WyattChristmas Five

Are You Ready?

(PART Records)

The union of first-chair musicianship -- in American genres familiar to jukers, dancefloor denizens, and goodtime elbow-benders -- and ingenious lyrical delving into matters of universal existentialist qualities magnetizes. Add in sometimes broad wit that sailed its hat across the room. Think, laugh, and shake your good foot.

(Personal note: I read a Blues-site critic's faint praise of this rollicking-fun compendium. He rightly commended instrumental knacks, but kvetched about allegedly frivolous wordage. It's been my altogether unpleasant experience that rigid Blues doctrinaires (who, while asleep, can rattle off the number of songs Ivory Joe Hunter recorded in the spring of 1947, and tell you which of them were in certain time signatures) are among the most rebarbative folks you'll ever turn away from.)

Recommended: "Are You Ready?," "My Best Friend Went Crazy," "Changing Times," "Devil's Got a Hand On Me," "Alligator Bar Blues," "Riot in My Trashcan," "Please Do Like You Did It," "Too Far Too Long Away," "I Am Waiting"

Videos: "Are You Ready?" (live)   "Alligator Bar Boogie" (live)   "Too Far Too Long Away"

Site

Facebook

Rockabilly Shop

BeBe's Records

Sonic Rendezvous

Bear Family

Amazon

Apple

Al Duvall with The Freaks

The Flop Sessions   

(Flop Records)

Al recorded as "Tough Ted Titmaus" in the early 1980s. The later Flop Sessions is all but invisible online, though, and these tracks' birth year is indeterminate. But whatever their vintage, they portray him cannily wedding wise-cracks to pre-war percolating, and cleverness is evergreen. The old-fangled ditties are of roll-back-the-rug disposition. Playfulness facilitates japery: "Buck Up," the wag advises, even "When you're soaked in gasoline, and you run into an old flame." 

Recommended: "Buck Up," "The Killer Inside," "Miner Blues"

Video: live in 2010 (2:33)

Facebook

Bandcamp

Discogs

Dave Del Monte & the Cross County Boys

"Werewolf Scarewolf" "The Friendly Undertaker"   digital tracks

(Self-issued)

I've long been of the mind that Dave is today's Jape Richardson. His inventions marry comedic vocal cavortings to rockin' exercises you can set your watch by, and one is always glad all over for the listening. (Dave penned "Werewolf Scarewolf" and also revisits Jim Nesbitt's 1965 Country bopper.) Difficulty arrives when attempting to both look cool dancing and knee-slap.

Videos: "Werewolf Scarewolf"    "The Friendly Undertaker"

Facebook

Bandcamp ("Werewolf Scarewolf")

Bandcamp ("The Friendly Undertaker")

zdigital.com.au ("Werewolf Scarewolf")

zdigital.com.au ("The Friendly Undertaker")

Apple ("Werewolf Scarewolf")

Apple ("The Friendly Undertaker")