Description
Other than Elvis, Carl, and Gene Vincent, not many rockabillies could claim a genuine national hit during the genre’s mid-‘50s heyday—but Sanford Clark could. His low-key vocal on The Fool, supplied by Clark’s Phoenix, Arizona-based producer Lee Hazlewood, gave the deadpan lament
precisely the feel that it required, Al Casey’s blistering lead guitar adding its snarling rockabilly edge.
Once Dot Records picked up the master and its Elvis-like flip Lonesome For A Letter for national
consumption and it hit big in 1956, Sanford found himself a sudden star, touring with Perkins and
Vincent and churning out more rocking product for Dot. The Fool put Lee on the map as a producer,
well before he masterminded the rise of Duane Eddy. Bear Family’s ‘Sanford Clark Rocks’ surveys
the very best of Sanford’s Dot output—Usta Be My Baby, A Cheat (both the original Dot release and
the snare drum overdub version), Ooo Baby, Love Charms, Lou Be Doo, an unissued-at-the-time
Cross-Eyed Alley Cat. There’s also a motherlode of rarities: one-off 1961 singles for the Project and
Trey labels, three sides for Warner Bros. including his original 1965 pre-Dean Martin reading of
Hazlewood’s Houston, and four tracks from later in the decade, notably his ’66 Ramco remake of The
Fool and a 1967 rendition of the Leon Payne-penned offhandedly violent It’s Nothing To Me. Sanford
always made it all sound disarmingly easy and relaxed, Hazlewood doing the rest behind the board.
TRACKLISTING:
Ooo Baby Modern Romance Love Charms A Cross Eyed Alley Cat The Fool It’s Nothing To Me Nine Pound Hammer Lonesome For A Letter Houston Usta Be My Baby A Cheat (with snare overdub) Don’t Care Lou Be Doo Till My Baby Comes Home Guess It’s Love Ain’t Nobody Here But Us Chickens Just Bluesin’ Every Minute Of The Day Tennessee Walk Travelin’ Man Give The Boy Love That’s The Way I Feel (Ooh Wee) The Fool (Ramco version) (They Call Me) Country The Man Who Made An Angel Cry Hard Feelings Swanee River Rock Don’t Cry Black Jack County Chain It Hurts Me Too A Cheat
GENRE: Rock N Roll
BARCODE: 4000127176646
