Rating:
Genre:
Country
Release Date: 06/24/2003
Audium does it again, issuing the first and third
Playboy Records albums by
Mickey Gilley from 1974 and 1976.
Room Full of Roses, notable for its use of
Gilley's patented swinging
honky tonk style, is the album on which his first number one single -- the title cut -- appeared. This pair of discs was among the three that introduced producer
Eddie Kilroy's live-sounding style to audiences across the
country music spectrum, with stellar results.
Gilley scored 16 number ones during his career -- and a band that was as fine as any ever assembled in Nash Vegas. Guitarist
Dave Kirby was fresh off his stint with
Waylon Jennings,
Bobby Dyson brought electricity to the
country bass,
Buddy Spicher was already a living legend on the fiddle, drummer
Larrie London (a veteran of so many sessions) was anchored in with
Gilley until he passed away, and
Bobby Thompson (who defined the actual sound of the acoustic guitar on so many records in the 1970s) also helped out. In terms of material, the title track, the
Carl Smith nugget
"I Overlooked an Orchid," Merle Haggard's
"Swinging Doors," "Don't the Girls All Get Prettier at Closing Time," Bert Kaempfert's
"L-O-V-E," Willie Dixon's
blues stomper
"My Babe," Lloyd Price's
"Lawdy Miss Clawdy," and
Sam Cooke's
"Bring It on Home" offer a new perspective on
R&B in the same way that
Ray Charles offered it on
country a decade and a half earlier. These sides offer
Gilley as an ivory-tinkling
honky tonk player and a piano-pumpin'
R&B wild man, and both have enough high lonesome
soul to be fantastic
country records. As a package, this is damn near unbeatable.
~Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
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