Customer Reviews

Rockabilly Legend

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One of the lesser known of the Sun Rockabilly superstars in the 1950s and a minor country music star of the early 1960s, Warren Smith is fortunately still remembered as a rockabilly legend, worthy of being mentioned along with the other great names of the genre like Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison and Jerry Lee Lewis. Warren had a great voice and an ability to rock hard with the rockabilly songs as well as deliver a smooth country hit.

He only cut about 30 tunes for the Sun Records label before moving on to Warner Brothers and Liberty Records where he had a few years of minor success in the country music charts. His biggest hits that you're most likely to see on rockabilly compilations were "Red Cadillac And A Black Moustache" and "Ubangi Stomp" which was recorded by just about every rockabilly star in the '50s and '60s, and was famously covered by the Stray Cats on their first album.

Other songs he is known for include "Uranium Rock" which was covered by the Cramps, "So Long, I'm Gone," which was written by Roy Orbison and Sun Records mogul Sam Phillips, the Don Gibson song "Sweet Sweet Girl," the British folk tune "Black Jack David," Warren Smith's own tune "Stop the World (Baby I'll Jump Off)," the traditional song "Miss Froggie" performed in an upbeat rockabilly style, the Johnny Cash tune "Rock 'N' Roll Ruby," and a song which sounds like Johnny Cash should have written and performed it, called "My Hanging Day."

Wow! What a great disc! Warren Smith WAS Mr. Rock-n-Roll -- the way it was MEANT to be played. Give this disc a spin and you'll know exactly what I mean.

A mix of rockabilly and country songs. Rockabilly songs are great ("Miss Froggie", "Ubangi Stomp", "Tonight Will Be the Last Night", "Rock & Roll Ruby",...) but country songs are sometimes little boring. "Red Cadillac and a Black Moustache" is originaly his but Bob Luman made the hit. The sound quality is not the best, but it's ok! And of course all songs are recorded at legendary Sun.