Loud, Fast & Out of Control (review)

Loud, Fast & Out of Control: The Wild Sounds of '50s Rock Rhino, 1999 4cd set, b00000iq17, $59.97

One reason baby-boomers are despised by their elders is that they think they're the first generation to have experienced everything. From sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll to aging parents and menopause, nothing happened until it happened to them. A case in point is the list of "The 100 Greatest Songs of Rock & Roll" compiled for a television special at century's end. A mere sixteen date from before 1960 (and four of those are by Elvis). Almost as many songs are by the Beatles and the Stones as by all of the 1950s rockabilly, doo-wop, and R&B singers put together.

This is, to put it mildly, a ludicrous distortion. The sixties were noisier, druggier, and more pretentious than the preceding decade, but the Golden Age of rock and roll lasted from 1954 until 1959. Period. (This is written by someone who ran a program called "Rock and Roll Memory Time" on his college's student radio station in 1962.)

If you want to know what I'm talking about, check out this new four-cd compilation from Rhino. From the opening strains of "C'mon Everybody" by Eddie Cochran to the last notes of the Viscounts' version of "Harlem Nocturne," Loud, Fast & Out of Control offers exactly what its subtitle advertises: "The Wild Sounds of '50s Rock," along with wonderful period photographs, three intelligent and entertaining introductory essays, and what are simply the best liner notes I've ever read. For example, from the notes to "Fujiyama Mama" (with its immortal line, "When I start eruptin', ain't nobody gonna make me stop"): "Wanda Jackson insists that she really wasn't that kind of girl, but while other women singers were simpering about where the boys are, Wanda always sang as if they were in her hotel room."

Inevitably there's a southern slant to this. Rock and roll was pretty much created by black and white boys (Wanda was an exception) from somewhere between Lubbock (Buddy Holly) and Norfolk (Gene Vincent), and even those who weren't southern (like Eddie Cochran, from Minnesota via California) sounded as if they were. The 1950s South is often seen as bland and repressive, and, well, it was bland and repressive. But say this for it: it gave young southerners something to rebel against--and this music is one of the delightful results.

Trust me. Buy this. If you remember the 1950s, it will bring them back. If you don't remember them, you'll wish you did.

John Shelton Reed

John Shelton Reed spends his time being thoughtful and witty and resisting the call to write in a more obfuscatory manner. Among his recent books is 1001 Things Everyone Should Know About the South, written with his wife, Dale Volberg Reed. Despite his queasiness about this particular issue, he remains coeditor of Southern Cultures.

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