Rockin' Bones offers a first-rate look into the wild, wondrous, sometimes wacky world of rockabilly in all its raw, mangy glory. In typically thorough Rhino fashion, the four discs in this set cover territory both expected and unexpected, with extensive liner notes included.
Obvious classics such as Eddie Cochran's "Summertime Blues", Jerry Lee Lewis' "Whole Lot of Shakin' Going On" and Carl Perkins "Blue Suede Shoes" are accompanied by less broadly known but still familiar tunes such as Wanda Jackson's "Fujiyama Mama" and Elvis Presley's uncensored version of "One Night Of Sin" (which was altered to "One Night With You" when originally released in the '50s). But the fun really begins when the set steps off those well-worn byways and unearths songs that have rarely been heard since they were pressed.
The key themes of the more offbeat material are danger and dementia, best illustrated in Joyce Green's "Black Cadillac", in which she gleefully sings about riding to her late boyfriend's funeral. "Sinners", by Freddie & the Hitch-Hikers, uses a sinister, brooding beat (and a theremin!) to bemoan the fate of the fallen, while the plea "Love Me", by the Phantom, is delivered in the manner of the truly unhinged. (It's not surprising that the Cramps covered both these tunes, though even they wouldn't argue about the superiority of the originals.)
Sex is another key theme, of course, as in Barbara Pittman's moaning "I Need A Man", ostensibly "to tell my troubles to," she sings with a wink. But nothing can surpass "Little Girl" by the long-forgotten John & Jackie; the otherwise innocuous tune is startlingly goosed up by Jackie's repeated orgasmic cries before she finally gasps, "Little boy, you're just too much!"
The rockabilly credo is best expressed in the title track, presented in two versions (by Ronnie Dawson and Elroy Dietzel) that open and close the box. The singer is so in love with the music, he asks to be buried with a rock 'n' roll record at his feet and a phonograph needle in his hand, after which "I'm gonna rock my way right out of this land!" What a fitting way to greet the afterlife, brothers and sisters!
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