The Town Talk from Alexandria, Louisiana • Page 28

C- Ffjay Sec'eber 2 1994 The Town Ta'k A'enand'ia-Pinevi!" La Back to music's roots Old favorites coming back in original forms Review Swingtime sessions. The earliest sides are fairly indistinct. However. Charles' own style becomes evident on "Kissa Me Teri Hatcher and Dean Cain will be back for a second season as "Lois Clark" on ABC. In the opener a plot is hatched against Lois Lane by guest star Emma Sams as Lex Luthor's ex-wife.

'Lois Clark' back for second season 'Superman' premiere airs Sept. 18 By Wayne Bledsoe Scripps Howard News Service A lot of music fans are tired of hearing pop music that's been audience-tested and honed down to the final too-perfect, boring millisecond. This year, record companies have made it easy to go back and check out music that's real and organic. Raw energy was the main drawing card of rock music, and a wealth of new releases lets listeners journey back to hear some of the great predecessors of rock 'n' roll and some of rock's great forgotten subgenres. Rock's roots stretch back to the late "30s and early rhythm and blues, boogie-woogie, and jump-blues a combination of and swing.

A sampling A great place to get a sampling is "Down the Road Apiece: The Best of Amos Milburn" (EMI). The collection offers 26 great tracks featuring hot piano playing, suggestive saxophones and lyrics that alternate between lost love ballads and let's-party-till-we-drop sentiments. Milburn's band members distinguish themselves by taking some great solos, and Milburn's voice is an invitation to fun it's better than chicken fried in bacon grease, c'mon with me, boy, it's just down the road apiece!" Wynonie Harris, one of Milburn's contemporaries, was even wilder and woolier. "Bloodshot Eyes: The Best of Wynonie Harris" (Rhino) is a collection of political incorrectness and marvelously bawdy, double entendre-laden masterworks. "Sittin On It." "I Like My Baby's Pudding" and "Keep on Churnin' contain nearly blush-worthy testaments to the creative levels songwriters reached on forbidden subjects.

While Harris was dangerously carnal during the '50s, today this music seems like pure fun. In addition to the steamy tracks and his famous "Good Rockin' Tonight," there's "Lovin Machine," "Grandma Plays the Numbers," and the wonderfully funny "Good Morning Judge." Even trade-off There's even a trade-off with Big Joe Turner on "Battle of the Blues (Part II)." "Battle of the Blues (Part I)" can be found on both "Jumpin' With Joe: The Complete Alladin and Imperial Recordings" (EMI) and "Big, Bad and Blue: The Big Joe Turner Anthology" (Rhino). The former is a taste of Turner -18 good Turner tracks (many of them very rare) from 1947-50. The latter is a massive three-disc set which chronicles the career of one of longest-lasting and most influential performers. Turner is acknowledged as one of the fathers of rock rolL The set stretches from 1938s -Roll 'Em Pete" to "Shake.

Rattle and Roll" and "Flip Flop and Fly" from the '50s, to recordings made two years before Turner's death in 1985. While Turner's early sides were not quite as carnal as Turner sang "you can take me. baby, put me in your big brass bedyou can rock me. baby, till my face turns cherry red" in 1939, nearly a decade before Harris sang of similar intentions. An incredible number of jazz and blues greats play along while Turner shouts Oran "Hot Lips" Page.

Willie "The Lion" Smith. Meade Lux Lewis. Elmore James, Alvin "Red" Tyler. Freddie Green, Coleman Hawkins, Count Basie. King Curtis and many others.

What is surprising is how little Turner actually changed in his nearly 40-year recording career. He had it. He kept it. The world finally caught up with him and then passed him by. "Big.

Bad and Blue" Is a great collection, best listened to a little at a time. Chronicles doo-wop The amazing thing about "The Doo Wop Box" (Rhino) is that it can be listened to all at once. The ambitious four-disc, 101-song, collection chronicles doo-wop singing from 1948 to a few live tracks recorded in the '80s. Nearly every doo-wop song that made the Billboard pop charts is included and it's a remarkable catalog of glorious, and sometimes goofy, vocal performances. It's full of well-scraping basses, cloud-bursting falsettos, inventive harmonies, deep-felt love and nonsense words.

Well-known tracks include: "The Glory of Love," "Gee," "Sh-Boom," "Earth Angel," "Sincerely," "The Great Pretender," "Speedo," "Get a Job," "Book of Love," "Tears On My Pillow," "16 Candles," "So Fine," "A Teenager in Love," "Blue Moon," "Come Go With Me" and "Crying in the Chapel." Stand-outs are everywhere, but a few like Frankie Lymon are stunning. Lymon was only 13 when he recorded "Why Do Fools Fall in Love?" and "I Want You to Be My Girl," included on this set. ChangmSraces Mettencamp itUntic rm fx John Baby." the song that won him a contract with Atlantic Records. While it has a lot more of the jump-blues feel than his later and more famous work, there's no mistaking who's hitting the piano keys and singing the vocals. "Ray Charles: Blues Plus Jazz" (Rhino Atlantic) gathers more of Charles' less-familiar '50s work in a two-disc package.

Disc one contains Brother Ray at his low-down bluesiest. without the rocking sound that made him a star. As the disc progresses. Charles makes the blues his own. Disc two concentrates on jazz instru-mentals, ending with "The Spirit-Feel." a 1959 track with Charles on alto sax, not piano.

