Various Artists — Destination Desert
Destination Desert is a recent thirty-three-track compilation from the swell folks at Germans Bear Family Records. It focuses on 50’s to 60’s rock and roll/ rockabilly/ related genres with eastern exotic desert instrumental themes & lyrics. And as always with a Bear Family compilation- it’s another wonderful curated & realized collection.
The CD is presented in a see-through jewel case. It comes with a twenty-eight-page colour inlay booklet, taking in a write-up about each of the thirty-three tracks, a great selection of artists' pictures, single labels & cover artwork.
The first half of the compilation moves from honking horns, twanging guitar, and deep male vocals of The Champs “Ali Baba”. Onto bounding drums, shaker percussion, gunning instrumentation, and sudden spoken word breaks of The Saxons “Camel Walk- Part 1”. There’s the jiving doo-whoop of The Colts “Sheik of Abraby” with some great/ playful vocal gymnastics, twinklingly keys, and sassy horn tones. Or we have doubled-up surf rock guitar twang & clip-clopping camel rhythm of the instrumental track “Caravan” by The Fendermen.
In its second half, we have the ruckus bounding keys, smashing percussion, lead male vocals & wavering to swooning female back vocals of Bobby Freeman’s “Sinbad”. We have stomping groove, jiving keys, and sudden eastern promise melody breakdowns of “King Tut Rock” by The Socialities. There is the loosely bounding guitar twang & percussive skittle ‘n’ knock of The Renegades “Istanbul “.
Throughout the compilation we do get certain elements repeated a lot- be it tight, bounding, or slicing percussion. Twanging often mysterious Eastern promise guitar tone, and a general western/ American takes on places in the Middle East. But I guess that is to be expected with a compilation of this theme/ era.
All in all, Destination Desert is another well-presented and compiled compilation from Bear Family Records. Yes, it’s not the most sonically daring & quirky collection they put out, but if you're in the mood to head to the desert for some jiving, grooving, and rock ‘n’ rocking this certainly hits the spot.