Johnny Rivers - Blue Suede Shoes (1973)

The second of two distinctly retro albums released by Johnny Rivers in the early '70s, Blue Suede Shoes had the renowned '60s rock & roller reaching back a decade or more, while in the company of top L.A. session men Joe Osborn, Jim Gordon, Larry Knechtel, Jim Horn, Dean Parks, et al. The resulting album, a mix of classic '50s rock & roll and soul, augmented with a few mid-'60s gems ("I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better," "Solitary Man"), was about as straightforwardly pleasing a roots rock record as one was going to find in 1973, and the tragedy was that few people were listening at the time. In an era in which they were mostly known to oldies buffs and most often heard as Richard Nader's nostalgia-fests, the prominently featured songwriters were Leiber & Stoller, Johnny Otis, and Carl Perkins (and Curtis Mayfield, Gene Clark, Neil Diamond, etc.). He even displayed a cleverness in the song selection, juxtaposing "Hang on Sloopy," with its "feel so good" chorus and vamp, with "Feel a Whole Lot Better," the latter stripped down and punched up in a manner that anticipated the Flamin' Groovies' adaptation of the song. It's also fascinating to hear Neil Diamond's "Solitary Man" stripped of its horns and redone as a slightly harder rocking ballad. The entire production was superb, lean, and sinewy, without any excesses, and the whole album came off as worthy successor to Rivers' classic '60s releases.