Teen Beat Vol.5: Another 30 Great Rockin' Instrumentals [CD]

Hats Off again to the wonderful folks at ACE Records. Volume 5 is the "Cream Of The Crop" in this 5 CD compilation. Volumes 1 through 4 covered almost everything but this particular Volume adds some of the really great rock'n roll instrumentals: "Night Theme" by The Mark II, Bill Doggett's "Honky Tonk" (Parts One and Two) "Week End" By Bill Haley's Kingsmen and "7-11" With Buddy Lucas and The Gone All Stars. Every cut is better than you will remember. Again, the technical quality and precision mastering techniques that ACE employs makes this one a must for the collector of oldies. Thanks to Trevor Churchill, John Broven and Rob Finnis for making this collection available.

The fifth and purportedly last in Ace Record's Teen Beat series of instrumental collections from the "golden" age of American Rock and Roll is every bit as good as the rest in the series. A massive 30-track compilation featuring many well-remembered rock instrumentals of the era that is worth even more for the inclusion of many tracks found nowhere else. The inclusion of so many hard-to-find top-100 tunes here on one disc puts to shame many of the domestic collections available. Great finds include Billy Joe and the Checkmates' "Percolator", the Gone All Stars' "7-11", Mark II's "Night Theme" and Pat and the Satellites' "Jupiter C" among others.

As usual, Ace has secured superior tape sources for these tunes and many sound better than they ever did on AM and juke boxes. Tracks 1,3,4,9,10,14,18,20 and 22 are in true stereo. A 12-page booklet provides interesting background on each of the tracks on the disc.

This is an outstanding collection - it's just disappointing that the series is coming to an end.

I notice reviewer Zub thinks this may have been the final volume in the series, but I also thought that when Volume 10 of their Golden Age Of American Rock & Roll came out. Now we have a Volume 11 in that series, so don't give up hope Zub.

In the meantime, this 5th Volume is easily the best in terms of offering up legitimate hit singles, with no less than 28 of the 30 making the national charts (only Night Hop by Jimmie & The Night Hoppers and Bumbershoot by Phil Harvey were non-hits). On top of that, they also come up with quite a few that fall into the hard-to-find category, including
Point Panic by The Surfaris (# 49 Billboard Pop Hot 100 in the fall of 1963); Dumplin's by Doc Bagby (# 69 Top 100 in fall 1957); Week End by The Kingsmen (# 35 Hot 100 in late summer q958); "7-11" (Mambo # 5) by The Gone All Stars featuring Buddy Lucas (# 30 Top 100 early 1958); Werewolf by The Frantics (# 83 Hot 100 early 1960); The Madison Time (Part 1) by The Ray Bryant Combo (# 30 Hot 100 May 1960); Jupiter-C by Pat & The Satellites (# 81 Hot 100 February 1959); the original 1948 Guitar Boogie by Arthur Smith & His Cracker Jacks (# 25 Pop in July); Leap Frog by The Chuck Alaimo Quartet (# 92 Top 100 April 1957); Night Theme by Te Mark II (# 75 Hot 100 late 1960); Boss by The Rumblers (# 87 Hot 100 February 1963); and Gonzo by James Booker (# 43 Hot 100 late 1960).

As in their Golden Age Of American Rock & Roll series, they also sprinkle the insert (which also contains 8 pages of information by Dave Burke and Alan Taylor of Pipeline Instrumental Review, a British quarterly magazine) with vintage photos (Doc Bagby, The Mark II, The Frantics, Jack Nitzsche, The Rumblers, and The Pyramids), LP/E.P. cover reproductions (Martin Denny's Erotica, The Kingsmen - Bill Haley's Comets who cut an E.P. with four tracks under a name designed to reflect that they were the "King's" band - Arthur "Guitar Boogie" Smith And His Cracker Jacks, and The Routers. Not to mention numerous 45 rpm/poster reproductions. And, as usual with their products, a discography of the contents and immaculate sound reproduction.