Warren Smith
It's astonishing the sheer amount of talent that was beating a path
to Sam Phillips' door in 1956 wanting a contract with Sun Records.
Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, Sonny Burgess and Billy Lee Riley all
got Phillips' OK that year, but even premier rock 'n' roll wildmen
like The Burnette Brothers were turned down.
The label already had Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash and Charlie
Feathers on board, while Elvis himself had only recently jumped ship
from Sun to RCA.
Sun was also a relatively small, cash-strapped label with a
world-class roster of acts, and consequently it was unable to give the
potential hit singles recorded in its Memphis studios the backing they
needed.
Although Warren Smith cut five superb singles for the label, he
never really became a household name, with too many artists chasing
too small a promotional budget.
Warren's classic April 1956 Sun debut, Rock 'n' Roll Ruby,
was an easy-rolling, gutsy hymn of praise to the delights of roadhouse
jiving - "I took my Ruby jukin' on the outskirts of town/She
took her high heels off and rolled her stockings down".
It shifted in pretty fair quantities, but the follow-up (Ubangi
Stomp) failed to match its sales, and his third - the
double-sided belter Miss Froggie b/w So Long I'm Gone -
had the misfortune to be released just two weeks after label mate Jerry
Lee Lewis's million-selling Whole Lot Of Shakin' Going' On.
Sun's money went firmly into pushing Lewis, and Warren
consoled himself on tour by buying up and smashing copies of Jerry
Lee's 45's as his own record died on the vine.
Two more releases followed suit - a rocked up version of Slim
Harpo's
Got Love If You Want It, and a winning take on Don Gibson's Sweet
Sweet Girl - before Warren split for California in 1959,
finally scoring hits for Liberty.
With one of the best voices in the business - whether singing
gravel-throated rockers like Miss Froggie or the purest
of country heartbreakers (Goodbye Mr Love), Smith never put a
foot wrong.
Some of his finest performances remained unreleased until the
1970s, chief among them Red Cadillac And A Black Moustache, a
recording as simple and perfect in its way as the first few Elvis
45's.
Warren died in 1980, just after the rockabilly revival had brought
him a new audience.
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