The Roundup Boys

So adrenalized was the jitter-jump, and so resplendent was it in neo-glad rags, that members couldn't help but shout along as styling, honed in nights of jukes and roadsters, slapped grins on every mug within dig-space. 

Video: "A Little Clock Rock" (live at 2026 Hot Rock n Boogie festival)

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Barrence Whitfield: It takes a savage man to lead a savage band

Perhaps it would be overly generous to remark that every generation has its Soul-shouting spectacle who tears up stages and reminds audiences how damn good it is to be alive, aware, and partaking of the hipness known only by the clever.

Golden eras of yore had Solomon Burke, the 'Wicked Pickett,' and Little Richard. The Hep-smart presently inhaling have Barrence.

He looms atop a recordings-stash (which dates back to 1984), and from that acme looses volleys of borderline unhingedness that is very much of old-school R&B manner, were said revered genre to stick a finger in a wall socket. 

In each ringing note, chunkablock chord architecture, and snapped-tight downbeat, thrives the bold truth that Barrence and the free-for-all roustabouts with whom he makes common wildside cause are so intimately proficient in and just plain in love with Rock'n'Soul's capacity for uplift that it would be an injustice of brobdingnagian proportion for them to be doing anything other than this right here.

Glory, his and the Savages' most recent wax, was issued in 2023 by Folc Records. Its 12 engravings make my above argument with staggering aplomb. "Bad Situation" commences bacchanalian matters with knees-high brass and percussive determination that wise folks shuffling in aisles expect from Barrence and gathered gang.

With trademark insistence (vented via yowling and gleeful whoops), the man whose name adorns the marquee cuts up without filter and at towerblock volume. In fact -- thankfully -- such is his way through and through.

The band that few others would even try to follow includes founding members and guest horns. Mere adjectives would surely falter in the task of conveying members' assorted front-of-class qualities. Listen for your own edification.

"Right Hand Man" and "I Do My Best to Survive" scatter audacious eminence across airspace, variously asserting sax blats, pumped-to-maximum rhythms, and wise-to-ways-of-nightlife guitar authoritativeness.

That's all in addition to Barrence's howling from the mountaintop. He's our season's Soul-shouting spectacle.

Videos: "Bad Situation"   "Right Hand Man"   "I Do My Best to Survive"   "I'll Be Gone"

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Just reissued by Cupcakes and Muffins is 2003's Strange Adventures, a collaboration between Barrence and former Radio King fret-massager Mike Dinallo. The two are billed as the Mercy Brothers. They are further enabled by Norwegian Blues guitar nobleman Vidar Busk. Material and performances here are much closer to orthodox Soul than Barrence and the Savages' boisterous ferality.

Pat Capocci

Echoes from the Asphalt Jungle   vinyl or CD 

(Sleazy Records)

Mr. Capocci evinces offhand vocal trenchancy and plank hip-dipping, all in the service of Bopification. The world already knows as much. (Straight from the fridge.) But the conclusion that fresh waxings from him aren't, then, of pressing interest is a far piece from this truth: digging his every new disc is of most-ut imperativeness.

(Also scissors-operator of Harbord Road barbering emporium Flying Tiger, Pat has tonsorial adeptitude in common with Rockat Smutty Smith and Hillbilly Casino's Nic R.) 

Recommended: "Lucia," "Day by Day," "Barnitos Bounce," "Trance," "The Puzzle," "Enzos Outing"

Videos: "Day by Day"   "Trance"   "The Puzzle" 

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Juno

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Crazy Times Music

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Jake Calypso

Give Yourself a Present

(Around the Shack Records)

Even were "I Don't Want to Sing Bop Bop" the disc's solitary selection, the asking price would be reasonable -- so aburst is that finger-snap track with hiccups, guitar swerve, and big beat slamdowns. But there are 11 other cuts demanding similar recognition. Should you hear anyone wonder 'Where's a prime location to find quintessential Rock'n'Roll to which kittens and gators can go crazy and get into cool diversions?,' produce for them a map depicting this release. 

Recommended: "I Don't Want to Sing Bop Bop," "Who is BB," "I Forgot to Remember to Forget," "I Wanna Go to Heaven," "I Was Dancing to Tom Jones," "Laura Palmer," "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry"

Video: preview (6:08)   

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Germán Alvarez

Rockabilly Session   digital

Bad Report Card Blues   digital

(L&L Records)

German turns his hands to multiple playing implements, and the jumpin' jive that issues from his Suavecito-pomaded labors shakes the entire place -- especially the hardwood that he/she pairings stomp into next Thursday. The Buenos Aires cat-afire seems so jammed-up, jelly-tight with the rolling sounds Ike-era legends put to wax, he has to grab up guitar or piano, lest he be turned inside out with purely Gone intoxication.

(Per research: German also runs L&L, which he founded in 2020, and works in sundry musical idioms. One source notes that in daylight hours, he's a physical education teacher, therapeutic companion, and psychomotricity assistant.)

Rockabilly Session, Recommended: "Saturday Night Blues," "Baby Don't Tease Me," "Bop Shakin' Baby," "Gone Tonight," "Don't Touch My Rockin' Shoes," "Everybody Wants to Be My Girl, "Dance With Me"

Bad report card..., Recommended: "The King of the Wild Piano," "Crazy Little Heartbreak," "Duckwalk," "It Happened in Louisiana," "Bad Report Card Blues," "Ooby in My Shoes," "Return it Back to Me"

Videos: "Saturday Night Blues"   "Don't Touch My Rockin' Shoes"   "Everybody Wants to Be My Girl"   "The King of the Wild Piano"   "Bad Report Card Blues"   "Return it Back to Me"

L&L Records

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SHAZAM

Back in the Day, 2018

Sparkle Moore

Wild and Exciting, Here's...Sparkle   limited 10" vinyl EP

(Vip Vop)

My candle burns at both ends; It will not last the night; But ah, my foes,and

oh, my friends— It gives a lovely light!

The poetess penned those words long before Miss Sparkle -- PR of the time labeled her the 'female Elvis' -- barnstormed through Cincinnati's Fraternity Records (1956/7). But the deathless prose captures the singer's scant career. Sparkle issued just two singles and split the scene. (Word is the stork swooped soon thereafter.)   

Recommended: "Rock a Bop," "Skull and Crossbones," "Killer," "Tiger"

Videos: "Rock a Bop"   "Skull and Crossbones"

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Chuck Willis

Chuck was but 32 in 1958, when peritonitis claimed him from a Chicago hospital bed. His final disc, "Hang Up My Rock'n'Roll Shoes" b/w "Why Am I Alive?," was still warm and remains thoroughly solid. Erstwhile Doll Syl Sylvain later lifted a verse; teenage lamenting is evergreen.

Video: "Hang Up My Rock'n'Roll Shoes"

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