Released in the U.K. in 1970,
Arkansas Rockpile gathers together a bunch of sessions
Ronnie Hawkins cut for Roulette between 1959 and 1963. Unlike some of these vinyl Roulette samplers -- for instance, 1967's "Mojo Man," which was paired with
Arkansas Rockpile on a 2008 CD by Collectors' Choice -- there's actually some rhyme and reason behind the assembly of
Arkansas Rockpile, as it concentrates on some of the
Hawkss hardest rockers, including "Mary Lou" and "Thirty Days," the
Chuck Berry song that he took into the Top 50 re-recorded as "Forty Days." To these two hits add no less than three
Bo Diddley songs -- "Say Boss Man," "Bo Diddley," and "Who Do You Love?," the latter in a version so ferocious it turned into a signature (he later revived this arrangement almost exactly on
the Band's
The Last Waltz, but the
Hawks sound meaner here) -- the frenzied, nutty "Horace," a slow blues shuffle "Come Love," the easy-grooving "Arkansas," and "Odessa," a rip-roaring take on
Billy Lee Riley's "My Gal is Red Hot," and "Mojo Man" (repeated from the "Mojo Man" LP) and
Arkansas Rockpile adds up to the purest blast of rock & roll from the
Hawk to be released as an LP.