Bear Family Limiting Itself With This Approach
05/13/2008
(3 out of 5 stars)
"The above official blurb says "Fifty Years after Susie Q, Here is Complete Story of Dale Hawkins on Chess!" Now, while there can be no denying the quality of anything to come out of Bear Family of Germany, in the final analysis, not only are their products just a tad expensive, they - much like Collectables - also generally contrive to leave out significant cuts. And, as I said in my review of the Buddy Knox/Jimmy Bowen volume in this Rock series of theirs, they are severely limiting their potential sales by taking this approach.
Here we have 35 selections by Delmar Allen Hawkins (born in Goldmine, Oklahoma on August 22, 1938) who, as Rockabilly singer/guitarist Dale Hawkins (and first cousin of the great Ronnie Hawkins), had all of four hit singles in his native country from 1957 to 1959 for the Chess subsidiary Checker .... . and they leave out two of them and two of the B-sides as well! That, and the price, would deter most hits collectors I would think.
The first white R&R/Rockabilly singer to appear at the famed Apollo Theater in NY City's Harlem district, his first hit was his best as Susie-Q (recorded at the KWKH Radio Station studio in Shreveport, Louisiana) went to # 7 on the R&B charts and # 27 Billboard Pop Top 100 in June 1957 on Checker 863 b/w Don't Treat Me This Way.
It would then be over a year before he returned to the charts with La-Do-Dada, settling for a # 32 on what had become the Pop Hot 100 in September 1958 on Checker 900. The B-side, Cross-Ties, is omitted here. A couple of months later, he had A House, A Car And A Wedding Ring reach # 88 Hot 100 in November on Checker 906 with My Babe as the flip, but while that is included here, the hit side is not.
His last hit then came in March-April 1959 on Checker 916 when Yea-Yea (Class Cutter) topped out at # 52 Hot 100, with some of the early pressings showing the title as simply Class Cutter. The B-side, Lonely Nights, features a narration by Harvey Fuqua of The Moonglows. And NEITHER of those two cuts is included here.
Seems kind of silly to put a relatively expensive volume on the market (compared to similarly-excellent products from U.K. outlets such as Ace, Jasmine, Acrobat, and Living Era) with 35 tracks and deliberately reduce the potential scope of your target audience. Because, while I am certain that those who simply like the Rockabilly sound of one of the originators will see this as a 5-star release, for collectors like myself it does not go far enough and, in fact, belies that official blurb above. This is NOT his complete Chess story by any stretch of the imagination.
They do, however, a much better job on some of the other releases in the Rocks series which cover Carl Perkins, Bill Haley & His Comets, Ricky Nelson, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, Sleepy LaBeef, Connie Francis, Bobby Darin, Wanda Jackson, Rusty York, Conway Twitty, Sonny James, Glen Glenn, Roy Hall, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, Fats Domino, Dale Hawkins, Ronnie Hawkins, and Jack Scott."
Track Listings (35) - Disc #1