Gene Vincent & His Blue Caps - The Screaming End: The Best Of Gene Vincent & His Blue Caps (1997)

"Let's rock again!" Gene Vincent screams in his signature rocker, "Be Bop-A-Lula," and throughout this 20-song document of the first heady year of his career, he and the Blue Caps (surely, the greatest rockabilly band ever) do just that, again and again, rocking with controlled abandon--though just barely controlled. Guitarist Cliff Gallup rips off insane riffs that are the perfect match for Vincent's own pinched wail, in songs that are either scary ("Race with the Devil"), or flat amazed ("Who Slapped John?"), or nothing but the beat, the beat, the beat ("Cat Man"). All of it will leave you convinced that the title is an understatement. --David Cantwell