Original Golden Hits

Album review

This collection differs only slightly from the other greatest-hits reissue packages of Sun material by this artist, of which there are plenty, if not enough to prop up against every one-mile marker across the state of Tennessee. The basic formula, like moonshine, will always have similar properties. Three or four songs that were huge hits, inspiring the Beatles and Elvis Presley, are matched up with a bunch of other tracks. Musically, the level remains high, since Perkins was a great player rather than a celebrity. Everything on here is great, and that includes "Right String but the Wrong Yo Yo," "Dixie Fried," and one of the only songs that combines the subject of country & western history and the atomic bomb, "Tennessee." Most of the songs are originals, and the range of different rhythms and stylistic elements Perkins brings into play include not ideas straight from his sweaty brow but reflections on the work of other popular radio artists. No matter where he goes, he finds a way to fit his quirky personality, swinging through "Boppin' the Blues" and projecting clearly through the doo wop cavort of "Your True Love."

© Eugene Chadbourne /TiVo