Roulette Story [Box set]

This is one of those box sets from which you extract song after song for various CD burns or personal mixes. Disk 1 covers the early, pre-Beatles rock era. Disk 3 picks up where that left off, taking it up to the label's folding in the late 70s.

But let's start with Disk 2. Sandwiched in between the rock and pop is a disk of jazz, vocalists, and instrumental easy listening. There's such a variety here that I'll call out just a couple of tunes. Give a YouTube listen to Johnny Dankworth's "African Waltz", from that time of films like "Hatari!", TV shows like "Daktari", and radio hits like "A Swingin' Safari" and "Afrikaans Beat"; it evokes an era where instrumentals like this one played over the PA at the grocery store. Bill Doggett's R&B inspired "Koko" sounds like it could have been the soundtrack for a burlesque stage or the sax-y discotheque scene in an action movie. And of course there's "The Basie Twist". As with all the disks in this set, not everything works but the rare, unknown, and just plain offbeat gems more than make up for it.

Disk 1 starts off with a couple early rock hits like the original "Party Doll" but quickly veers off into pop and novelty numbers. Shay Cogan's "Doodle Doodle Doo" is a standard girl singer nonsense period piece targeting the pre-teen and early teen market that had been buying things like "Come On-A My House". "I'm Walkin'" by Larry Storch (of F Troop fame) is an amusing novelty with Storch delivering the Fats Domino song in the voice of English royalty getting down once the servants have gone to bed. "English Country Garden" by Jimmie Rodgers is a little unexpected, given that singer's propensity for dumb pop hits. Accompanied by the harpsichord, he sings a pleasant melody that would seem as though his handlers were trying to give him a more grown up sound. Although "The Hula Hoop Song" didn't tear up the charts, it would come in quite handy for anyone looking for a music bed with vocals to go along with a 50's-themed video. In the disk's most rockin' number, Ronnie Hawkins takes Chuck Berry's "Thirty Days" and turns it into "Forty Days".

Are you starting to get the idea of this set? Although there's a cohesiveness that comes from all being pop singles of a particular era, once you get past that, it's pretty much all over the place. Again, I don't listen to these disks from start to finish, they function better as musical cornucopias useful as sources for your own compilations.

Disk 3 starts off with a roar, "Who Do You Love" by Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks. Listening to this fierce little record it's hard to believe the band would morph into the hippie assemblage that would deliver muddy faux authenticity as "The Band" just a few years later. Beatles fans will be glad to own the two Beatles-related novelties here, "My Beatle Haircut" and "Santa Bring Me Ringo". As Roulette's playlist moves forward the Nuggets classic "It's Cold Outside" by The Choir checks in, and several hits associated with Tommy James & the Shondells turn up. For those who have that group's original ten song "Greatest Hits", this set is a convenient way to pick up Tommy James' solo hit from 1971, "Draggin' the Line".

I would be remiss in my responsibilities if I didn't call attention to the notorious would-be classic here which closes up shop for the Roulette label, "Benihana" by porn star Marilyn Chambers. One listen and you can just imagine that she heard Andrea True's hit, "More More More" and thought, "I can do that!" This was the era of Donna Summer dishing out extended orgasmic ecstasy in the long version of her debut hit, "Love To Love You Baby". Marilyn Chambers must have said to herself, "Who is that amateur? I do that for a living, I'll make a record and show her how it's done!" Chambers can't really sing, but then neither could Andrea True; it all gets fixed in the mix. So she coos her way through a couple verses, then spends the rest of the record taking it over the top. This one is a howler but you might not want to play it with the kids in the car unless you're ready to have that whole birds and bees talk with them. (Apparently there's a also disco single version, not on this box, that stretches into a big ten minute affair.)

All in all, kind of an odd collection with a lot of songs you won't find elsewhere. Will especially appeal those who appreciate music as a form of anthropology, though there's enough good music on this box set to merit purchase for that reason as well.

It's is a great cd good for dance and to listen to but I don't think you

will be sitting to long It's that good find more off this kind of music

thank you

yours

alex herd-savoy

alx85523@yahoo .ca

dec.28 .07

› Go to Amazon U.S. to see both reviews  5.0 out of 5 stars