Includes recordings originally issued on Flip Records and two previously unreleased tracks.
Performers include: Donald Woods & The Vel-Aires, Richard Berry & The Pharoahs, Lena Calhoun & The Emotions, King Bees, The Flippers.
Includes liner notes by Gordon Skadberg.
All but two tracks have been digitally remastered from the original master tapes.
Contains 22 tracks.
Max and Lillian Feirtag started Flip Records in L.A. in 1955 and released some 60 vintage West Coast doo wop and R&B singles and a handful of various-artists sampler LPs before finally closing the doors in 1963. The Feirtags then steadfastly refused to license any of the Flip material for CD reissue, and only after their deaths was Britain's Ace Records able to purchase the label's catalog. This is the third volume in Ace's reissue campaign for Flip Records, and it includes the label's most famous release, the original version of Richard Berry's "Louie, Louie" from 1957, and yes, you can hear the words clearly, and no, they're not the slightest bit obscene. Berry's "Louie" was never a commercial success, but it did spawn the famous "indecipherable at any speed" 1963 version by the Kingsmen. Also here is Berry's "Have Love, Will Travel," a virtual clone of "Louie, Louie." Other highlights include the Elgins' cinematic "Casey Cop," Donald Woods & the Vel-Aires' odd and loosely jazzy "My Very Own," and the Maharajahs' 1950s funky "Sweet Loretta." It might be a severe overstatement to say that Flip Records changed the course of pop music, but given all the punky garage bands that Berry's "Louie, Louie" eventually wrought, maybe not. ~ Steve Leggett
