Tag Archives: Collectables

The Coasters: Coast Along with the Coasters

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Coasters_CoastAlongWithThe Coasters return to what they do best in 1962

Much like their self-titled 1958 debut, this 1962 long-player collects a number of A- and B-sides and adds a few album-only tracks. After their diversion into standards with 1960’s One by One, the group returned to Leiber & Stoller’s songbook and a driving R&B production style for the sides collected here. The hits are “What About Us” and “Little Egypt,” but there’s a lot more to recommend this album. The nursery rhyme “(Ain’t That) Just Like Me” opens the album with a luscious stereo production that spreads out the quartet’s vocals, and their early version of “Girls Girls Girls” is more laid-back than Elvis’ take, with a limbo bass line and vocal punctuations that mimic a train whistle. The album-only tracks include the mismatched lovers of Pomus & Shuman’s “The Snake and the Bookworm” and a swinging cover of Willie Dixon’s “My Babe.” Most imaginative of all is the retribution of Leiber & Stoller’s beer-drinking, poker-playing monkey in “Run Red Run.” Everything here is in true stereo except for “Wait a Minute,” which is mono. The jokiness of the earlier Coasters records is lessened, but the interplay of their vocals will always make you smile. To get a broader look at their hits, try The Very Best of the Coasters; to go deep check out Rhino Handmade’s There’s a Riot Goin’ On: The Coasters on Atco. [©2013 Hyperbolium]

The Coasters: The Coasters

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Coasters_CoastersThe Coasters’ 1958 debut LP

The Coasters first full-length LP is more an anthology than a purpose-built album, collecting half its fourteen songs from the pre-Coasters lineup of the Robins, and adding seven more by the first lineup to record under the Coasters name. Though the group changed more than half its members between the Robins and Coasters, the songs and production of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller provide a through line that gives the album an impressive consistency. The song list includes the group’s first four hit singles, “Down in Mexico,” “One Kiss Led to Another,” “Young Blood,” and “Searchin’,” alongside favorites “Smokey Joe’s Café” and “Framed,” and terrific, lesser-known sides “Wrap it Up” and the energetic “I Must Be Dreamin’.” The Coasters deftly combined deep R&B roots with a comedic approach that made their songs fun without turning them into novelties. You’ll smile every time you hear the Coasters, but you’ll never think of them as anything less than a consummate vocal group. To get a broader look at their hits, try The Very Best of the Coasters; to go deep check out Rhino Handmade’s There’s a Riot Goin’ On: The Coasters on Atco. [©2013 Hyperbolium]