Ray Sharpe – Linda Lu – Bear Family Records BCD 15888 

This generous 1995 Bear Family Records 27-track release includes Sharpe’s seminal cut “Linda Lu”, along with 26 additional hard-to-find and/or unknown or unissued selections for various smaller labels including Trey, Hamilton, Park Central, Gregmark, and Jamie.  The consensus is that the bulk of the tunes here were recorded in Phoenix, Arizona, and without a doubt, what Sharpe laid-down in a short period between 1958-1962 are, while certainly steeped in blues and R&B, burgeoning rock-n-roll. 

This reviewer absolutely swings and sways when “Monkey’s Uncle”, “Kewpie Doll”, “Silly Dilly Millie”, “The Bus Song”, “There’ll Come A Day”, and “Dallas (For You My Love)”, along with the abovementioned “Linda Lu” come blasting out of the stereo, and those are only seven of the prime selections found here!

Sharpe does not solely encase himself in a rolling vein here, as he likewise dips his musical toes into funk, blues, and soul, as well.  Sharpe was a major talent, and surely should have been better known than the one-off awareness he achieved for his 1959 charting hit “Linda Lu”.  He was no one-hit-wonder talent-wise, and club audiences savored his ability to thrill them with his broad skill set.

Call the Sharpe efforts here underground masterpieces to those who were, at the time, in-the know, call them yet another concealed cache of exemplary music deserving of a much wider awareness, or call them strokes of genius way too long past due for a survey such as this Bear Family Records compilation.  Whatever you many or may not know about the amazing work of Ray Sharpe, this collection will leave you speechless.  Sharpe was a majorly talented artist, and this musical assemblage demonstrates such!

As usual with any Bear Family Records offering, the sound quality is tremendous and does right by Sharpe.

Highly-recommended, indeed!