Charlie Feathers-- Get With It!

Essential Recordings '54-'69

(Revenent 209)

We can thank John Fahey's new Revenant label for bringing to the surface the incredible recording career of a criminally forgotten rockabilly legend.

Charlie Feathers was a Sun recording artist back in the '50's, just like Elvis and Johnny and Jerry Lee.He was not only one of the label's top artists, he was always happy to help out other performers in the studio-- one of those whose sound he helped shape was a guy named Elvis Aron Presley.

Although he could be prone to batheticcountry ballads, when Charlie got the high-treble going on his guitar with a rockin' beat from the rhythm section behind him, he could let go and out-Sun Session The Sun Sessions; he was also capable of being loonier than Hasil Adkins and more endearingly pathetic than George Jones. . . and then there are the ghostly tunes, like"Dinky John" and "Johnny Come Listen," wherein Charlie goes slowly and patiently about as he gives you that sinister but lovely graveyard chill.

It's too bad this set is so pricey(Note to Fahey When you sell 'em a double-CDer, you're supposed totake a little off the second one), but since Feather's stuff is so hard to come by, and since Get With It! serves as a comprehensive collection of his recorded career, it might just be worth saving your lunch money for.

--- Brian Greene