Bear Family

Freddie Hart - Juke Joint Boogie (2004) {Bear Family Records BCD16727AH rec 1953-1961}
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© 1953-61, 2004 Bear Family Records | BCD 16727 AH
Honky Tonk / Country Pop / Rockabilly / Rock & Roll

Many fans of Freddie Hart's sexy '70s love songs may not realize that his recording career began way back in 1953 when he was an aspiring honky-tonker and songwriter. Juke Joint Boogie is a 33-track anthology that looks at the early years of Hart's career when he recorded with producers Ken Nelson and Don Law at Capitol and Columbia Records, cutting straight country as well as hybridized songs intended to catch some of the pop market. Juke Joint Boogie offers an extended but incomplete survey of Hart's recordings from 1953-61, omitting dozens of tracks in spite of its generous program.

Let's call a spade a spade. Orion is an Elvis impersonator. No more, no less. That he's a good Elvis impersonator is important, since if he wasn't, Sun probably wouldn't have tried to promote his recordings as if they were genuine Elvis material, even going to the extremes of overdubbing Orion's voices on recordings by such Sun stalwarts as Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins. This doesn't make him any better, but it sure makes him fascinating, particularly because he is gifted at mimicry and these are pretty good evocations of Elvis at his peak…

Del Shannon - Home and Away: The Complete Recordings 1960-1970 (2004) {8-CD Box, Bear Family Records BCD 15925 HL}
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© 1960-70, 2004 Bear Family Records | BCD 15925 HL}
Pop / AM Pop / Rock & Roll / Oldies / Early Pop / Teen Idols

One of the greatest and most original rock 'n' roll stars of the early 1960s, Del Shannon was also one of the few to not only triumph in the face of the British Invasion, but grow artistically and professionally. He is lauded now as the godfather of Power Pop. His astonishing vocal range combined with Max Crook’s Musitron made one of the most unique and easily identifiable sounds in all popular music. In addition, Del Shannon wrote several of the era’s classics, exploring themes that would recur in his work: loss, alienation, and abandonment.

A characteristically humongous (8-CD) box set from the wonderful obsessive-compulsives at Bear Family, documenting the Killer's '60s tenure at Smash Records. Lewis made consistently good music during this period, but the combination of his personal scandals and the British Invasion made him a pariah to radio programmers until mid-decade, when he returned to his country roots. Highlights of the set include the entirety of a Texas live show, with Lewis and his crack band rendering various early rock standards at dangerously high (i.e., proto punk) speed, some excellent duets with his (then) wife Linda Gail, and gorgeous renditions of standards like Willie Nelson's "Funny How Time Slips Away" and Merle Haggard's "Lonesome Fugitive." Lewis fans with deep pockets should grab this one immediately…

It's a statement of Johnny Cash's longevity that the eight albums collected here – each one a concept collection devoted to American historical themes – were considered worthy and viable commercial releases back when, and that most were very successful. This four-CD set assembles Ride This Train, Blood, Sweat and Tears, Bitter Tears, Ballads of the True West, Mean as Hell! (Johnny Cash Sings Ballads from the True West), America: A 200 Year Salute in Story and Song, From Sea to Shining Sea, and The Rambler, all in one place. They fit together as a body of work, and he put a lot of heart into all of these songs individually…

Five more CDs of Connie Francis, picking up right where Bear Family's earlier White Sox, Pink Lipstick set left off, in 1960 – although its 300-plus minutes of music only cover the period of 1960 to 1962. By this time, Connie Francis was established as one of the top female vocal talents of her generation, and she was ready to experiment – you hear her successful move into country music, wonderful outtakes, and never-issued songs from her early-'60s sessions…

Sleepy LaBeef - Larger Than Life (1955-1979) {6CD Deluxe Box Set, Bear Family BCD15662 rel 1996}
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© 1955-79, 1996 Sun / Bear Family Records | BCD 15662
Rockabilly / Country / Traditional Country

All of Sleepy LaBeef's most important records – from his early singles for Starday to his latter-day sides for Sun – are included on the mammoth, six-disc box set Larger Than Life. LaBeef recorded for a number of different labels during his career, and during that time, he explored a variety of roots music, from rockabilly and country to blues and soul. Spanning three full decades, Larger Than Life contains 158 tracks, including all of his recordings for Starday, Dixie, Columbia, and Sun.

Babatunde Olatunji - Drums Of Passion And More (1959-66) {4CD Box Set Bear Family Records BCD 15 747 DI rel 1994}
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© 1959-66, 1994 Bear Family Records | BCD 15 747 DI
World Music / African Folk / Worldbeat / African Traditions / World Fusion

Having come to the U.S. from his native Nigeria to study medicine, percussionist Babatunde Olatunji eventually became one of the first African music stars in the States. He also soon counted jazz heavyweights like John Coltrane ("Tunji") and Dizzy Gillespie among his admirers (Gillespie had, a decade earlier, also courted many Cuban music stars via his trailblazing Latin jazz recordings). And, in spite of it being viewed by some as a symbol of African chic, Drums of Passion is still a substantial record thanks to Olatunji's complex and raw drumming.

Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs - Flatt & Scruggs 1964-1969, plus (1995) {6CD Set, Bear Family BCD15879FI}
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© 1964-69, 1995 Bear Family Records | BCD 15879 FI
Country / Bluegrass / Traditional Bluegrass / Country-Pop

Here's the conclusion of our complete Flatt & Scruggs retrospective. It takes us through the period of their greatest success in the 1960s, leading to the break-up. They were taking bluegrass music into places it had never been, and cutting some brilliant and innovative music along the way. The core of this set is 12 albums including the 'Strictly Instrumental' set with Doc Watson, the live Vanderbilt Concert, and 'The Story Of Bonnie & Clyde.' This set is rounded out with a Gordon Terry square-dance album on which Flatt & Scruggs are the back-up musicians, and on which the calls have been omitted.

Pat Boone - The Fifties Complete (1953-1959) {12CD Set Bear Family BCD15884 rel 1997}
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© 1953-59, 1997 Bear Family Records | BCD 15 884 LK
Pop / Early Pop / Rock'n'Roll / Ballad / Vocal

This 12-CD box set containing 347 songs – Pat Boone's entire 1950s recorded output, including over 80 previously unissued tracks – deserves an honest, open-minded, and thorough examination. Listeners may like or dislike Pat Boone's early R&B hits – "Two Hearts," "Ain't That a Shame," "Tutti Frutti," etc. – but it is important to remember that those songs comprise but a very small part of his 1950s recorded output and demonstrate one side only of his amazing versatility.