Features Disc of the day
Various Artists
Dr. Boogie Presents Rarities From The Bob Hite Vaults
(Sub Rosa, 2007)
Choice cuts from the Canned Heat man's enviable 78rpms collection.
By all accounts Bob 'The Bear' Hite was not a nice guy. A perhaps apocryphal story, oft told by my brother's record collector mates, says that Hite, the founding member and second-best singer with '60s boogie blues belters Canned Heat (after this guy, who clearly influenced this guy), was such an uncharitable hound for the rare 78s that, if he ever found doubles of any "sides" he was hunting for in the warehouses, thrift stores and yard sales of America, he would snap them in half so that he, Hite, would be the only one to benefit from the joys of said blues groove. Which makes you wonder how he would have felt about choice cuts from his enviable collection landing in the lap of the general hoi polloi public. Compiled by the legendary Belgian archivist/DJ Dr. Boogie with the help of Canned Heat drummer Fito De La Parra this glorious CD is assembled from the remnants of Hite's collection, which was (hello karma!) heavily plundered after the singer's death in 1981. Whether it's classics like Etta James' Good Rockin' Daddy, R&B party grooves like Googie Rene's Wiggle Tail or little-known cuts from blues legends (Elmore James' stomping Country Boogie), the Dr. Boogie emphasis is always on tracks that will awaken the jook-joint hawk in us all. But it's in unearthing rave-ups that, it would seem, only Hite ever found (snap! break!) like Mad Mel Sebastien's gin-still wang-dang cover of Chuck Higgins' Pachuko Hop, that the comp really comes into its own. When so many shellac-to-digital comps are presented as educational tablets from on-high, it comes as some relief to be given a history lesson that's more about the dance-hall than the lecture-hall, from a compiler who doubtlessly won his doctorate here, as opposed to here.
Andrew Male
Posted by Danny_Eccleston at 6:00 AM GMT 28/08/2009
Further Listening
Various – Dr Boogie Presents Shim Sham Shimmy (Sub Rosa, 2009)
Various – Dr Boogie Presents 26 Deranged And Smokin’ Cool Cats (Sub Rosa, 2009)
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