vintage power

Webb Wilder & the Beatnecks

Powerful Stuff!

Landslide records

    There are sixteen cuts here that have not been released by Webb  Wilder & The Beatnecks before, and this is the original group including R.S. Field who was an original member of the group, and a friend of Webb’s from back in Junior High school days, and a lead songwriter for the group.  The group consists of Webb Wilder (lead vocals, guitars),  Jimmy Lester (drums 1-9, 11-16), Donny “The Twangler” Roberts (guitars, vocals 1-3, 5-16), Denny “Cletus” Blakely (bass, vocals 5, 8,9, 11-16), Kelley Looney (bass 1-3), Rich Ruth (bass – 7),  Billy Prince (bass – 10), and R.S. Field (drums – 10; guitar – 4).  These tracks were just overlooked and never released, however they were part of the Bands’ repertoire and were played most nights, and then these recordings stored in a warehouse for all these years.   A track like “Powerfull Stuff,” you may have heard before as The Fabulous Thunderbirds made it one of their bigger hits and then it is in the soundtrack of COCKTAIL, a movie that did well at the box-office.  

   This band, though its home is in the Nashville, Tennessee area, is not a country band.  If we were to give it a name and genre it would be more appropriate to call it Rock an’ Roll or maybe even Grunge Rock.  It doesn’t really matter what you call it because it is played from the heart.  One of the things people don’t say about Webb Wilder is that he is a slacker.  He puts his whole self into everything and does what he does with full energy ahead.  This disc is comprised of 16 songs with half written by band members, and the other half by people not in the band . When he covered someone else’s music he sure picked good songs, good writers and put everything he has plus a bit more into his take on the song.  

   Giving you some of the writers he covered will give you an idea of his music; Little Richard, Tina Turner, Steve Forbert and Johnny Paycheck is a good sampling of the writers, and the type of music coming from his band.  He is one of theseperformers who gives it his all in all his performances, in the best way.  

by bob gottlieb