Various Having A Rave Up! The British R&B Sounds Of 1964 (3-CD)

(Grape Fruit) 91 tracks

•    Four-hour, 3CD anthology of hard-edged British R&B from the genre's pivotal year.

•    Featuring hit singles, key album tracks, cult classics and some fabulous previously unreleased recordings.

While 1963 belonged to the Merseyside-led beat boom, the following year saw the emergence of homegrown R&B as market leaders The Rolling Stones were joined on the Thames Delta by a host of equally young, raw and enthusiastic British blues-hounds.

The Pretty Things, The Yardbirds and Manfred Mann would all come to national prominence, but many other putative king bees - The Artwoods, Downliners Sect, early Ronnie Wood outfit The Birds - would have to settle for a more localised audience.

Other hard-up heroes trying to pay the rent included The Who (as The High Numbers), Steve Marriott (as leader of The Moments) and Rod 'The Mod' Stewart (with The Hoochie Coochie Men), who all gave early notice of their developing talent to an indifferent world.

As a new wave of acne-scarred teenage degenerates clambered out of the primordial R&B soup, the R&B revolution spread throughout the land: Newcastle likely lads The Animals topped the charts, Birmingham outfit The Spencer Davis Group also made early commercial progress, while The Betterdays were initially banned from Plymouth dancehalls for playing what the local Mecca ballroom manager described as “n***** music”. Although more musically sophisticated Flamingo Club regulars like Georgie Fame and Zoot Money are also represented, the emphasis on ‘Having A Rave-Up! - The British R&B Sounds of 1964’ is on what would subsequently be labelled as garage R&B/punk, with the bigger names joined by such equally artless hopefuls as The Fairies, The Cops 'n' Robbers, The Authentics and The Primitives.

In addition to the various hits and misses, our overview includes tracks from ultra-rare private pressings and numerous previously unissued tracks, including a pulverising six-minute rave-up from The Tridents, featuring Jeff Beck just before he jumped ship to join The Yardbirds.

With 91 great tracks, three great chords and a 48-page booklet that's overflowing with rare photos and memorabilia, the most blueswailing ‘Having A Rave-Up!’ is a thrilling reminder of a time when rock music was young, loud and dangerous.