For the first time on CD, Rev-Ola is proud to present the best of Ruth Brown's and LaVern Baker's original mid-1950s recordings which became so successful and influential to the first wave of white pop and rock singers such as Georgia Gibbs and Patti Page.
Including Top 5 R&B smashes "Oh, What A Dream", "Jim Dandy", "Mambo Baby", "Bop Ting-A-Ling", "Wild, Wild Young Men", "Play It Fair", "As Long As I'm Movin'", "Tweedlee Dee" and "It's Love Baby (24 Hours A Day)"… together with minor classics like Ruth's sexy duet with Clyde McPhatter on the old country tune "I Gotta Have You". Wild, wild women indeed!

This is B.B. King's most delightful recording of the '90s. He duets with other blues greats, including Koko Taylor ("Something You Got"), Buddy Guy ("I Pity the Fool"), Etta James ("There's Something on Your Mind"), Ruth Brown ("You're the Boss"), and his dear friend John Lee Hooker ("You Shook Me"). The peaks come in his guitar shootout with Texas Telecaster slinger Albert Collins on "Call It Stormy Monday" and his high-spirited run-in with Katie Webster, who steals their performance of "Since I Met You Baby" with her saucy asides.

Gospel Time, Ruth Brown's first and only gospel album, was recorded in 1963 in Nashville under Shelby Singleton's direction, using country musicians. Ray Stevens of "Ahab the Arab" fame plays organ. Vocal backgrounds are by the Milestone Singers. The most impressive cuts are "Closer Walk With Thee," with soulful guitar licks from Jerry Kennedy and Harold Bradley; "Peace in the Valley," with nice piano triplets by Harold "Pig" Robbins; the beautiful "Walk With Me"; and a fabulous version of "Milky White Way." Brown even tries her hand at preaching in a rocking version of "Morning Train." This is a surprisingly fine album.

Before Ruth Brown became an R&B and rock legend in the '50s, she was a jazz, blues, and gospel stylist. She shows that aspect of her talent on The Songs of My Life, a fine set produced by guitarist Rodney Jones, who also did the arrangements and conducted the backing band. While she displays her timing, interpretive skills, and still-impressive delivery and enunciation throughout, Brown also demonstrates on her rendition of Eric Clapton's "Tears In Heaven" that she retains an interest in and awareness of contemporary songs that fit her style. Ruth Brown proves that it's not the song or the lyric but the singer who makes a tune work.