Wayne Cochran The Bigger the Pompadour... His Complete Recordings From 1959-1966 (2-CD)

Long before he was anointed as 'The White Knight of Soul,' Wayne Cochran made a stack of intriguing but rare early '60s 45s for various small Georgia concerns and later considerably larger labels spanning the gamut from hauling rockers to dramatic teen tragedy themes. They've occasionally been anthologized over the years, but never as comprehensively as on Bear Family's 'The Bigger The Pompadour - His Complete Recordings 1959-66,' a 32-track extravaganza tracing Cochran's recording career from its humble beginnings with The Coo to just before he fully exploded on the national scene with his explosive brand of horn-leavened blue-eyed soul. Naturally, Wayne's immortal pre-J. Frank Wilson and The Cavaliers rendition of Last Kiss is here in several incarnations (he wrote it) along with its little-known sequel Last Kiss II. So is the equally foreboding Edge Of The Sea. But Cochran's output also included plenty of swaggering rock and roll; all of those extreme rarities are on board too, even three extremely obscure instrumentals by The Rocking Capris.