various / dr. boogie

Heavy Jelly: Essential Instrumentals

A fifth installment of the Dr Boogie albums, Heavy Jelly takes instrumental grooves from the '50s and '60s with a particular leaning towards rockabilly led by sax and organ. ""The first half of the '60s was a perfect test ground for whoever wanted to make a record for a fistful of dollars. The 45 rpm was the king of the place and among the other genres of the day, instrumentals occupied a sizeable chunk of the production. The best-known instrumentals came from California in the late '50s, thanks to the surfers who quickly adopted this new guitar sound from Texas Simultaneously, all over the United States bands started recording lots of diverse and surprising instrumental tracks. They did so for various reasons: lack of a good singer, filler for a B side, a shot at the charts with a different, jukebox-ready mix of an already released song. This Heavy Jelly collection focuses on tunes mainly dominated by a sax and organ, and always backed by a strong rhythm section. These tracks were shamelessly designed to fill up the dance floor. The mark of a good instrumental was often a gimmick, i.e. that little something - a riff, an intro, a repetitive chord - that would act as the piece's signature item. This compilation has been culled from the original 45s."