LPCDreissues: Looking forward to the past

·     26 original versions of some of the most enduring classics of the 1950s and 1960s.

·     These tracks embrace some of the greatest country, soul, pop, rock‘n’roll and R&B tunes ever recorded. We may never know why these songs did not become hits first time around, but musical inferiority is certainly not among the reasons why they didn’t.

·     Some of these originals are well known, others are hardly known at all. Most people with a passion for rock‘n’roll will know that Richard Berry wrote and recorded the original ‘Louie Louie’, but hardly anyone will know that the Kingston Trio and Mark James did ‘Get Together’ and ‘Suspicious Minds’ before the Youngbloods and Elvis Presley.

·     Hear how ‘Rock Around The Clock’ sounded three years before Bill Haley and the Comets got to it, or how the Crickets ‘Fought The Law’ almost five years before the Bobby Fuller Four and 15 years before the Clash did. Find out where Led Zeppelin acquired the source material for ‘Whole Lotta Love’ and the Animals got ‘Baby Let Me take You Home’ from. Marvel at how closely the later hit versions were often modelled on these originals, and wonder how come they weren’t hits in their own right.

1.       Tainted Love - GLORIA JONES

2.       Suspicious Minds - MARK JAMES

3.       Wild Thing - THE WILD ONES

4.       I Fought The Law - THE CRICKETS

5.       The Red Rooster - HOWLIN’ WOLF

6.       Hanky Panky - THE RAINDROPS

7.       Go Now - BESSIE BANKS

8.       A Rockin’ Good Way - PRISCILLA BOWMAN & THE SPANIELS

9.       This Diamond Ring - SAMMY AMBROSE

10.   Tobacco Road - JOHN D. LOUDERMILK

11.   I Found You - YVONNE FAIR

12.   Ain’t That Loving You Baby - EDDIE RIFF

13.   Louie Louie - RICHARD BERRY & THE PHARAOHS

14.   My Boy Lollipop - BARBIE GAYE

15.   Little Bit O’Soul - THE LITTLE DARLINGS

16.   Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love To Town - JOHNNY DARRELL

17.   Baby Let Me Hold Your Hand - HOAGY LANDS

18.   You Need Love - MUDDY WATERS

19.   A Groovy Kind Of Love - DIANE AND ANNITA

20.   You Were On My Mind - IAN & SYLVIA

21.   I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself - TOMMY HUNT

22.   Let’s Get Together (Live) - THE KINGSTON TRIO

23.   California Sun - JOE JONES

24.   Something Stupid - CARSON & GAILE

25.   Hey Joe, Where You Gonna Go - THE LEAVES

26.   Rock Around The Clock - SUNNY DAE & THE KNIGHTS