Marty Wilde The Wild Cat of Rock & Roll The Jasmine EP Collection (Jasmine Records) (2024)
Part of the ever-growing artists spotlighted in Jasmine’s EP Collection series, presumably influenced by an almost identical set of releases from the Sea For Miles label, albeit from the best part of 20 years ago. This time they turn to for my money, after Billy Fury, the greatest voice of pre-Beatles British RnR & Pop music, Marty Wilde. Marty is still, at 85, growing strong. Ive seen him live three times & always enjoyed it. Most of Marty’s hits were cover versions of American hit records, but he usually sang them very well & put his own stamp on them. He had a great voice, that could equally handle RnR, ballads, Pop, & even standards. For younger readers, Eps were a format popular, especially in the UK, from the mid-50s to mid-60s. an EP was the same size of a single, but tended to have four, though sometimes up to six, tracks on it, providing better value. They mostly contained couplings of two lots of A & B sides, or selections from the singer or group’s latest Long Player. However, sometimes they contained unique material found nowhere else. Examples of this included several of Presley’s film soundtracks, Jailhouse Rock, Love Me Tender, Viva Las Vegas, Follow That Dream etc. they almost always had picture covers, often containing lovely full-colour photographs of the artist. Anyway, now ive bored you by telling you something you probably already knew, let’s get to the music.
This album is drawn from EPs released collectively in Australia, Holland, Sweden, France & of course the UK between 1958-1962. For this entire time, in the UK at least, Marty was signed to the Phillips label. Interestingly, until 1958, Phillips only released their new single releases in the UK on shellac 78s. this means the only way to get many hit records on 45 in the UK is by purchase of an EP (Extended Play.) The album starts off with both sides of Marty’s first single release, a cover of the Jimmie Rogers American hit Honeycomb. Not to be confused with blues & Country singers of the same name, this Jimmie Rogers was straight-ahead Pop. His version of Honeycomb did make no.30 in the UK, but the BBC banned it. The Head of Religious Boradcasting no doubt took offence. Marty swooped in with a ‘cleaned-up’ cover that antie Beeb was sure to play. Unfortunately it wasn’t a hit. I didn’t like Marty’s version at first, finding the track unsuitable & a bit forced, but it has grown on me. He makes a decent effort at it & as a fair first release. However, what I really love is the B-side, written by Lionel Bart, Wild Cat. Not to be confused with the Gene Vincent hit of the same name, this track is a great rocker. It should be on any compilation of great British RnR. The vocal is tough & exactly what you’d want in a track called Wild Cat. Next we get his second single, which also failed to chart. Marty gives us a convincing reading of Jimmy Edwards Mercury release Love Bug Crawl. This is backed with a pleasant ballad where Marty shows off his vocal talents, Afraid Of Love. Next we get his third release, albeit just the A-Side. Given Honeycomb flopped, why Phillips got Marty to cover another Jimmie Rogers track is anyone’s guess. Saying that, his reading of Oh Oh I’m Falling In Love Again is pretty darn good. It’s more confident than his version of Honeycomb. Sadly, for Marty anyway, Jimmie’s version cracked our top 20 so Marty got nowhere. However this would all change with his next single release. His cover of Jody Renylds’ Endless Sleep cracked the top ten & became Marty’s first hit. It’s a great version, equal to Jody’s original. It doesn’t matter that it’s a cover when it’s this good, it’s a fab slice of British RnR. The same can’t be said for it’s flip-side Her Hair Was Yelow, which is a bland pop disc. Moving on, there’d be a couple more flops before his next hit. Sadly two of my personal faves, Misery’s Child & Fire of Love (another Jody cover) are not present on this disc. Maybe they didn’t come out on Eps? His next hit however is present, & it’s another top ten to boot. His cover of Richie Valens Donna isn’t a patch on the Richie original. However, it’s still a good version, Marty gives a nice vocal & puts his own stamp on the track. Now we get to his biggest UK hit, when he reached no.2 with his cover of Dion’s Teenager In Love. This was despite competing versions from Brittain’s Craig Douglas, & of course Dion & The Belmonts. Marty’s version is taken at a faster-pace than the Dion version. Again it can’t compete with the great Doo-Wop vocals of the Dion version, but it's still a good version which I enjoy. The b-side is even better. Danny was originally going ot be the title song to Elvis’ fourth film King Creole, when it was still gonna be called A Stone For Danny Fisher, after the book of the same name. the song was dropped once the title was changed, & Presley’s version remained unreleased for many years. It’s a great moody ballad, Marty giving us his greatest moody vocals, with the correct amount of growling & grit. Interestingly Conway Twitty would have an American hit was the same track, albeit retitled as Lonely Blue Boy. Next we get a bunch of tracks pulled from the Wild About Marty LP, which we’ll return to later. His next hit was a no.3 smash cover of Phil Phillips Seas Of Love. Ok here we lose the Swamp-Pop magic, but Marty gives us one of his best vocals. It doesn’t replace Phil Phillips, but it can stand