Zoot Money's Big Roll Band - As & Bs Scrap Book (Reissue) (2003)

This collection is a stunner. Zoot Money & His Big Roll Band were a mainstay in the swinging London scene from the mid-'60s through 1971. The band included a young guitarist named Andy Somers (aka Summers). They played soul, R&B, jump blues, and rave-up rock and flirted with jazz and blues. They were the live equal of Georgie Fame, the Yardbirds, Geno Washington, the Animals, and Spencer Davis but on record -- despite the critics' claims that they never measured up to their live gigs -- they wasted all of those bands. The 24 tracks collected here, ranging from the Big Roll Band's first single, the astonishing "The Uncle Willie" in 1964, to the band's breakup effort in 1970, the smoking "No One But You," tore up jukeboxes across the U.K. and France even if they seldom made the Melody Maker charts (only once, actually). Simply put, there is no British music with as much carefree abandon and showmanship as these sides display in spades. Every 45 (both sides) is included here, and there isn't a substandard millisecond in the bunch. This is essential listening for anybody interested the music of the era.