Please Don't Touch! The 1959-1962 Recordings

When the first wave of rock & roll hit Great Britain in the mid-'50s, kids went wild for it just as they did in the United States, but it was a while before the U.K. began producing top-shelf rock acts that could hold their own against the American originators. Early British rock was dominated by gimmicky acts like Billy Fury, Vince Eager, and Duffy Power, but while Johnny Kidd & the Pirates inarguably had a gimmick -- Kidd wore an eye patch on-stage and he and his band all wore pirate getups -- they also sounded tougher and grittier than their peers, and with 1960's "Shakin' All Over," they wrote and recorded one of the first undeniably great U.K. rock tunes. Kidd had a good voice, but what was more important was his willingness to push the attitude factor a bit on numbers like "Shakin' All Over," "Please Don't Touch," "Growl," and "Feelin'," where he sounded less like a teen-oriented crooner and more like a genuine rock & roll shouter. Kidd didn't get much of a chance to cash in on the British Invasion, which could have given him a career in the States before he died in an auto accident in 1966, but he remained a potent influence in England, and Please Don't Touch! The 1959-1962 Recordings collects 25 of his most memorable sides from his peak period. Not every tune here is a rocker -- "Steady Date" and "If You Were the Only Girl in the World" are treacly teen mush, and while Kidd tries hard with "Yes Sir, That's My Baby," the song sounds silly the harder they try to rock it up. But Kidd was, along with Billy Fury, one of the U.K.'s first authoritative rock & roll vocalists, and his band was tight and fiery, delivering the goods with style and swagger on most of these tracks. (A latter-day version of the Pirates cut some ferocious, rockin' R&B albums in the '70s.) At a time when most U.K. rock was watered-down stuff, Johnny Kidd was delivering the real thing (or something very close to it), and Please Don't Touch! shows he and his Pirates were a rockin' outfit by anyone's standards. ~ Mark Deming