Various Nashville Country Rock Vol.1 - Boogie With A Bullet (LP)

(Redita Records) 18 tracks - orange labels

If you like your rock and roll with a country boogie rhythm instead of a backbeat, this album is for you. It boogies through eighteen very different recordings of pre-rock fast country music made by the earliest Nashville record label, Bullet.

 This label was defunct before Elvis was famous, but the spirit of rock and roll is there in these tracks. Bullet Records were formed in 1945 by a record wholesaler, a gospel singer and a radio announcer. None of them knew much about making records.

The radio announcer was Jim Bullet. He ran the label and admits a liking for pop ballads. Because he knew little about music, he recorded hundreds of artists between 1946 and 1953 in studio C at WSM radio and in the old Castle studio, Nashville s first, in the hope that he would find some hits. He did. In the process, he recorded some of the worst country, rhythm and blues and pop music of the era, but also a lot of the best. Among the best in country were these country boogies.