10" on Sleazy Records.
Side A:
L-O-V-E-V-I-L-L-E
Too Much For A Man To Understand
Anyway The Wind Blows
Unhappy Girls
Just For You
Side B:
Sister Twister
Hamboner
The Fool I Used To Be
Forget Me (Next Time Around)
Hollywood City
I've Just Got Back From There
When in 1957 he left Sun Records with his friend Johnny Cash, poor Carl had seen how all his mates were overtaking him, Jerry Lee was beginning to stand out as the wildest star in rock'n'roll, Johnny Cash was energing as one of the biggest names in country music... and while he barely managed to place any of his singles in the country charts.
So Carl signed with Columbia Records, hoping that a major label would make it easier for his music to succeed. In his first period there, from 1958 to 1962, he recorded some very high-quality songs, most of which were only released as singles.
This 2 LP series compiles the 11 singles Carl released on Columbia Records during those years.
In the first volume we find his greatest rock'n'rollers, well reflected with his first single JIVE AFTER FIVE / PINK PEDAL PUSHERS, but also his first firm bets for country with a pop vein, like Y.O.U or JUST FOR YOU, and wonders with a lot of early 60's Memphis sound, like the wonderful HIGHWAY OF LOVE.
The second volume compiles the singles released in the period from 60 to 62, in which Carl personally lived one of the hardest stages of his life, his brother Jay died, his band split up and he began an unstoppable drift towards alcoholism. Anyway his recordings kept on the higest level, in those sessions Carl's sound became more complex, trying to update it playing different styles, sometimes even drifting towards rhythm & blues.
Despite this, and despite having magnificent songs like LOVEVILLE, or HOLLYWOOD GIRLS, only with his penultimate single SISTER TWISTER / HAMBONE, two songs that had their feet firmly planted in the more rhythm & pop sounds of the new Memphis labels like Hi-Records or Stax, Carl once again managed to enter the charts.
Columbia did not renew Carl's contract, and he would sink for the next few years, until 1964, when after signing for Decca he would be acclaimed on his first European tour, being received as one of his main influences by a Liverpool quartet called The Beatles, and collaborating with them on the recording of their fourth LP, where they would record two of his songs on Sun.
DeeJay Francho
