Classic review week continues with this review that originally appeared on the Skyline Network Radio Broadcast Hour during the mid 1950s.

Hey Daddy-Os and Paper Shakers, this edition of The Skyline Network is brought to you by the National Biscuit Company, featuring the new flavor taking the nation by storm – the Saltine. Perfect with any get together and goes well with soda pops and milk alike. Try the new Saltine Cracker from NaBisCo – crackers that snap! Now, before you head to the Hop to hang with the other Heps this evening, we wanted to give few words about this sensational new album of sides titled Houston Jump Blues 1950s. Now, all you hips in the orbit already know all about jump blues as it’s been around since RKO radio, but it’s taken on a new dimension in the past few years and by golly oh molly you’ll flip your wings when you hear the songs in this collection – strictly Fish Under the Sea! For all you squares, jump blues is like that big daddy bent blues from the delta, but with that large jazz ensemble arrangements, crazy cool electrified guitars and enough saxaphone to make you think there’s no shortage of reeds in the world.

This is the perfect introduction for all you cubes, as it features nine of the city’s greatest band leaders, including our personal favorite King Curtis (he’s got four unnamed instrumentals mixed in the records – stop and make up a name you crazy duck!) Let us tell you cats, this music rocks. It Rolls. It’s going to need a new catchier description soon, cause Jump Blues just is not going to cut it. If this music was a jacket, it would be a double letter in varsity football and being a greaser. Speaking of guys and cars, you’ll go ape when you hear Peppermint Harris’ Bye Bye Fair The Well – its like a wheelie down the main drag, launching over the heat, and landing perfect in a drive-up diner for burgers and a shake. Tasty.

Like all jump blues, the lyrics are, like an too tight poodle skirt, a little on the bawdy side. Scandalous to adult ears to be sure; they just aren’t ready for tracks like Preacher Stevens’ “Whoopin and Hollerin.’” But we’re kookie for it and don’t much care what the old folks say – we’ve got this leather jacket and we’re sticking to it. But it’s not all rambunction and rebel spirit, ballads like the Stevens’ “So Far Away” give the album depth and make you wish there was some sort of way you could make a collection of songs for your best girl and give them to her and include this.

The collection concludes with Mr. Peppermint Harris’ “The Blues Aint Nothing”, the lone man and piano arrangement. It brings it back closer to the roots of this uniquely American form of folk music as you’ll find on the collection, but trust us when we say you’ll be throwing the first side back on the gramophone as fast as a hottie roddie. So cherry, every track start to finish. Recommended.

Houston Jump Blues 1950s is available at the Sig’s Lagoon Record Swap alone, as it was somehow made only for Japanese audiences. So put down the comb (you’ll never master the duck tail anyways), jump in the bent eight and agitate the gravel on the asap to get a copy. Thanks, and thats all for today’s presentation of the Skyline Network, brought to you by the new National Biscuit Company Saltine – the cracker that snaps!