Various Artists - Complete Sun Singles, Vol. 4 (CD)

All Music Guide

By the time the singles on this four-disc set were released (1959 into 1962), Sun was a much different label than the one that discovered Elvis Presley just a few years earlier. Presley, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Roy Orbison had moved to other labels, and Jerry Lee Lewis was in the middle of trying to reassemble the pieces of his career. Label owner Sam Phillips was in the midst of leaving his fabled ~706 Union Memphis Recording Service for a new studio across town, never again finding the warm intimacy that graced his early recorded efforts. The label also pursued trends that seemed to be selling at that moment, and largely gone was that anarchic spirit that made all the early Sun issues so legendary. But there was still a pronounced regional flavor and inherent sound to a Sun record -- even the ones cut in Nashville during this period -- that emerged from the grooves, no matter how much the original master tape was embalmed in chirping female choruses and syrupy strings. Disc one... sports more than a few classic sides -- including Rayburn Anthony's "Alice Blue Gown" and Tracy Pendarvis' double-sided blast from Sun's past, "A Thousand Guitars"/"Is It Too Late" -- amid the commercial dross. There were other stray nods to Sun's rockin' past with Sonny Wilson's "The Great Pretender" (sporting one of the most confused guitar breaks ever released on the label) and "I'm Gonna Take a Walk," but perhaps even more interesting was the continual mining of the vaults for more Johnny Cash sides. Disc two follows this pattern, with a pair of Jerry Lee Lewis 45s and Cash singles standing alongside Tracy Pendarvis' "Is It Me" as musical high points, but these were severely undercut by the issuance of pop-inspired crossover material. Disc three kicks off with a major surprise, a two-sided Charlie Rich instrumental issued under the name Bobby Sheridan. More Cash material from the vaults is aboard, along with Jerry Lee's back-to-the-charts hit, "What'd I Say." The final disc illustrates what a hit record did to Jerry Lee's stock at the label, as Sun issued one single after another in its wake, scoring another hit with "Money" alongside "Sweet Little Sixteen," the last Sun chart entry. Harold Dorman's "Uncle Jonah's Place," Johnny Cash's "Blue Train" and Don Hosea's "Uh Huh Huh" (actually Willie Cobb's "You Don't Love Me") complete the list of listenable items on this set. Sun was nearing the end of the line as well as changing its musical direction, but there was still great stuff to be found in their release schedule, and this box nicely collects it all up in one place. - Cub Koda, All Music Guide Read more Less