Sonny Clark - Sonny Clark Trio LP (Blue Note Tone Poet Series, Gatefold)

Vinyl LP pressing. Other than Elvis, Carl, and Gene Vincent, not many rockabillies could claim a genuine national hit during the genre's mid-'50s heyday-but Sanford Clark could. His low-key vocal on The Fool, supplied by Clark's Phoenix, Arizona-based producer Lee Hazlewood, gave the deadpan lament precisely the feel that it required, Al Casey's blistering lead guitar adding it's snarling rockabilly edge. Once Dot Records picked up the master and it's Elvis-like flip Lonesome For A Letter for national consumption and it hit big in 1956, Sanford found himself a sudden star, touring with Perkins and Vincent and churning out more rocking product for Dot. The Fool put Lee on the map as a producer, well before he masterminded the rise of Duane Eddy. Bear Family's 'Sanford Clark Rocks' surveys the very best of Sanford's Dot output-Usta Be My Baby, A Cheat (both the original Dot release and the snare drum overdub version), Ooo Baby, Love Charms, Lou Be Doo, an unissued-at-the-time Cross-Eyed Alley Cat. There's also a motherlode of rarities!