Merrill Moore

Fantastic Voyage dips into rock ’n’ roll’s hotwired legacy of automobile anthems and highway love serenades in the latest tarmac-scorching compilation put together with Wild Wax Show DJ ‘Jailhouse’ John Alexander and Lucky Parker.

50 Hi-Octane Cuts From The Golden Age Of The Automobile - Fantastic Voyage dips into rock ’n’ roll’s hotwired legacy of automobile anthems and highway love serenades in the latest tarmac-scorching compilation put together with Wild Wax Show DJ ‘Jailhouse’ John Alexander and Lucky Parker. Since the birth of rock ’n’ roll, the car has occupied a special place in teenage rampage and backseat romance, rock ’n’ roll music essential as both soundtrack pumping out of the radio or celebration of heaven on wheels. Over two discs, revving up engines and screeching brakes introduce 50 road-worthy classics, including lesser-heard gems rarely encountered on CD (if at all) by names such as the Storey Sisters, Don Pearly, Burt Keyes, Eddie Ringo, Dave ‘Diddle’ Day, Rocky Davis…

This is the eighth (and last) volume in a series of double-disc anthologies from French label Fremeaux Records that chronicles the years that led up to the birth of rock & roll. While the magic year of 1954 is usually accepted as the dawn of the rock & roll age, the whole matter has always generated a good deal of debate, and this installment in the Fremeaux series only muddies the waters, since the year it covers, 1952, shows things rocking along pretty well. One could argue that some of the tracks here, like Wally Mercer's wonderful "Rock Around the Clock," are really just speeded-up R&B, and technically, that's probably so, but there's no denying that something resembling the rock & roll attitude is already in full swing in 1952…