Johnny Rivers – Last Boogie in Paris

Johnny Rivers had his first hit in 1964 with a live version of Chuck Berry’s “Memphis” and the subsequent album Live At The Whisky A Go-Go. Over the next few years, Rivers and a streamlined rhythm section chugged smoothly through a series of still instantly identifiable hits — “Mountain Of Love” and “Midnight Special” among them — that remain exemplars of what rock music sounded like when it still had “‘n’ roll” hanging off its ass.

The just-reissued Last Boogie In Paris was cut live in Europe nearly a decade later. The hits had all but stopped by then and his groovy go-go quartet had been replaced by a nine-piece outfit, including keyboards and a small horn section. The L.A. Boogie Band, as it was called, was a rock ‘n’ roll beast — think Elvis in Vegas with a jones for the blues — and no wonder: Boogie Band members included drummer Jim “Layla” Gordon and guitarist Dean “Livin’ For The City” Parks, as well as Herb Pedersen providing sprightly banjo to a Lennon-McCartney tune.

Of course, Rivers and his Boogie Band nail a few of his biggest hits (“Seventh Son”, “Baby I Need Your Lovin'”), and they similarly tear up a savvy selection of old-and-not-so-old-school covers — opening, for instance, with an especially buoyant “Sea Cruise”. Notably, however, Rivers forgoes the two songs most associated with him, “Secret Agent Man” and “Poor Side Of Town”. Instead, the focus is on that great band, especially on scintillating extended versions of “Walkin’ Blues” and “Willie And The Hand Jive” that I wish had been even more extended than they are.