Search - Various Artists :: Get Hot Or Go Home: Vintage Rca Rockabilly

Get this CD or Go Home....

Matthew F. Strickland | Redford, MI USA | 08/02/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

""Get Hot or Go Home", put out by the Country Music Foundation, is one of the best rockabilly compiliations to come out of the U.S. period. It features darn near every song by the once rockabilly maniac/now bus driver Joe Clay. You'll be boppin your feet off with hits like "Ducktail", "Sixteen Chicks", "Get on the Right Track", etc.. Other standouts on the CD are Homer and Jethro- "Two Tone Shoes" (a parody of Carl Perkin's "Blue Suede Shoes"), Rick Carty - "Ohh Eee" and Pee Wee King - "Catty Town". Pick it up if you can find this scarce one!"

Joe Clay (plus Mickey Baker)

Mesnenor | New York, NY | 03/01/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Most record labels trying to cash in on the rockabilly craze sent the country boys (and girls) signed by their talent scouts to Nashville, and they were there recorded backed by the same session pros who worked on honky-tonk country records from the same period. For some reason Joe Clay never made it to Nashville. His first session was in Houston, and it's not all that special. What makes the small body of Joe Clay's recordings remarkable is the results of his second session, for which RCA sent him to New York. There he was backed by an all black team of session musicians led by legendary guitarist Mickey Baker. This band absolutely blows away the Nashville bands you hear on almost all other rockabilly recordings from the 50s. The drumming is especially ferocious. I think producers in Nashville were still a little afraid of drums at that time (in the 30s and into the 40s Nashville recordings typically didn't use any drums, because many radio stations in the Bible-belt wouldn't play any record that featured that "satanic" instrument.) The other stuff on this comp is fine, but it's generic rockabilly; the tracks from the Joe Clay New York session are the real reason to buy this."