Search - Pirates :: Very Best of Rock's Original Hellraisers

Still Shakin'

Anthony Clark | Croydon, Surrey United Kingdom | 11/26/2001

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The Pirates have a unique place in British music history that dates back to the 1950s when the band was fronted by the legendary showman Johnny Kid. This collection, however, dates from their second coming in the 1970s when the band coat-tailed the energy of punk and reinvented numbers like Shakin' All Over for a new audience.The band's studio output never really matched their live power but this mix of studio cuts and live numbers is a good compromise that shows why The Pirates were a killer act. And while you could never claim they were sophisticated, their brand of white-knuckle blues and boogie still packs a mighty punch. This is partly due to a famously solid rhythm section although the real killer is Mick Green's guitar style which is a revelation. His trademark 'rhythm and lead' blend is a unique sound - and few guitarists can claim to have developed a truly distinctive way of playing.This album is not a classic in any traditional sense but for fans of straight barroom boogie it's a solid slice of entertainment."

The Marauders

mencken61 | Metairie, La. United States | 01/30/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The Pirates (read: Mick Green) are a force of nature: a hurricane, a tornado, a monsoon. Whereas most Englishmen approach the American art of rock and roll on little cat feet in a fog of the garbage their perfervid, claptonian friends have left behind, Mick Green and the Pirates grasp it by the throat in a loving way--and leave behind something the pathologists fear: the smiling corpse. The Pirates are to Johnny Burnette as the Special Forces are to warfare; the Pirates are to Elvis as Beethoven was to convention. This band grabs and twists and extracts notes in a way that should frighten most guitarists. What you find here is the best thing the British have accomplished since the Crimean War."

This

M. V. Manas | NY | 03/10/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"is what The Cramps would've sounded like if middle aged men from Britain. This is as awesome as I remembered it since I last heard it, which was on 8-track tape. They were what was left of the band Johnny Kidd and The Pirates (of "Shakin All Over" fame - June 1960), after Johnny Kidd was untimely killed in a car accident in Lancashire on 7 October 1966, on the verge of a comeback."