Los Angeles singer, songwriter, and producer
Kent Harris
was involved with plenty of R&B, rock & roll, and soul records on a variety of (mostly small) labels in the 1950s and 1960s. He also had connections to various show business celebrities, DJing for a while on XERB, which also had
Wolfman Jack
; in addition, one of his sisters went into
the Platters
, another marrying
Redd Foxx
. This 25-track collection of recordings with which he was affiliated in some fashion stretches from the mid-'50s to the late '60s, including a few done by himself. None of the cuts (ten of which were previously unreleased) were hits, and none of the artists well known, unless you count
Adolph Jacobs
, who played guitar on some early
Coasters
hits. In its way, this is a snapshot of the rawer underside of the Los Angeles R&B side as it went through various changes in an era when rock and soul underwent massive upheavals, traveling from jump blues and comic rock & roll novelties through girl groups and funky soul, though it doesn't contain much of extraordinary merit. These are fair recordings in a variety of styles, often with a bluesier bent than much Southern Californian R&B and soul of the time, though not ones that establish a particularly identifiable sound for
Harris
-related material. The most notable exception is
Harold Jackson & the Jackson Brothers
' "The Freedom Riders," a rousing 1961 single exhorting listeners to get on the civil rights train to a jazzy cha-cha-cum-R&B beat. Sometimes the inspirations for some of these tunes are obvious, like
Dimples Jackson
's "Love Came Tumbling Down" ("Fever") and
Johnny Gosey
's "Double Locks" (
' own "Cops and Robbers," not included here). Not a bad compilation, but one whose interest is largely limited to specialists in the corners of early Los Angeles R&B. ~ Richie Unterberger