One of California's original rockabilly rebels,
Glen Glenn (born
Glen Troutman) was a Missouri-born kid who moved to the West Coast with his family when he was 14.
Glenn grew up on jumpin' country sounds and R&B, and learned to make with the bop after
Elvis Presley and
Eddie Cochran's early hits pointed the way. While the hillbilly side of
Glenn's musical heritage never entirely escaped him, his twang-infused rock & roll sides have become prized items among rockabilly fanatics, and with good reason -- he had a great voice, an attitude that suggested he was a nice guy who also knew how to have a hepcat's good time (not unlike
Ricky Nelson with the wild factor upped a few points), and his guitar-pickin' pal Gary Lambert sure knew his way around a fretboard.
Glen Rocks is a typically well-assembled collection from Bear Family that pulls together most of
Glenn's best vintage sides along with some rare demos and radio sessions, including the coolly stripped-down rockabilly of "Everybody's Movin'," the proto-teen idol stylings of "Kathleen," the high-attitude boogie of "If I Had Me a Woman," a prescient county-rock recording in "I Didn't Have the Sense to Go," and covers of "Be-Bop-A-Lula" and "That's Alright Mama" (the former with a hot pedal steel solo), which prove
Glenn had the stuff to stand up to the competition. While
Glenn has recorded some latter-day albums after he was rediscovered by British rockabilly fans,
Glen Rocks has his prime original recordings in one handy package along with a fact-filled and richly illustrated 68-page booklet (featuring a biographical essay by guitarist
Deke Dickerson), and if you want to hear the man at his best, this is definitely the place to go. ~ Mark Deming