Loud, Fast & Out Of Control: The Wild Sounds of '50s Rock
"Communist, Eastern European countries... may have come up withKarl Marx," punk entrepreneurBrett Gurewitzonce said, "and they may have come up withTrotsky, but they'll never come up withChuck Berry." The 1950s' rock revolution, this four-CD box is designed to remind us, led to more than justHappy DaysandGrease; it was part and parcel of the movement for social change in racial and sexual terms that, like the music, was impossible to stop. Of course, it sounded great, too. ("That ain't no freight train that you hear rollin' down the railroad tracks," theCoastersremind us near the end of disc one. "That's a country-born piano man playin' in between the cracks.")Loud, Fast & Out of Controloffers its share of the usual oldies-radio fodder, but also tosses in countless little-heard gems, fromGene Vincent's "B-I-Bickey-Bi, Bo-Bo-Go" (with Cliff Gallup serving up several of rockabilly's most inspired, unhinged guitar solos) and severalJohnny Burnette Triosingles toLittle Richard's towering title song forThe Girl Can't Help It, theJohnny OtisShow's "Crazy Country Hop," andCarl Perkins's "Put YourCatClothes On."--Rickey Wright