Customer Reviews

Rev Up: Best of

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

During a very fertile 2 year period from 1965-67 this band really cranked out the hits with "Jenny Take A Ride", Little Latin Lupe Lu", "Shake A Tailfeather", and "Devil With A Blue Dress On" just to name a few. All these songs and a whole lot more appear on this excellent Best Of. This is some great rockin' R&B that, for me, never gets old and stale. It's not the soft Barry Gordy type R&B. It's that other Motown sound that you might hear playing if you took a walk through a Detroit auto plant, or paid a visit to the local neighborhood beer tavern. If you like the type of raucous R&B that Springsteen cranked out some 10 years later, look no further. The Boss even used to cover Ryder's "Good Golly Miss Molly/Devil With A Blue Dress On" medley for his encore in his live shows. Unfortunatly, you just knew something this good couldn't last long. After all this quick success, a knucklehead of a music producer convinced Mitch Ryder to leave the Wheels and go solo so he could become a star. Well, that didn't happen. But eventually Ryder at least had the good sense to form the Detroit Wheels one more time in 1971. He got back his original guitar player Jimmy McCarty and his drummer Johnny Bee Badanjek, who is considered one of the alltime best drummers in rock and roll history, together for their swansong "Detroit" album. From this album comes the final two killer songs that rock harder than anything on here. "Long Neck Goose" and the classic "Rock And Roll". Rev It Up is by far the best greatest hits package from Mitch Ryder, and I think one of the best ever comps by Rhino Records. A generous 20 tracks of some of the most aggressive, butt-kicking, 4 on the floor, rockin' R&B you'll ever hear. Highly recommended!

Think back to the music scene in the mid 1960's and to all of that energy! There was music by The Beatles, the British Invasion and all those dynamite tunes being cranked out by Motown. But there was another group on the scene that somehow managed to crank it up yet another notch. Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels exploded onto the scene in late 1965 and over the next 18 months had a fabulous run of raucus, driving hit records that included "Jenny Take A Ride", "Sock It To Me Baby", a remake of Bill Medley's "Little Latin Lupe Lu" and of course the big one "Devil With A Blue Dress On & Good Golly Miss Molly." Yes, the future appeared bright for this white soul-rock outfit from the Motor City. Yet for some inexplicable reason producer Bob Crewe had other ideas.

In 1967, Crewe decided that Ryder could be more successful as a solo artist. He apparently had grandiose visions of Ryder as some sort of balladeer. So he sent the Detroit Wheels packing and promptly recorded a new album with Mitch Ryder entitled "What Now My Love". It was dreadful. The critics hated it and no one--I MEAN NO ONE--bought the thing. The album never even cracked Billboard's "Top Pop 200 Albums" chart.

Shortly thereafter Ryder terminated his contract with Bob Crewe and attempted to re-group. He went to Memphis and recorded a decent album with Booker T and the MGs and a short time later returned to his home city and formed a new band aptly called Detroit. But his moment in the sun had passed and Ryder was never able to regain the form that made him so very popular during that 18 month period. "Rev Up: The Best of Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels from Rhino gives you six of his seven chart hits with the Detroit Wheels and also includes "Liberty" a real soulful cut from that Memphis recording with Booker T. Also included on this disc are two tunes from Mitch with his new group Detroit. These were not bad records really but something was missing and the group just never caught on. As is usually the case with Rhino "Rev Up: The Best of Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels" also includes some very informative liner notes. Highly recommended!

I slipped this disc into the cd player in my van one night while waiting for one of my kids to finish soccer practice and kind of lost myself in the music. When I found myself, I was flailing around the interior of the van, bellowing "Sock It To Me, Baby" at full volume with the windows closed.
And I wasn't alone.
There at the passenger's window stood the woman who oversees the school's Girl Scout/Brownie troops. At the time I was serving as the assistant troop leader to my daughter's Brownie troop, and I think she was wondering just what she'd gotten her Brownies into that night.
No real moral to this story. Suffice to say that there's enough high energy music on this disc to make your purchase of it worthwhile.

Of all the blue-eyed soul groups from the sixties (the Rascals, the Righteous Brothers, the Box Tops, etc.) only Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels coupled the Motown-soul sound with high energy rock 'n' roll. What resulted were some of the most electrifying singles of the era.

Listen to the break-neck speed at which drummer John Badanjek propels "Devil with a Blue Dress On/Good Golly Miss Molly." Theirs is the definitive version of Bill Medley's "Little Latin Lupe Lu"--the Righteous Brothers' and the Kingsmen's versions pale in comparison. Their last hit was the hard-rocking "Sock It to Me-Baby!" in mid-1965. [Later that year, as a solo artist, Ryder had one last chart single--the god-awful "What Now My Love," which mercifully was left off this collection.]

Ryder's solo efforts weren't, however, completely without merit. "Joy" just missed the top 40, peaking at No. 41. The B-side, "I'd Rather Go To Jail," was reminiscent of his best work with the Wheels. In 1970 Ryder reunited with Wheels drummer Badanjek to form the band Detroit. Harder edged than his Sixties material, both "Long Neck Goose" and "Rock 'n' Roll" show that Ryder was still capable of creating viable music.

Taken as a whole, this collection presents a terrific overview of the greatest white soul shouter of the decade. VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

In the December 2002 issue of Guitar Player, Ted Nugent said,

"In 1960, my band the Lourdes opened up for Billy Lee & the Rivieras, who eventually became Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels. On guitar was a tall, lanky mother named Jim McCarty, who played a Gibson Byrdland through a Fender Twin Reverb. Man, I thought my balls were going to take off on the wings of an eagle! To this day, THAT'S the guiding light for every performance when I pick up a guitar.