proudly alongside it. The flip Teenage Tears is a pleasant Pop ballad, with a touch of Ricky Nelson, let down only slightly by annoying backing-vocals. Next we get a self-penned number Bad Boy. Again this should be on any British RnR comp worth its money. It's a cool laid-back pop rocker with great guitar work. Marty’s vocal is sublime, with a similar feel to early hits by Cliff, think Living Doll & Travellin’ Light. This record proved popular in the states when issued by Epic, reaching the top 3 in some markets. On the Billboard charts it reached a respectable no.45, a rarity for a British artists in the pre-Beatles era. Not bad for a boy from London ay. It was originally intended to be the flip, with It’s Been Nice being the a-side. According to Marty, It’s Been Nice, had a fault on it so was religated to the B. I can’t hear any fault, it’s a decent rocker, but not a patch on Bad Boy. It’s an enjoyable flip, which the Everly Brotehrs covered & had a minor UK hit in 1963, albeit with an inferior version to Marty. At this point Marty’s career started to struggle. It hadn’t helped when he got married, essentially reuining his teen-idol status & breaking many a teenage-girl’s heart in the process, the selfish bastard. Johnny Rocco was a decent rocker, telling the story of a fight over a woman, but it was only a minor UK hit in 1960. His next two releases, not on hear, The Fight & Angry did even worse. When Bad Boy was doing well in the States, Marty went over to promote it & cut some tracks while there. Little Girl was one of them. It’s a decent enough Pop disc, with annoying backing vocals, where Marty gives us a nice vocal. This disc got Marty back-on-track a little & made the UK top 20. His next single, a fast-paced cover of Bobby Vee’s Rubber Ball, did even better, but it would become his final top 10 entry. Aside from backing female vocals which ware thin very quickly, I really like this version & enjoy Marty’s vocal. The writer of the sleevenotes prefers the flip, a cover of Billy Sheryl’s Like Makin Love, & I would tend to agree. It’s a great fun Pop number, perhaps it should have been used as a follow-up to Rubber Ball. A 1961 single Hide & Seek, which is a bland annoyingslab ot teen-pop, only just cracked the top 50. His next release, Tomorrow’s Clown, was one of my favourites by him. It’s a great moody pop-rocker, yet it only made the bottom rungs of the top 40. I love it & it’s for me the best track on the whole album. His next single Come Running, despite being a really impressive Pop track, didn’t chart at all. His next release was back to business, a great rockin’ cover of Frankie Laine’s Jezebel. This became a fave in Rockin clubs. It’s mean, it’s moody, & Marty gives us a top-class vocal. Record buyers agreed & it reached a respectibel nno.20. it’s flip Don’t Run Away is a Cliff-styled Pop number & is nice. The CD ends with his final top 40 entry Every Since You Said Goodbye. It’s apleasant Pop track. The flip is a cover of Johnny Tillitson’s Send Me The Pillow You Dream On. It’s ppleasant enough but adds nothing to the original.
Now back to the nine tracks from the Wild About Marty album that also featured on Eps. One of the early British RnR LP releases. It doesn’t command the same love & respect as the 10inch Sound Of Fury LP from a year later, but this album from 1959 holds up well & has it’s charm & much to enjoy. The difference between this & the Billy Fury album is this is mainly a covers set, whereas Fury is entirely self-penned. Despite this, they’re often darn good covers, & good music is good music so who really cares ey. Marty’s cover of Down The Line is simply brilliant. He also offers good reading’s of Buddy Holly’s You Got Love, Elvis’ version of So Glad You’re Mine, & a spirited if a bit clumsy, reading of the Killer’s High School Confidential. The clumsiness comes more from the band’s playing, which at times is a tad arkward, rather than Marty’s singing. One has to remember that albums were made very quickly in those days, with little time for working out a perfect arrangement. albums were often seen as an afterthought, at least in the RnR & Pop genres, so quality control wasn’t always a priority. Marty shows off a mellower-side on this LP too. His covers of The Everly’s Love Of My Life, Buddy Holly’s You’ve Got Love, & Bobby DDarrin’s Dream Lover are all very good. There’s also a nice version of Dion’s Don’t Pity Me. The album is not without it’s flaws, I Flipped is a rather medioca Teen Pop number, & his other Boby Darrin cover, Splish Splash, is jut ok, not a patch on the original. But the level of good quality tracks here shows that Marty Wilde was truly one of the leading, & one of our greatest, RnR & Pop stars of that period.
Conclusions; there are other more comprehensive Wilde collections on the market. I like RPM Records Marty A Lifetime In Music anthology from 2019. There was also a good three-CD set called The Full Marty which, at least when I bought it, could be had very cheaply. BGO records also put out the complete Full Marty LP, along with his second album Showcase, on one CD. However, for a newcomer this is as good a place as any to start, as it contains a good cross-section of early material, & pretty much all of his essential big hits. EP collections are also a fun alternative way of looking at an artists for the seasoned fan. I really enjoyed revisiting one of our greatest rockers.
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