John Blair - Rumble at Waikiki – The John Blair Anthology (2018)

John Blair, a dazzling name in the Californian music scene, who once made his first recordings with bluegrass music, played rockabilly with Ray Campi and rocked the surf rock scene at the end of the 1970s. He is author, wrote liner notes to various releases of Rhino Records and other labels, as well as a number of books and discographies about American surfing and hot rod music of the late 50s and 60s.

Here is the long overdue retrospective of John Blair's musical work from 1973 to the present day. Among them, of course, his classics, as well as plenty of rarities and previously unreleased material.

Stylistically the palette ranges from bluegrass to rockabilly to plenty of surf instrumentals of the finest playing style, including an unreleased unplugged acoustic set. Sounds of the early years.

The first CD of this 2-CD set is chronological and opens with an extremely rare bluegrass recording from 1973, here for the first time on CD, followed by some rockabilly tracks, when John worked with Ray Campi & His Rockabilly Rebels for Rockin' Ronny Weiser's Rollin' Rock Label.