Yikes! What a shocking cover! I spotted this in a charity shop for 50p, and I'm surprised I didn't just flick past it without giving it a second glance, given the cheap & garish cover. The Rediffusion label was never a byword for quality either, being mainly known as a TV company (http://www.rediffusion.info/). I'm glad I did, though. It's a great album full of hugely catchy guitar instrumentals from the 50's & 60's and it came out in 1973. It's in mono 'electronically reprocessed to give stereo effect',
The titles that caught my eye were 'Wipe Out', 'Pipeline', and 'Tequila', but the whole album is full of similarly great tracks. Lots of surf and twangy guitar sounds. Many were million sellers, which seems extraordinary these days when you only have to sell a few hundred vinyl singles to get into the physical top 40 chart.
The whole thing whips along at a fair pace, with most tracks being just a couple of minutes long. Almost all are standouts - Santo & Johnny - Sleepwalk, Lonnie Mack- Memphis, The Fireballs - Torquay, Johnny & the Hurricanes - Red River Rock, The Dartells - Hot Pastrami. The only one I'm not that keen on is 'Happy Organ' by Dave 'Baby' Cortez. (The organ sounds a little out of place).
As a fan of the incredible 60's band, The Monks, it suddenly struck me that perhaps the track 'Torquay' was the reason for their being called 'The 5 Torquays' originally. It always struck me as being a little off that an American band stationed in Germany would decide to name themselves after a little seaside town in the UK...
It's a real shame this album is cursed with a shocking cover and a title that ties it with 1001 awful instrumental easy listening LP's as it would have been highly sought-after if on a decent label with a credible cover. In fact the sleeve notes by one 'Strollin' Steve' go on to say, "No sore thumbs here like you get in the usual collecvtions, no fill-ins, but one hundred per cent solid gold right from start to finish. This album must surely be nominated for the most sought after collectors collection of the decade. You mark my ears."
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