This 30-song selection of tracks on which
Palmer
played in the late 1950s cannot, and does not purport to, tell the whole story of his career. After all, there's only one track apiece from his work with
Little Richard
and
Fats Domino
. What this various-artists compilation (only four tracks were actually released under
Earl Palmer
's name) does, however, is give a pretty good idea of
's early rock & roll contributions via a few well-known hits, a lot of rarities, and a bunch of styles. While
's
"I'm Walkin',"
Bobby Day
"Rockin' Robin,"
Ritchie Valens
'
"La Bamba,"
Thurston Harris
"Little Bitty Pretty One,"
Eddie Cochran
"Somethin' Else"
are here, most of this is pretty obscure R&B, catching that music's transition to rock. In addition to fairly little-heard sides by
Lloyd Price
,
Richard Berry
, and
Shirley & Lee
, there's hard R&B from
Smiley Lewis
(
"Shame, Shame, Shame"
),
Amos Milburn
Charles Brown
; gravelly jump 'n' jive from
Roy Montrell
;
Etta James
' rock & roll remake of
"Dance with Me Henry"
(not the same as her first and more famous version,
"The Wallflower"
); instrumental sax rock by
Lee Allen
Big T. Tyler
's insane
"King Kong"
Don & Dewey
's great harmony romp
"Koko"
; the rockin' Top Five hit version of
"In the Mood"
by
Ernie Fields
; and minor-league rockabilly by
Jesse James
. The instrumentals cut under his
's own name are pretty generic stuff (
"Johnny's House Party"
is a
"Honky Tonk"
rip), but you'd be checking this out for the cuts graced by
's session drums rather than his own sides anyway. ~ Richie Unterberger