Gene Vincent's Last Recordings

Gene Vincent review -- Rock & Roll Disc December 1987

by Tom Graves


Gene Vincent
Born To Be A Rolling Stone (Topline Records Top CD 506, British import)


To see just how far a former great rock and roller can sink, check out the 12 pieces of aural excrement that comprise Gene Vincent's Born To Be A Rolling Stone. The songs are some of the worst countrybilly wheeze fathomable, and the musicians must have been bolted together at that Nashville plant where they crank out these soundalike robots. Vincent's voice, however, is surprisingly durable here considering the abuse it had been put through by this time. But the disc is ultimately a sad reminder of the youthful, vibrant Gene Vincent who once exuded sheet waves of rockabilly burn and street cool on his Capitol recordings. One of the few irritating realities of the CD medium is being hoodwinked into buying inferior recordings by great artists while their classic sides languish in storage vaults -- as is the case currently with the great Gene Vincent.

Tom Graves