1. Gene Vincent - Bird Doggin'                             [03:30]
2. Gene Vincent - Born To Be A Rolling Stone               [02:19]
3. Gene Vincent - Poor Man's Prison                        [02:24]
4. Gene Vincent - I'm A Lonesome Fugitive                  [03:47]
5. Gene Vincent - Love Is A Bird                           [02:24]
6. Gene Vincent - Hi-Lili Hi-Lo                            [02:15]
7. Gene Vincent - I've Got My Eyes On You                  [01:50]
8. Gene Vincent - Ain't That Too Much                      [02:52]
9. Gene Vincent - Hurtin' For You Baby                     [02:28]
10. Gene Vincent - Words And Music                          [02:42]
11. Gene Vincent - Am I That Easy To Forget                 [02:25]
12. Gene Vincent - Born To Be A Rolling Stone               [02:35]
13. Gene Vincent - Poor Man's Prison                        [03:45]
14. Gene Vincent - Love Is A Bird                           [02:36]
15. Gene Vincent - Hi-Lili Hi-Lo                            [02:42]
16. Gene Vincent - Hurtin' For You Baby                     [02:39]
17. Gene Vincent - Ain't That Too Much                      [02:58]
18. Gene Vincent - Lonely Street                            [02:11]

Faced with a career that was going nowhere fast on a treadmill of gigs, booze and oldies, Gene Vincent re-grouped in 1966 and with the help of an all-star team of Southern California studio whizzes, recorded a batch of songs that stand out as some of his best work. Challenge Records assembled some top-notch session cats like Glen Campbell, Al Casey, Jim Seals, Dash Crofts and David Gates, rounded up some good songs, and let Gene loose. The songs aren't rockabilly, though, not even a little. Instead they are solid mid-'60s fare with a folk-rock-meets-garage sound. He is in fine voice throughout, sounding tough and ready on hard rockers like "Bird Doggin'," "Ain't That Too Much" and "Words and Music," sensitive on sweet ballads like "Hi-Lili, Hi-Lo," and heartbroken and blue on desperate songs like "Hurtin' for You Baby" and "Am I That Easy to Forget." He shows off his country side on a rock-solid cover of Merle Haggard's "I'm a Lonesome Fugitive," gets loose and swinging on a boppy "Poor Man's Prison," and on what may be the album's best song, the chiming folk-rocker "Love Is a Bird," which sounds very much like Gene Clark. In fact at times the record sounds like (with some 12-string guitar added) the Byrds, but mostly the results are not too far from what the Everly Brothers were doing around the same time. Sadly, Vincent had even less commercial success than the Brothers, as his Challenge singles sank without a trace and were never collected as an album in the States. Many labels have quasi-legally released the Challenge sessions on CD over the years, too but it took until 1994 for a package to be assembled that showed the songs off in their best light. Sundazed's Ain't That Too Much: The Complete Challenge Sessions has all 11 songs that were recorded plus six alternate takes and an early version of the bluesy "Lonely Street" (the finished version of which was left off the collection for some reason). The liner notes are by Billy Miller of Kicks magazine, the sound is great and the little snippets of studio chatter before and after the songs are fun to hear. Sundazed does a fine job of rescuing some great music by one of the true heroes of rock & roll. ---Tim Sendra, AllMusic Review

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01. Crazy Beat    [0:02:05.50]
02. Important Words    [0:02:40.24]
03. It's Been Nice    [0:01:56.22]
04. Lonesome Boy    [0:02:50.59]
05. Good Lovin    [0:02:03.38]
06. I'm Gonna Catch Me A Rat    [0:02:04.11]
07. Rip It Up    [0:02:04.39]
08. High Blood Pressure    [0:02:46.20]
09. That's The Trouble With Love    [0:02:09.33]
10. Weeping Willow    [0:02:39.32]
11. Teardrops    [0:02:29.23]						play
12. Gone Gone Gone    [0:02:08.26]

Gene Vincent only had one really big hit, "Be-Bop-a-Lula," which epitomized rockabilly at its prime in 1956 with its sharp guitar breaks, spare snare drums, fluttering echo, and Vincent's breathless, sexy vocals. Yet his place as one of the great early rock & roll singers is secure, backed up by a wealth of fine smaller hits and non-hits that rate among the best rockabilly of all time. The leather-clad, limping, greasy-haired singer was also one of rock's original bad boys, lionized by romanticists of past and present generations attracted to his primitive, sometimes savage style and indomitable spirit.

Vincent was bucking the odds by entering professional music in the first place. As a 20-year-old in the Navy, he suffered a severe motorcycle accident that almost resulted in the amputation of his leg, and left him with a permanent limp and considerable chronic pain for the rest of his life. After the accident he began to concentrate on building a musical career, playing with country bands around the Norfolk, VA, area. Demos cut at a local radio station, fronting a band assembled around Gene by his management, landed Gene Vincent & the Blue Caps a contract at Capitol, which hoped they'd found competition for Elvis Presley.

Indeed it had, as by this time Vincent had plunged into all-out rockabilly, capable of both fast-paced exuberance and whispery, almost sensitive ballads. The Blue Caps were one of the greatest rock bands of the '50s, anchored at first by the stunning silvery, faster-than-light guitar leads of Cliff Gallup. The slap-back echo of "Be-Bop-a-Lula," combined with Gene's swooping vocals, led many to mistake the singer for Elvis when the record first hit the airwaves in mid-1956, on its way to the Top Ten. The Elvis comparison wasn't entirely fair; Vincent had a gentler, less melodramatic style, capable of both whipping up a storm or winding down to a hush.

Brilliant follow-ups like "Race With the Devil," "Bluejean Bop," and "B-I-Bickey, Bi, Bo-Bo-Go" failed to click in nearly as big a way, although these too are emblematic of rockabilly at its most exuberant and powerful. By the end of 1956, the Blue Caps were beginning to undergo the first of constant personnel changes that would continue throughout the '50s, the most crucial loss being the departure of Gallup. The 35 or so tracks he cut with the band -- many of which showed up only on albums or b-sides -- were unquestionably Vincent's greatest work, as his subsequent recordings would never again capture their pristine clarity and uninhibited spontaneity.

Vincent had his second and final Top Twenty hit in 1957 with "Lotta Lovin'," which reflected his increasingly tamer approach to production and vocals, the wildness and live atmosphere toned down in favor of poppier material, more subdued guitars, and conventional-sounding backup singers. He recorded often for Capitol throughout the rest of the '50s, and it's unfair to dismiss those sides out of hand; they were respectable, occasionally exciting rockabilly, only a marked disappointment in comparison with his earliest work. His act was captured for posterity in one of the best scenes of one of the first Hollywood films to feature rock & roll stars, The Girl Can't Help It.

Live, Vincent continued to rock the house with reckless intensity and showmanship, and he became particularly popular overseas. A 1960 tour of Britain, though, brought tragedy when his friend Eddie Cochran, who shared the bill on Vincent's U.K. shows, died in a car accident that he was also involved in, though Vincent survived. By the early '60s, his recordings had become much more sporadic and lower in quality, and his chief audience was in Europe, particularly in England (where he lived for a while) and France.

His Capitol contract expired in 1963, and he spent the rest of his life recording for several other labels, none of which got him close to that comeback hit. Vincent never stopped trying to resurrect his career, appearing at a 1969 Toronto rock festival on the same bill as John Lennon, though his medical, drinking, and marital problems were making his life a mess, and diminishing his stage presence as well. He died at the age of 36 from a ruptured stomach ulcer, one of rock's first mythic figures. --- Richie Unterberger, allmusic,com

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