Jimmy Crain : Miles To Go

Jimmy Crain
Ray-O LP-2005
Rite numbers 21361/21362 [1968]
Rite account : 2011

Miles To Go

Track listing :

Last Thing I Do
Miles To Go
Please Be Careful
Call Me
Somewhere, Someone
Pardon My Love

Seminole [instr.]
Maybe Someday
Rockin' [instr.]
Jammin' [instr.]
I Know
C'mon Little Baby

JIMMY CRAIN, born 17 April 1940, Lima, Ohio, a somewhat obscure rock and roller, is best known for his two pounding rockers "Rock-A-Socka-Hop" and "Shig-A-Shag".

Jimmy was a multi-talented youngster. By the age of seven, he was able to play several musical instruments, including guitar, banjo and mandolin. Less than ten years later he was playing regularly at county fairs, dotted about Ohio and neighbouring Indiana. In addition to this, Jimmy was also employed as a session musician at a studio in Dayton, Ohio.

Shortly after his seventeenth birthday, Jimmy signed a recording deal with Floyd Whited, owner of the Springfield, Ohio based Spangle label. Jimmy's first and only release on Spangle was "Shig-A-Shag", which was recorded at Bradley Studios in Nashville. The record caught on in the Mid-West and the East Coast. This led to a string of radio and TV dates, as well as the odd package tour, where he played alongside such rock 'n' roll notables as The Big Bopper, Link Wray and Dion and the Belmonts.

"Rock-A-Socka Hop" was recorded in the autumn of 1957 and sounds a lot like "Shig-A-Shag" and came out in 1962 on another tiny Ohio label, Prism, never lets up from start to finish.

Jimmy went on to record for a succession of small independents, but very little, if anything at all, was released at the time, until Cees Klop issued two White Label LP's in 1974 (Rock in' With Jimmy Crain) and 1977 (Jimmy Crain Rocks On) respectively. When his first son was born in February of 1960, Jimmy decided to quit the road and went into semi-retirement, playing only local shows.

In April 1975, Jimmy suffered a severe spinal injury in an accident, but by early 1979 he produced on his own Lodestar label a hard rock band also named Lodestar, which comprised his two sons and three others members. The resulting album (pressed by Rite Records) is « full of heavy, blistering guitar work, often compared to Hard Rock rarities such as Totty or Morley Grey. Every song is laden with screaming leads and a rough, in your face attitude.”