Cameo Parkway 1957-1967
Nervous and retiring, Bernie Lowe hardly seemed the stuff of an indie-label pioneer. But when the musician and former music-school teacher teamed up with former student/struggling comedy writer Kal Mann in a fledgling songwriting partnership that eventually saw Elvis score with their "Teddy Bear," the die was cast. The pair had launched Cameo the previous year in Lowe's Philadelphia basement, showing a quick knack for scoring chart success with MOR pop (Charlie Grace's "Butterfly"), novelty kitsch (Zacherle's "Cool Ghoul"), and teen-idol rock (Bobby Rydell and others)--the latter thanks largely to serving as talent farm/bullpen for Dick Clark's then Philly-basedAmerican Bandstand. But it was Chubby Checker's era-defining dance smash "The Twist" that saw the label's fortunes soar (still the only record to claw its way to the top of the charts in two different years). This generous, 115-track, four-disc anthology of the label's long out-of-print catalog details those highlights and more, wending its way through even unlikelier novelty fare (Clint Eastwood's rasping tribute to hisRawhideTV character, "Rowdy"; RFK impersonator "Senator Bobby" orating a dizzy cover of the Troggs' "Wild Thing") to such '60s garage-rock staples as ? and the Mysterians' classic "96 Tears," the first American release by the Kinks, and promising early sides by Bob Seger.--Jerry McCulley