VA - Ain't I'm A Dog! 25 More Rockabilly Rave-Ups (2000)

Like its simultaneously released companion volume Whistle Bait!, this rescues 25 obscure rockabilly tracks of the 1950s from the CBS vaults. Not that every name here is obscure: Carl Perkins, Marty Robbins, Link Wray, Rose Maddox, and Johnny Horton are pretty well known, while the Collins Kids, Ronnie Self, and Ronnie Dawson (heard here under the pseudonym Commonwealth Jones) have pretty sizable cult followings. When you get down to a previously unreleased 1956 tune by one Werly Fairburn, though, you're getting as arcane as any white-label European rockabilly bootleg comp. At any rate, this isn't quite as impressive as Whistle Bait!, but it has a similar mix of good crazed out-and-out rockabilly and country hillbillies trying to adapt, more or less, to the rockabilly sound. High points are Joe Maphis and Larry Collins' sizzling instrumental duet "Hurricane," Johnny Horton's two contributions (from the overlooked period when he was a nearly rockabilly honky tonker), Link Wray's typically overdriven instro "New Studio Blues," and Ronnie Self's "You're So Right for Me," where his hoarse vocals must have made the dignified major-label execs reach for the smelling salts. Talk about raw: Commonwealth Jones' 1961 single "Who's Been Here?"/"Do Do Do" (both songs are included) was likely the crudest slab of rock issued on a big label that year. Some of the rest is just okay, and Rose Maddox does sound like she would have rather been sticking with country swing than getting to grips with the new music on "Hey Little Dreamboat," with its odd combination of electric guitar and fiddles.