"The stuff Jim played on songs like 'Jenny Take a Ride,' 'Good Golly Miss Molly,' 'Devil with a Blue Dress On,' and 'Sock It to Me' determined the very style that you hear on 'Stranglehold' and every other song I've ever played. THAT'S why I play a Byrdland. The depth of sound that he got, especially at the low volume levels they played at back then, was unprecedented. I'd never heard anything like it. If you want to celebrate the soul of electric guitar in its optimum delivery, listen to those early Mitch Ryder albums. They're still the benchmarks."

Those benchmarks are here. Solid bookends surround a collection of hits and near misses, along with a few questionable b-sides. As albums started becoming more dominant in 1967 with releases from Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, and The Beatles, 1966 was arguably the last great year for hit singles. Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels recorded some of the year's most energetic tunes.

Something's missing, though: as strong as these songs are, they're even more intense on the original vinyl singles. For instance, the album version of Sock It To Me - Baby! appears here; it lacks the ascending sound effects near the start and end of the song. The radio edit of Rock 'N Roll is used, which lopped almost 2 minutes from the album cut. (By the way, Steve Hunter was Detroit's lead guitarist, not Jim McCarty.) Also missing are Ryder's 1969 single Sugar Bee and Detroit's 1972 cover of Gimme Shelter. The latter is on the CD version of Detroit with Mitch Ryder, but I've not heard Sugar Bee anywhere since it dropped from the Keener playlist.

Still, if you want to experience the musical urgency of that era, this CD is a great place to start.

Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels specialized in R&B tinged frat rock and roll and this Rhino collection collects their best material in nice remastered sound. While this collection reveals there's a little more to them than just "Jenny Take a Ride!" and "Devil with a Blue Dress On and Good Golly Miss Molly", it also tends towards a "sameness" of sound. No real clunkers here, but you might find some of the tracks blending into each other.

BEST CUTS:
Besides the two aforementioned hits, "Too Many Fish in the Sea and Three Little Fishes" is a nice continuation of the "Devil with a Blue Dress..." formula. "I'd Rather Go to Jail" was buried on the B side of a Ryder solo single. It's a winner. "Rock and Roll" and "Long Neck Goose" come from the reunion of the band in the early 70s (as simply "Detroit").

BOTTOM LINE:
It won't change your life, but it may become the life of your oldies party.

3 1/2 stars

Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels were one of the best combos of the mid 60's, combining the blue-eyed soul of the Rascals with a drive matched only by the Stones. Though Ryder's reign was short lived this documents some of the hottest tracks anyone made in the 60's. From a stomping JENNY TAKE A RIDE to the metallic crunch of the Velvet Underground classic ROCK AND ROLL Mitch and the boys kick out the jams and leave all other Detroit rockers (ie MC5, Ted Nugent, Bob Seger, White Stripes, etc.) in their wake.

In this one disc, we have an opportunity to listen to music that helped shape the sound of AM radio in the mid 60's, and which would go on to influence a generation or two (at least) of other artists like: The Stooges, MC5, Bob Seger and, of course, Bruce Springsteen. Since he doesn't get anywhere near the airplay he deserves, it's easy to forget what a tremendous rock 'n roller Mitch Ryder was. This CD, with a great mix of high profile hits and lesser known tracks will give the first time listener a good idea of what Mitch was doing back in the day and why he was so popular. For a graybeard like me, it's like a time machine back to 1966 when I played Little Latin Lupe Lu so many times I thought the phonograph needle was going to wear a hole right through the vinyl.

Wow! I can't believe this is the first customer review of one of the high-octane bands of the sixties!

This is a 20-track trip through the history of arguably rock's greatest white soul shouter. Things kick off with "Jenny Take a Ride" (a medley of Little Richard's "Jenny Jenny" and Chuck Willis' "C.C. Rider") followed by a revved up version of Bill Medley's (of the Righteous Brothers) "Little Latin Lupe Lu" and the pace rarely lets up.

Other standout tracks include "Devil with a Blue Dress On/Good Golly Miss Molly," propelled by the thundering drums of John Badanjek. Despite the fact that no one has said "sock it to me" since Rowan & Martin's "Laugh-In" went of the air, "Sock It to Me--Baby!" is a killer rock song--terrific guitar solo! On the medley "Too Many Fish in the Sea/Three Little Fishes," the Detroit Wheels goose the Marvelettes' hit into high gear.

Splitting from the Wheels in 1967 to go solo, didn't affect Ryder's turbo-charged sound as cuts like "I'd Rather Go to Jail" will attest to.

In the early seventies Ryder formed the short-lived Detroit with original Wheels drummer Badanjek. "Long Neck Goose" sounds like an unreleased Wheels' rocker, while "Rock 'N Roll" sounds like it was torn out of the Mountain songbook with its Leslie West-inspired guitar riff.

If you love sixties rock 'n' roll and don't already own this CD, there's a gaping hole in your collection. ESSENTIAL

This one got me up and dancing like I have never danced before. This brought me back to the good old days in Wisconsin at the teen beer bars where I had tons of fun before I went off to war. Saw Mitch Ryder live a few weeks ago and forgot how much I liked his music. If this one doesn't get you up and dancing then you are DEAD.