Nrbq - Scraps CDs • Vinyl Records • LPs • Music Albums

one of the great underrated albums: a spirited, even crazed collection that ranged from Bruce Channel's "Hey! Baby" to Sun Ra's jazz chant "Rocket Number 9," from the front porch pickin' of "C'mon If You're Comin'," a Brownie McGee-Sonny Terry tune, to Eddie Cochran's rave-up "C'mon Everybody." The original songs were great and awful and just about every degree in between and you got the feeling it was shooting off in too many directions at once. But it was fun–eclecticism in excess, perhaps, but the sort of insanity it's hard to resist. That was in 1969.

The group did another LP for Columbia, Boppin' the Blues in collaboration with Carl Perkins, and then who knows. Anyway, several years pass and here they are again, once more admitting to the title New Rhythm & Blues Quintet, with an out-of-the-blue(s) album called Scraps.

The title invites the obvious cynical remarks. It is a raggedy album, but that's its saving grace. It has seven cuts on each side (and how long has it been since you had a 14-track album?), the longest one being 4:18. With one exception–a "medley" of Johnny Mercer-Harold Arlen's "Ac-cent-tchu-ate the Positive" with a dash of Cannonball Adderley's "Things Are Getting Better" slipped in at the break–the material is original and again varies widely. So there are some cuts I just don't want to talk about (like "Who Put the Garlic in the Glue?"–an aggressively absurd tune with none of the brilliance of their earlier "Kentucky Slop Song" which began, "Slim Harpo's over on the jukebox/Stop pourin' orange juice down my socks") but others that are real fine. For instance: "Do You Feel It?" begins with a quiet, direct bass line, joined by steady-beat drums, then a guitar taking on the sweet top layer, then some soul clapping done with just the right sort of unconcern–a perfectly minor intro to a wonderfully minimal song.

Frank Gadler's vocals are his usual backyard knockabout style and the group echoes him ("Do you feel it?" repeated with little embellishment is the entire song) with the blunt unison I've always admired from band members in concert, singing out from behind their instruments. The feeling here, and throughout the album, is Fifties rock & roll, filtered through a lot of Sixties influences (early Beatles, Lovin' Spoonful) and coming out–NRBQ: a little weird, playful, and unwilling to settle on any one song style.

This can get annoying. More flying apart at the seams here. You get an old-style rock