Jesse Belvin

Big Jay McNeely was an R&B saxophonist, whose music ran the gamut of R&B styles, from jazz-tinged pieces and pure blues to out-and-out rock ‘n’ roll, and was famous as one of the leaders in the “honkin’” saxophone style alongside the likes of Sam ‘The Man’ Taylor, King Curtis and Lee Allen, developing a wild stage act as he as he explored every sound the sax could make played in every bizarre position. He recorded for a variety of labels after making his debut with Johnny Otis, and this great-value 53-track 2-CD collection comprises A & B sides of his singles with his band The Blue Jays on the Savoy, Exclusive, Aladdin, Imperial, Veejay and Swingin’ labels, during this era. It features his R&B No. 1 with “Deacon’s Hop” in 1949 that immediately brought him to public attention, along with his other R&B hits “Wild Wig” and, from later years “There Is Something On Your Mind”. On some of his releases he featured vocalists like Clifford Blivens, Ted Shirley, Jesse Belvin, Mercy Dee Walton and Sonny Warner as well as organist Leon Haywood. He was one of the most distinctive and unusual R&B artists of the ‘50s and this collection is an entertaining trawl across his primary recording career.

Aladdin Records, based in Los Angeles, was a very influential label in American music history. This is not the full story of Aladdin Records but it's a very good sampler of the label's output from 1947-1961. It's 50 tracks, 25 tracks on each of the 2CDs in the set, of very good R&B from the period. Each CD is about 60 minutes playing time. The sound is good for recordings of this era. Amos Milburn, Lightnin' Hopkins, Lowell Fulson, Louis Jordan, Charles Brown, Billie Holiday, Shirley & Lee, Gene & Eunic, Bobby Wall, Thurston Harris, The Velvetones and many more.

Dino, Dean Martin's 1972 album, was another in a long line of country-pop confections designed for him by producer Jimmy Bowen, with whom he had worked since 1964. It had been Bowen who had the idea of doing the 1940s evergreen "Everybody Loves Somebody" in a 1950s rock & roll style, setting off a string of hits for Martin, and the producer had used the singer as his mouthpiece for redoing some of country music's biggest hits in the years since. It worked well for quite a while, but by the early '70s everyone involved was just going through the motions.

This continues the strand of R&B and country collections associated with Acrobat’s highly popular “America’s Greatest Hits” series, this one focusing on the top R&B records in the US Billboard charts during 1959. This great value 115-track 4-CD anthology includes, with the exception of certain records which are unavailable for inclusion due to copyright restrictions, just about every record which peaked in the Top 14 positions of Billboard’s “Hot R&B Sides” chart during the year. The pop and R&B market was continuing to evolve as rock ‘n’ roll matured, and new strands arrived, with pop-flavoured R&B vocal groups making a significant impact, along with fine R&B vocalists who readily crossed into the pop charts, while the boundaries between pop and R&B continued to become less clear, as some pure pop records got traction on R&B radio stations.

Cooke's Tour is the fourth studio album by American singer-songwriter Sam Cooke, released in May 1960 in by RCA Victor.

2021 release. Although for many decades it was principally the domain of jazz-styled singers and musicians, The Great American Songbook has undergone a significant revival in recent years, in terms of the mass market's rediscovery of the genre. Loosely defined, these are the most popular and enduring songs from the 1920s through to the 50s, most of which were written for Broadway theatre, musical theatre and/or Hollywood musical movies. And although regular Pop Music has generally endured a somewhat difficult relationship with what has always been perceived as "serious" music, many R&B and early Soul performers dabbled in the Great American Songbook over the years. This unique compilation presents thirty memorable examples, featuring artists like Ray Charles, Big Maybelle, Jackie Wilson, Little Willie John, LaVern Baker, James Brown, Etta James, Bobby Bland, Timi Yuro, Ruth Brown and many more. Many of these sides are hard to find elsewhere on CD.

Although the Fleetwoods' sound was smooth, without many of the rougher edges of doo wop groups, they were one of the few white vocal groups of the late '50s and early '60s to enjoy success not only on the pop charts, but also the R&B charts. Their forte was ballads – beginning with the 1959 debut single "Come Softly to Me," they racked up a number of hits over the next three years, and nearly all of them were ballads. The Fleetwoods broke up in 1963, but their songs – particularly "Come Softly to Me" – became pop/rock classics of the pre-British Invasion era.

Jules Blattner is a rock & roll original, from a town that spawned one of the great founding rock & roll originals, Chuck Berry. Born in St. Louis, MO, in 1941, he was a young teenager when the music caught on, and was already making plans to do something with it when the music began roaring up the chart in 1955.