Additional information
As the liner notes to this odd, 23-track collection accurately acknowledge, although Nashville is known primarily for country music, there was a whole lot of rock & roll of all kinds being recorded in the city in the '60s. This CD gathers mighty obscure recordings done by labels that were small players even by indie standards, including Kit, Rich, Bullet, Spar, and Sur-Speed. Not a single one of these artists is well-known, with the marginal exception of Baker Knight (better known as a songwriter who penned hits for Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Mickey Gilley, and others). Since the cuts cover quite a range of years (at least one would assume by listening, as no release dates are given) and styles, it's a bit like putting on random discs from a box at a thrift store, or hanging out at a dusty collector shop while the wizened proprietor puts disc after disc you've never heard of on the turntable. Among other things, there's the kind of basic early rock & roll tune with spoken hipster vocals (on the Payments' "Brand New Automobile") that Richard Berry pioneered on the Robins' "Riot in Cell Block #9"; a "Telstar"/Tornados-like instrumental, "Cantina," credited to the very same group; adequate swamp rock and rockabilly from Knight; and weedy teen idol country-pop from Swanee Caldwell and Betty Rogers (who's obviously trying to imitate Patsy Cline on "Walking in a Dream"). Those are just the first half-dozen cuts; there's also garage rock with thin, almost demo-quality production, bouncy country-pop, heavy soul-rock (Aardvark's blustery "Salty Dog"), wimpy Beach Boys-influenced harmony pop/rock (Peter & the Rabits' [sic] "Bless You Little Girl"), and creditable soul-country-rock on "Big Rat Race" by Brandy Calahan (whose "Leather and Lace," in contrast, is mawkish country). By far the most intriguing oddity is Franke Clark's cover of the early Beatles song "Misery"; dating from late 1963, according to the liner notes, this is likely one of the very few American covers of a Lennon-McCartney composition preceding the Beatles' U.S. breakthrough at the beginning of 1964. It's not the earliest such cover, however, as the liner notes speculate, since Del Shannon's version of "From Me to You" was issued in June 1963. It's a pretty forgettable, poppy treatment, too, though Clark, whoever he was, also managed to cover an obscure song Hal David co-wrote ( "Johanna") on the flipside. Nothing on the CD is outstanding, but if you are the kind of collector who enjoys putting on a bunch of cheap (and, to be honest, often cheaply produced) discs no one's heard of for quick kicks, it's listenable and has its pleasures, though those will vary according to your tastes. No points for packaging, however, since it doesn't include original label or release date information in the track listings, and the sound often seems as if the tracks have been transferred from vinyl rather than tape. ~ Richie Unterberger
![Born to Die [The Paradise Edition] [23-Track] by Lana Del Rey (CD, 2012)](https://ir.ebaystatic.com/rs/c/prpweb-src-images-space-98af7172.gif)