| "(Eddie Angel Meets the Beatles) is the album the Beatles would have made if they couldn't write songs." Kaiser George, from the liner notes |
|---|
Eddie Angel with
vocal accompaniment by
the Hi-Risers
Eddie Angel Meets the Beatles
Spinout (2004)
I don't know a whole lot about Eddie Angel, but in an informative interview on the Rockabilly Hall of Fame web site, the ace guitarist, who's been in surf bands and axed with Link Wray, lets loose with a down and dirty capsule bio that pretty much says it all: the Albany, New York-born stringman soaked up the vibes from his older sisters' rock and roll record collection, and started playing guitar at 12 upon hearing the Beatles do their thing.
Give me a penny for every musician who was inspired to start or join a rock and roll band after hearing the Fabs and I'll be richer than rich can be. It's an old story, the influence that Liverpool's finest had on budding guitarists and the like; it's a story that typifies the fever that raged around the world in every kid who wanted to be like John, Paul, George and Ringo. It's a great story, and it's the God's honest truth.
Working comfortably with the Rochester, New York group the Hi-Risers, Angel has paid a long-standing debt to the Beatles and beat music by recording a rocking, sweet 16 songs the Fab Four used to play in their early performing days. The result is a hell of a ride that swoops along at breakneck speed, a sweet look back at pop and roll's young days in the early 1960s, when capturing the moment was the thing.
You can just feel the sweat dripping off the walls of the Cavern Club as Angel and the Hi-Risers tear into the beat rave-up of the Undertakers' "Love is a Swingin' Thing," Bobby Parker's "Watch Your Step," Bobby Lewis' "One Track Mind," and "I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate." When a band is cooking--really cooking, red-hot coal style--this is what you get: players in it for the long haul, wringing in breathtaking style every ounce of emotion out of every note in sight.
Among other stupendous highlights, Angel and the Hi-Risers tackle Goffin and King's melodic masterpiece "Don't Ever Change" and the Cavern staple "Solider of Love," both to great effect. These newly-waxed performances ring true from the boys to you. It's obvious they are truly invested in these songs, so infectious are their performances.
Angel's guitar, and the Hi-Risers' ace vocal and instrumental accompaniment, for that matter, shine throughout the proceedings, even when the vibrant vocals take a rest on the sidelines during the nostalgically-rendered, beatified instrumental, "Moonglow." From start to finish, Eddie Angel Meets the Beatles sounds like it was recorded back in the day, but it's actually from last year, as it says so handily on the face of the disc.
Kaiser George's liner notes assert that this is "the album the Beatles would have made if they couldn't write songs." With evidence as persuasive as this album, he may well be right.
Alan Haber
June 25, 2005
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