That'll Flat Git It!, Vol. 20 { Various Artists }

CD with 52-page booklet. Back in 1992, we decided that Rockabilly sounded good on CD, so we had the idea that we should create the all-time definitive Rockabilly series. Above all, Rockabilly was music recorded for 45RPM singles, so we designed a Rockabilly series label-by-label instead of artist-by-artist, and we compiled it for listening pleasure. Just the great stuff, plus a few super rarities. Every CD would be for the most part a 30 song jukebox of the finest Rockabilly ever recorded for all the great labels. We sourced the very best sounding tapes and took them to the best mastering engineers, and then we took the packaging to a new level. We adopted the catchphrase of the first Rockabilly dee-jay, Dewey Phillips, THAT'LL FLAT GIT IT, and we hired Bill Millar, who'd compiled the still-classic label-oriented Rockabilly LPs in the 1970s and 1980s, to write the notes. We looked for previously unpublished photos, and tried to find all the artists who'd never been found before. The result is a truly definitive series that now runs to over TWENTY-FIVE volumes.

This 20th installment of Bear Family's acclaimed series features perhaps a mostly unknown label, Event Records. Most rockabilly came from the South, but Event Records was founded by Al Hawkes in 1956 in Maine, and many of the artists came from the chilly Northeast where the United States borders the Canadian maritimes. The great underground hero on Event was Curtis Johnson, who was actually from the South but was appearing up in Maine with a local country group. This 37 track CD features Curtis Johnson, Ricky Coyne, Scotty McKay, Javalins, Slim Martin, Herbie Lee III, Johnny Houston, Dick Curless, Four Dappers, Dreamers, Western Starlighters, Joe Taylor and others.