Larry Williams - Here's Larry Williams (1959)

Artist: Larry Williams

Album: Here's Larry Williams

Genre: Rhythm & Blues, Rock & Roll

Released: 1959 [2013]

***

One of the great R&B long-players of the '50s, Here's Larry Williams collects nearly all of the Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter's key work ("Bad Boy" and 1967's "Mercy Mercy Mercy" are the only truly essential tracks missing), and a bunch of smokin' obscurities besides. Listening to these tracks, it's clear why John Lennon was such a huge Larry Williams fan; his rough-and-ready no-bull voice is elastic enough to move from a Little Richard trill to a Ray Charles growl, and songs like "Dizzy Miss Lizzy" and "Short Fat Fannie" are raucous enough to be punk rock nearly a full two decades before the concept was even in existence. Of the lesser-known tracks, the giddy Buddy Holly-meets-Richard Berry "You Bug Me, Baby" and the salacious "Little School Girl," featuring a good and greasy sax solo, are the highlights; on the downside, "Ting A Ling" is as slight and tossed-off as its title, and the intrusive female chorus that sounds like it made the wrong turn from the Rosemary Clooney session down the hall is just plain awful.

AllMusic Review by Stewart Mason

Tracklist

1. Short Fat Fannie

2. Make A Little Love

3. Hootchy-Koo

4. Lawdy Miss Clawdy

5. Peaches And Cream

6. Give Me Love

7. Bony Moronie

8. Little School Girl

9. Dizzy, Miss Lizzy

10. Teardrops

11. You Bug Me, Baby

12. Ting-A-Ling

FLAC (tracks)