It's all good and it displays unfamiliar facets of a man who helped define the word "soul" in music and helped turn into rock 'n' roll. New Orleans music In a totally different vein, Clarence "Frogman" Henry was part of the '50s New Orleans music scene, which included Fats Domino, Professor Longhair and Ernie-K-Doe. "Ain't Got No Home: The Best of Clarence Frogman' Henry" (MCAChess) includes the hit title song that won him his moniker, as well as several other excellent tracks. Sure, in all these collections there are moments where singers or players hit a wrong note or make an imperfect sound, but it's part of what makes this music seem real and honest. That's an element that deserves to re-emerge in popular music.

Steaks Seafood Ribs Lots More! Now Onen Sundavs Jln-3pm Foi Lunch! izz-l I TO 14 nwy. lo vvra ft mile past the 5Tfcc Coliseum HOURS 1 1am-9pm Tuev-Thurv 1 I am-1 0pm tri. Ml. 11am-3pm Sunday Neil STEAK HOUSE i rJt begin to worry about their colleague's sanity. But the real Lois soon suspects she's being set up and sets out to vindicate both herself and the Man of Steel.

Stars on opener Other guest stars on the opener will include Denise Crosby as Gretchen Kelly, Earl Boen as Dr. Heller, Barry Livingston as Sheldon Bender, Thomas Ryan as Detective Ryder and Jack Kruschen as Captain Keene. "Madame Ex" was written by Tony Blake Paul Jackson and directed by Randall Zisk. "Lois Clark: The New Adventures of Superman" is produced by December 3rd Productions in association with Warner Bros. Television Productions.

The series was created by Deborah Joy LeVine. The executive producer is Robert Singer. The co-executive producer is James Crocker. The supervising producers are Randall Zisk, Tony Blake and Paul Jackson. The co-producers are Jim Michaels, Phil Sgriccia and John McNamara.

The series premiered Sept. 12, 1993. Other groups with underage lead singers represented on the set include The Students. The Schoolboys and Lewis Lymon and the Teenchords Lewis was Frankie's younger brother. The set includes several rarities.

Also, there's an excellent and authoritative booklet. The quality of the music drops somewhat in the fourth disc, but overall. "The Doo Wop Box" is more than four hours of amazing fun. Two-disc set For a chronicle dedicated to one doo-wop great. The Moonglows.

look for the two-disc set "Blue Velvet The Ultimate Collection" (MCAChess). The group's hits "Sincerely." "Blue Velvet" and "The Ten Commandments of Love" are all here, but the band didn't know how to make a dud. The set ends with the unintentionally hilarious "She's Alright With Me" on which the singer pays tribute to his "little woman." Among the attributes of this "crazy, crazy kind of woman" are talents at boiling coffee, cooking, and not asking why he's late. Much more obscure and slightly stranger is "Monkey Hips and Rice: The Five Royales Anthology" (Rhino). The title cut is a marvel about a man whose girlfriend serves him that exotic dish, but tells him about it later.

Other tunes, such as "Laundromat Blues," include wild screams. The group had a few hits in the '50s, but overall this is music that hasn't been heard in 40 years, and it's quite a find. Another find is the material on "The Swingtime Records Story" (Capricorn), another fine addition to the chronicling of small independent labels. "Swingtime" collects early sides from artists who found their greatest fame later. Early recordings by Ray Charles, Lowell Fulsom, Percy Mayfield (who wrote "Hit the Road, Jack" and "Please Send Me Someone to and many lesser-knowns.

As is usual on label compilations, some of the most fun tracks are by the forgotten artists. High-voiced Joe Pullman is a stand-out with "My Woman" one of those "I'm gonna kill my girlfriend" songs that you just can't sing anymore. The star of the set, though, is Charles, who was just defining his own sound on these Mazzy Star Etektr Organized Konfusion RCA Records Label REALITY sate ends 91294 dm JVM 1 ,11 Joe's "DREYFUS STORE" When "Lois Clark: The New Adventures of Superman" returns with new shows Sept. 18, Lex Luthor's ex-wife will be out to get Lois (Teri Hatcher). In the story Emma Samms as the ex-wife hires a Lois Lane look-alike to discredit the ace reporter and destroy the Man of Steel.

The season premiere will be at 7 p.m. Sept. 18. Entitled "Madame Ex," Arianna Carlin (Ms. Samms), uses her position as the Daily Planet's newest columnist and staff psychologist to avenge the betrayal of her ex-husband.

Using subliminal messages, she incites the citizens of Metropolis to hold Superman responsible for the death of Luthor the city's greatest philanthropist. Personal vendetta As part of a more personal vendetta, Arianna uses a seemingly benevolent therapy session to convince Daily Planet investigative reporter Clark Kent (Dean Cain) and managing editor Perry White (Lane Smith) that Lois Lane is a grief-stricken almost-bride, unstable and capable of unprovoked violence. And when a surgically altered Lois look-alike begins acting irrationally. Perry and Clark do WW, Every Weekend at fjf The Hotel Bentley fZ mirror rvoom t-TTr wneoi i nese ureal mnas TT I J-t Li Steve Wells Mimic 3L Allen SrOUnJL Friday Saturday RIVERS TOOLS GOLD N. Traffic Circle 443-1009 This Sat.

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