with a bang. On 'This Is Fats' the opening song 'The Rooster Song' does pretty much the same thing, however after that song the album tends to slump towards songs that basically all sound the same with that generic Rock n Roll riff although I can't say it isn't somewhat enjoyable.
I don't know if it's just me but on 'This Is Fats Domino' I hear much more RnB, Jazz & blues influences. So for me it's the far better album of the two. It's just a shame Blue Monday isn't a cover of the New Order song.
Ratings
This Is Fats Domino - 4 / 5
This Is Fats - 2.5 / 5
4. Louis Prima – The Wildest [1956]
You can probably tell by the cover this is a totally different ball game from the Sinatra album.
You get the impression that Louis would have been an awesome live act to see. The man is just a pure showman mixing comedy with jazz, this is like a party on a record. That's not to say it doesn't have it's faults. One song in particular 'The Lip' I found extremely irritating with it's random out of tune trumpet blasts that go on throughout the entire song, it's only 2.23 minutes long but feels 10 times that. Other than that the rest of the album is pretty good and at barely 35 minutes long doesn't outstay it's welcome despite that one song. Special mention to Keely Smith the vocalist of whom Louis apparently married despite being 20 years older than her.
You can't but help like the guy.
Rating 3.5 / 5
3. The Louvin Brothers – Tragic Songs Of Life [1956]
Well that was a turn up. I wasn't expecting to like this one at all. Not a great fan of country music & was expecting something rather twee or hokey. That wasn't to be found on here. With three of the songs listing place names like Kentucky, Alabama and from what I gather was their big hit single at the time Knoxville Girl, I was never going to be able to relate to this from a cultural viewpoint. But that didn't matter. The album is called Tragic Songs Of Life and it's not kidding either, in fact you could kind of call it a 1950s version of Nick Cave's Murder Ballads album, only slightly more genteel.
A real surprise this one.
Rating 4 / 5
2. Elvis Presley – Elvis Presley [1956]
It's all too easy to remember Elvis as the fat cheesburger munching junkie who stole music from black people and became the acceptable face of rock n roll blah blah blah, but the guy could belt out a tune when he wanted to and this album is chock full of them. Obviously Blue Suede Shoes is the standout here but there's plenty more on offer as Elvis rocks and croons his way through this 12 song set.
Nice cover too, seem to remember seeing it on some punk album as well.
Really enjoyed this one.
Rating 4 / 5
1. Frank Sinatra – In The Wee Small Hours [1955]
Supposedly this was Frank's emo album recorded while he was going through relationship problems with Ava Gardner. I approached this album with some trepidation with it being 16 songs long but in all honesty it wasn't all that bad really. I think it helped that I listened to this early in the morning when I was still half asleep, in fact I would say the title of the album is almost an instruction on when to listen to it. Having to listen to 16 slow jazz ballads normally wouldn't interest me but I found myself just swept along with Frank's voice and found myself rather enjoying the experience.
Rating 3.5 / 5
