60`s

The Cousins is a guitar group of the late fifties and early sixties who were among the first to successfully export "rock & roll" music from Belgium. Played Shadows-like music and also had a stage act which resembled that of The Shadows. Started off at the end of the fifties as "La Jeune Equipe". Their main occupation was playing at the birthday parties of the rich and noble. They change their name to "Les Cousins" when they were asked to perform in a club with the same name on the 14th of July (French fкte nationale). It's there that the group gets a record contract with Jean Klüger. The cheerful song "Kili-Watch" of 1960 becomes an instant and huge hit. In a few months 50.000 copies are sold, an enormous amount for the Belgian record market at that point. The song is an adaptation of an Indian warsong that bass-player Derese had picked up during his years as a boy-scout.

One of several Liverpool pop groups to achieve international success in the sixties, the Swinging blue jeans were actually formed in 1958, when (acknowledging their hero, Gene Vincent), they called themselves the Bluegenes. They were already regular performers at the Cavern club when the Beatles made their debut in 1961 at that now-famous venue - indeed, the Beatles occupied the guest spot on their show…

Since The King of Rock 'n' Roll was the complete '50s masters, it was easy to assume that its five-disc '60s sequel, From Nashville to Memphis: The Essential 60's Masters, rounded up all the masters from that decade, which is simply not the case. The producers deliberately avoided the soundtracks to Elvis' movies, which perhaps makes sense, given that they are roundly and rightly disparaged as Presley's low point, which then opened the doors to presenting just what they judged as the best non-soundtrack recordings he made during the '60s. They also disregarded the gospel recordings, saving them for the double-disc 1994 collection Amazing Grace: His Greatest Gospel Songs, leaving this as an overview of the best of his pop and rock material of the '60s, all recorded after he got back from the army…