Search - Treniers :: Best of the Treniers: They Rock They Roll

The birth of rock and roll

08/21/1998

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I grew up listening to my father tell stories about the Treniers playing in our hometown of Wildwood. Several years ago I was able to see them perform in Atlantic City. Despite their age, they put on a great show. The CD captures the joy and energy of a group that was a tremendous influence in the early days of rock and roll. If you like Louis Jordan, Joe Turner or other founding fathers, you'll like this ablum. There are a couple of weak tracks, but overall the record "rocks, rolls, swings and jumps.""

An Act That Had To Be Seen In Person

Scott MacGillivray | 07/30/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"If you're searching about for a singing group which can be best summed up as THE pioneer for some of the wilder R&R vocal groups that began to form up late in the 1950s and then throughout the 1960s and 1970s, look no further. The Treniers were it.



If you recall Michael J. Fox doing his guitar routine before a stunned 1955 high-school audience in the film Back To The Future, that more or less gives you an idea as to how these guys were greeted several years earlier than that. The wildest R&B acts one might have seen at the time was Wild Bill Moore and, for the white audiences, the early Bill Haley, who was admittedly influenced by The Treniers.



But these guys - twin brothers Claude and Cliff Trenier [who had once sung with the Jimmie Lunceford band in the 1940s], along with their other brothers Buddy and Milt, all from Mobile, Alabama - were on a whole different plateau with their absolutely stunning stage act, featuring wailing sax solos which would soon become an integral part of many bands as well as those backing individual artists. And although it did not translate into huge record sales [they had just the one charted hit - Go! Go! Go! - a # 10 R&B in 1951 b/w Plenty Of Money for Columbia's Okeh subsidiary - both included here], they did establish a faithful following that carried on well into the 1950s.



That included appearances in the movies Don't Knock The Rock [1956 with Haley and Little Richard, among others], The Girl Can't Help It [1956 with Little Richard, Fats Domino, The Platters, Gene Vincent, and others] and Calypso Heat Wave [1957 with The Tarriers, a group which then included actor Alan Arkin, and The Hi-Lo's]. Each film is memorable now only for the music and it would be nice if someone could release a DVD containing ONLY those moments because the acts by The Treniers have to be seen to be believed.



This is a compilation you must have if your interest includes acts that most influenced what was to become Rock 'N Roll."