The Mojo Collection: The Ultimate Music Companion

The Best of Johnny Kidd & The Pirates

Johnny Kidd - The Best of Johnny Kidd & the Pirates - album cover


Another interesting (and very British) choice - aside from "Shakin' All Over" (famously covered by The Who on Live at Leeds) this is new stuff to me.
 
In recent years, I haven’t given much attention to compilations. But Mojo is doing an excellent job, both in identifying the best package and figuring out which artists are better served this way.
Agreed, Sam! Some artists, especially older artists (e.g. Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Roy) , would be overlooked completely on most lists that just include original albums/releases. Upcoming entries (as you'll see) will include girl group, surf, Phil Spector comps that are essential parts to any collection. Some genres - folk, reggae, punk - really can't be told purely on an original album best of list, the singles of those genres need to be included/spun.
 
Ray Charles and Betty Carter (1961)

Ray Charles and Betty Carter - Ray Charles and Betty Carter - album cover


Interesting Inclusion: especially in lieu of Genius of, Genius + Soul = Jazz, or Modern Sounds in Country & Western Music

Missing this contemplative guy who would be appropriate here:
Thinking Face Emoji (U+1F914)
 
Wall of Sound: The Very Best of Phil Spector 1961-1966

Phil Spector - Wall of Sound: The Very Best of Phil Spector 61-66 - album cover

The Back to Mono box set was actually on the list (and includes his Christmas album), but I own this, an excellent single disc collection (will play the Christmas album later this year :))
 
Sam Cooke - Night Beat (1963)

Sam Cooke - Night Beat - album cover


Cooke's voice is like butter, and this is a great albums. Still with compilations included, a better overview of the wonder that is Sam Cooke would be a greatest hits like A Man and His Music
 
Koerner, Ray & Glover - Blues, Rags and Hollers (1963)

Koerner, Ray & Glover - Blues, Rags and Hollers - album cover


I'm surprised (and kind of embarrassed) that I've never heard of this album before (or actually of the blues-folk trio Koerner, Ray & Glover) :oops:
Like Dylan, they hailed from Minnesota and played in the Dinkytown district there influencing Dylan before he headed east to the Village.
 
Shirley Collins & Davy Graham - Folk Roots, New Routes (1964)

Shirley Collins & Davy Graham - Folk Roots, New Routes - album cover


British entry during the folk revival that would have significant influence on groups like Fairport Convention and Pentangle
I enjoyed guitarist Graham's take on Thelonious' "Blue Monk"


Collins may not have looked like much of a rebel on the cover of that 1964 album, but she was. Five years earlier, she had crossed the Atlantic alone to visit prisons and remote Appalachian communities, meeting there with folklorist Alan Lomax to collect folk songs. (Decades later, many of these same songs formed the Grammy-winning soundtrack of the Coen Brothers' film O Brother, Where Art Thou?) Collins had already skipped home as a teenager to pursue a folk career, too, taking her lipstick to graffiti posters in folk clubs she found wanting, even getting threatened in one with a knife.
 
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