Good Rockin Tonight: Best of
A descendant ofLouis Jordan's Saturday-night fish fries and a contemporary of the proto-rock jump-blueserWynonie Harris, Roy Brown was among the earliest of the R&B; shouters. "Good Rocking Tonight" became a standard after Harris covered Brown's 1947 original;Elvis Presleylater cut it for his second Sun Records disc. (Brown's own rewrite, "Rockin' at Midnight," was plucked byRobert Plantfor his Honeydrippers side project.) Brown also put his powerful voice to use on mournful down-tempo ballads such as "Hard Luck Blues" and "Laughing but Crying" and briefly revived his career with theFats Domino-penned "Let the Four Winds Blow."  All, plus the hilariously ribald two-part "Butcher Pete," are included on this exemplary collection of sides by a major progenitor of the '90s swing revival.--Rickey Wright