Yep, the new Norton's have arrived! and suffice to say it's yet another batch of top notch material. Best of the bunch must be 'Shake It Up And Move', the vinyl edition of Ace's 'Gene Vincent Cut Our Songs' focusing on the writing talents of Jack Rhodes. This includes fantastic early versions of 'Five Days, Five Days', 'Action Packed' and 'Red Blue Jeans And A Pony Tail'. All are previously unreleased bar Elroy Dietzel's Rock-N-Bones. Easily the biggest rockabilly archive "find" in years. And speakin' of "finds"; the third volume in the 'Kicksville!' series once again rounds up a solid set of rockabilly acetates, this time including previously unrealesed material by Benny Joy and Danny Dell, and just feast your ears on the first ever demo recordings by future surf legend Gary Usher and hit maker Ral Donner! The vinyl edition of Ron Haydock's '99 Chicks' is a bit of a let-down, leaving off 12 tracks from the CD and, almost as important, the massive liner-notes, which are and essential part of Norton's releases (and especially in this case!). Faith is restored with 'Wildcat Jamboree!', a fine, fine CD of rockabilly/country radio broadcasts as originally heard in Mississippi during the late fifties. This is truly amazing stuff, and possibly the closest we will ever come to real time-travel (Dig the furniture ads!). Liners by Jim Cole, Eddie Bond, Hayden Thompson and Billy Miller, this is an absolute must-have, no two ways... On the 45 front there's an excellent two-sider by the late "Jimmy Lee" Fautheree (backed by Deke Dickerson & the Ecco-Fonics), the cool "Jungle Stomp' by Northwest rock n’ rollers Johnny Clark & the Four Playboys and finally 'Party Date!', a four-track EP of ultra-cool Texas' rock & roll, featuring (ao) Vince Murphy & the Catalinas, who's story was first told way-back-when in Kicks #6.
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