Description
Release Date: 2016
Label: Ace UK
Track List
1. Roy Perkins With Jerry Starr & The Clippers – Train To Nowhere
2. Dale Houston – Won’t You Believe Me
3. Phil Cay – Blue Eyes
4. John Fred – You Know You Made Me Cry
5. King Savoy & The Rhythm Rockers – I Beg Of You
6. Gene Dunlap & The Jokers – Problems On My Mind
7. Floyd Brown – What I Want
8. Frankie Lowery – Baby What Can I Do
9. Unknown Artist – The Secret Of Love Is In My Heart
10. The Boogie Kings – Please Forgive Me
11. Larry Hart – Slim Needle
12. Buck Rogers – Crazy Baby
13. Warren Storm – Troubles, Troubles (Troubles On My Mind)
14. Dale Houston – (Big Bad) City Police
15. Everett Daigle With Terry & The Tune Tones – High School Sweethearts
16. Al “Puddler” Harris – Wait A Minute
17. Wiley Jeffers – Lonely, Lonely Heart
18. Johnny Preston – Satan In Satin
19. Jimmy Trotter – Hungry And Thirsty
20. Forest Rye – My Sweet Baby’s Gone
21. Buck Rogers – I Can’t Live Alone
22. Roy Perkins – Sweet Lilly
23. Buddy Lorton – Time
24. Warren Storm – I’m A Fool To Care
25. Johnny Jano – Shed So Many Tears
26. Billy Lewis – The Memories
27. Jay Richards – Sneaking Home
28. John Fred & The Playboys Band – Shirley
Review
Thirteen volumes into Ace’s seemingly endless series of R&B, soul, blues, and rock & roll culled from Louisiana and East Texas indies in the ’50s and ’60s, this is the second specializing in swamp pop. In some ways it bests its predecessor, because compiler/producer Ian Saddler keeps expanding his purview beyond the vaults of J.D. Miller and Huey P. Meaux. Troubles, Tears & Trains also has sides recorded by Joe Ruffino, Murray Nash, Pappy Daily, Eddie Shuler, and other record men, and it also has unreleased sides initially recorded for Mercury, which means this digs very deep into obscure corners of bayou rock & roll. Some of these names are regional stars — Warren Storm, who had a double-disc compilation released on Ace in 2015, John Fred, Johnny Preston, Dale Houston, and Roy Perkins — but most of these names are obscure (and one is even unknown), but the selling point is not the acts themselves, but the sound. This stuff simply smokes: these bands kick out a Fats Domino-inspired beat, sometimes sticking pretty close to the rhumba boogie, sometimes turning up the heat and rocking with a sense of abandon. Occasionally, these cuts have a clever hook that help separate the 45 from the pack — Preston’s “Satan in Satin,” Houston’s “(Big Bad) City Police” — but even if the side does nothing more than cook, it’s still a gas. Stephen Thomas Erlewine
