Consumer Guide Album

Carl Perkins and NRBQ: Carl Perkins and NRBQ [Columbia, 1970]
This is uniformly pleasant, but Carl can't wear those shoes no more--he's an aging country singer who sounds it. And since he wrote about half of these tunes as well as singing half of them, we might mention that for the most part he's a competent and utterly unexciting composer. As for NRBQ, their jumpy version of that blues-bopping beat merges all too well with the novelty-music aspect of rockabilly--at times this sounds an itty bit cute. Cute and I like them: Terry Adams's hippie pastorale, "On the Farm," and a Perkins guitar showpiece called "Just Coastin'." B