Customer Reviews

Joe Meek's Groups: Crawdaddy Simone

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I was frankly disappointed by this release. With the exception of "Crawdaddy Simone," everything on this disc has already been released on CD by RPM or Sequel. Why not dig up something new? The liner notes refer to a large number of unreleased recordings Meek did with some of these artists (for example, "Blue Train" by the Blue Rondos); why not include some of these? Why only 20 tracks? And if the thesis of the collection was to show Meek's efforts with authentic rock groups, why include Tony Dangerfield & the Thrills and Bobby Rio? And why, for God's sake, would you ever omit David John & the Mood, easily Meek's best London r&b outfit? What about Meek's Mod bands like The Buzz, Impac or the incomparable Riot Squad? RPM has distinguished itself with superb collections of perfectly mastered obscurities of surprising musical merit, seemingly without regard to expected sales. This disc just looks like exploitation. If this is what the takeover of RPM by Cherry Red means, then RPM is finished, folks.

Crawdaddy Simone was written by my brother Jeff Williams and Ray Fenwick - I remember the Syndicats rehearsing at our house in London in the 1960's.
It sounds better now than it did then! as do several of the other tracks on this CD - but ballads and stuff like that were popular then and the Syndicats were ahead of their time..
anyone wishing to hear really raucous R&B which will send them straight back to the 60's - buy this!!
Incidentally Jeff is still going strong - a great musician.