There's A Riot Goin' On: The Coasters On Atco CD

The Coasters: Carl Gardner, Billy Guy, Earl "Speedo" Carroll (vocals); Will "Dub" Jones.
Personnel: Will "Dub" Jones, Carl Gardner, Grady Chapman, Billy Guy, Cornell Gunter, Richard Berry (vocals); King Curtis (tenor saxophone).
Audio Remasterers: Dan Hersch; Bill Inglot.
Liner Note Author: James Ritz.
Recording information: Atlantic Studios, New York, NY; Capitol Studios, New York, NY; Chess (Aka Sheldon) Studios, Chicago, IL; Gold Star Studios, Los Angeles, CA; Master Records, Los Angeles, CA; Radio Records, Los Angeles, CA; The Apollo Theater, New York, NY; Unknown Studio, New York, NY.
Introduction by: Carl Gardner.
A positively essential document from the always excellent reissue label Rhino Handmade, THERE'S A RIOT GOIN' ON: THE COASTERS ON ATCO contains every LP, single, and unreleased master that the pioneering R&B vocal group recorded for Atco Records between 1954 and 1966. This includes the original 12 sides that Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller wrote and/or produced with the group's first incarnation, the Robins, which includes early rock-&-roll classics like "Riot In Cell Block Nine" and "Smokey Joe's Café." The first three discs contain the band's full released output (including the somewhat controversial 1960 album ONE BY ONE, a disc of easy-listening standards featuring all five Coasters singing solo parts as opposed to their traditional harmonies), while disc four contains alternate versions, unreleased tracks, and other curios. As always with Rhino Handmade releases, the packaging and notes are impeccable.
Being funny ain't easy but it's damn near impossible to be funny while you're rocking. Acts that can tell a joke while they rock the house always get the shaft, just like how comedians rarely take home the Oscar -- and if they happen to do both well, they're pegged as novelty act, as if the success just happened to be a fluke, and if the Coasters, certainly the first and almost undeniably the best funny rock & roll band ever, proved anything, it's that they were no fluke. They racked up hit after hit in their peak in the late '50s and early '60, hits that defined the era and influenced countless musicians, not just paving way for humor in music, à la Frank Zappa, but illustrating just how much fun it is to play rock & roll. Just looking at Coasters covers speaks to their widespread impact: the Beatles played "Young Blood" and "Three Cool Cats" as they sweated away in the Cavern Club, the Searchers had a hit with "Poison Ivy," the Move mimicked "Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart," but the group's impact reached beyond the British Invasion, too, as the New York Dolls tapped into the furious energy for a blistering "Bad Detective" and, most improbably of all, echoes of the Coasters' "Girls Girls Girls" can be heard in the Beastie Boys' doo wop pastiche "Girls" -- perhaps not a direct connection, as it's hard to imagine the Beasties hauling out an old Coasters LP, but that just speaks to how pervasive their influence was: their aftershocks were felt miles from the epicenter.
That epicenter is documented on Rhino Handmade's There's a Riot Goin' On: The Coasters on Atco, a four-disc box set that contains all the key recordings from the group's peak (including sides by the Robins) and noteworthy tracks from the '60s, plus a disc's worth of rarities. If that title carries a threat of violence seemingly atypical for the guys who sang "Yakety Yak" and "Charlie Brown," it's not wrong either, as the Coasters were a rock & roll band with all the excitement and danger that implies. Sure, they were a vocal harmony group and they could conceivably be labeled as doo wop, but like all true greats, the Coasters don't quite sound like anybody else. They had close relations: their roots reached back to the Clovers, as the group's earliest incarnation as the Robins had a similarly loose interplay; they had cousins in fellow Atlantic R&B act the Drifters in how they livened up those very traditions into rockMojo (Publisher) (p.122) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "[I]ncluding an entire disc of outtakes, rarities and alternatives, some making their first appearance here....You might be surprised by how many witty ditties have escaped your attention..."
Blender (Magazine) (p.87) - 4.5 stars out of 5 -- "[T]he Coasters had their own sound, based on Buddy Guy's wet, ribald baritone, Carl Gardner's equally theatrical tenor and Stroller's 'alley' piano....Impeccable musical entertainment."