2 Tracks: If You Can't Rock Me / Rockin' / Sleazy Records / P & C Sleazy Records 2013 / DELUXE EDITION - GATEFOLD SLEEVE! The Strikes started out around January 1955 as a country vocal trio, consisting of Willie Jacobs on lead, Kenneth Ewing Scott singing tenor and playing rhythm guitar and Paul Kunz singing bass. They were all students at North Texas State College in Denton like were around the same time Roy Orbison, Dick Penner, Wade Moore or Pat Boone. By 1956, they became a sextet with rock-a-billy guitarist Albert Brandon Cornelius, bassist Don “Bevo” Alexander ( aka Don Terry for “Knees Shakin”/”She Giggles” – Lin 5018) and Walter Paschal Parson on drums. They became the Strikes after a college buddy had laughed and used a baseball expression:” You guys are probably going to strikes out”. The band featured an effective and distinctive vocal trio hooked up with Joe Leonard, owner of KGAF radio and Lin records in Gainesville – Texas - on September 9, 1956 they all backed Andy Starr at the Cliff Herrings’ studio in Fort Worth for “Round and Round”, “One More Time” (both written by Don Alexander), “Give Me A Woman” and “No Room For Your Kind” (both written by Willie Jacobs) that produced two fabulous singles when leased the following month by Joe Leonard to MGM. Sleazy was proud to bring you “Round and Round” on its SR 45 release so you know what I mean when I say fabulous! If we believe Joe Leonard’s book (Could we?) the Strikes’ first session took place in November 18, 1956 at Cliff Herring and that day were recorded “If You Can’t Rock Me” (two takes – one featuring only Willie Jacobs on vocal), “Baby I’m Sorry” and probably “Come Back To Me” (sang by Don Alexander), “ABE’s Boogie” (an instro) and “Fat Man”, these last three being unissued. “If You Can’t Rock Me” and “Baby I’m sorry”, two great songs with the fabulous work of A.B. Cornelius on guitar, a Carl Perkins’ devote, were issued on Lin 5006. The Three Pelves, was not used until they recorded that session and was the brain child of Joe Leonard being not known to the members of the Strikes until they saw it on the 45. Joe Leonard’s pact with MGM having failed, he leased the two sides to “Imperial” In March 1957 as part of a national distribution deal that included transferring the publishing right in Lew Chudd’s hands via “Marquis Music”. The Strikes record was issued as Imperial X 5433 without any reference to The Three Pelves and was reviewed the same month in The Billboard as “A hard-hitting rockabilly item. Great for dancers in the local juke-joint”. That’s what it is and the single got quickly action in Cameron, Fort Worth and Boston. If you don’t like it, if you don’t buy it, you’re flat dead … nothing more than a hound dog and no friend of mine! A second session was set in February 17, 1957 and that day were cut “Rockin’” and “I Don’t Want To Cry Over You” issued on Imperial X 5446 in June 1957. “Rockin’ On The Hardwood Floor” is a fabulous slice of Texas rockin’ music selected for that release but it was a hard challenge for us ‘cause “I Don’t Want To Cry Over” is as good and boppin’. Both Imperial records were released as far as Canada and a nation-wide tour was announced in the local paper. But, in September 12th 1957, Willie Jacobs was drafted into the Army, Paul Kunz had graduated and the band split up leaving “My Poor Heart”, a great rhythm ditty with hot guitar, and “I Do”, a beautiful ballad with Paul Kunz handling the bass vocal, from the last session unissued. Unlike what wrote my friend Ronny Weiser on the Rollin’ Rock EP 45-036 when he issued an alternate for “If You Can’t Rock Me”, the Strikes never backed David Ray. The Strikes were nominated on The Rockabilly Hall of Fame under # 266 in August 2005. When I first wrote to Paul Kunz in 2004, he answered me with a Texas solid sense of humour: “It was a pleasant surprise to hear from a Strikes fan. I had thought that they were all dead by now and the only people that listened were my family”. Show him he was pretty wrong and buy that hot stuff on what is a legal re-issue. Here, at Sleazy, we don’t believe in ripping off the artists or the public … No fake, no cheat! If Breathless Dan O’Coffey had bring you the rarest of the original US pressings in the 60’s, we will bring you the best of the reissues in the future!
