Jimmy Lloyd [Logsdon], "I Got A Rocket In My Pocket" c/w "You're Gone, Baby," Roulette R-4062 (rel. 4/1958)

Jimmy Logsdon had a typical country music career, up to a point. The Kentucky-born singer picked up on vernacular music from the radio, and savored country music and Black blues in equal measure. Born in 1921, he was the generation before Elvis, and perhaps better able to connect the diverse influences that pooled as rockabilly (or cat music, as it was first called) in 1954.
    By this time, Logsdon was an established country artist. I have a copy of his debut 45 for Decca Records from 1952. It's solid country in the honky-tonk style: hard-hitting, humorous and performed with impressive force. Like almost every male country performer of his generation, he owed something to Hank Williams' innovative sound. One of his big sellers was 1953's "The Death of Hank Williams," a tribute to the just-fallen icon who had worn himself out with poor health and worse habits.
    Some of Williams' fast-paced sides presage the rockabilly sound. If his band had a drummer, they might qualify. All they lack is the liquid feeling heard in Elvis Presley's five singles for Sun Records--releases as innovative as Williams' earlier hits and as influential in forcing a change to musical stasis.
    At 32 when Elvis hit, Logsdon wasn't too old to get hep to the jive, though he waited until 1957, when he masqueraded as Jimmy Lloyd on a pair of beloved boppers. First up was "Where The Rio de Rosa Flows," a classic swinger with superb rockin' piano and that relaxed-yet-insistent backbeat that was the heart of rockabilly. Carl Perkins covered the song on his 1957 Columbia Records LP--the highlight of a dispiriting set of familiar cover versions.
    Logsdon went harder on his next Jimmy Lloyd release. It's one of the definitive rockabilly singles. "I've Got a Rocket in My Pocket" was co-penned by Logsdon and Vic McAlpin, who co-wrote some songs with Hank Williams and co-authored "Rio de Rosa." Jimmy sings with enthusiasm, aggression and a genuine edge on this erotically-charged rocker that is the definition of the genre contained in one two-minute recording. There may be greater records in this style, but "Rocket in My Pocket" IS rockabilly from stem to stern.
    This was recorded 29 September 1957 at Owen Bradley's Film and Recording Studio, a giant quonset-hut located at 804 16th Ave. South in Nashville. Logsdon played rhythm guitar with a retinue of top-drawer Nashville cats: Hank Garland  and Grady Martin on lead guitars, Bob Moore [bass], Buddy Harman, always fantastic with a gift for tasty backbeats, on drums, Floyd Cramer on red-hot piano. Vic McAlpin produced the four-song session, which went into 30 minutes' overtime.

I picked up a NM copy of this "grail," as the kids call such records, at the recent Tacoma record meet. Another copy in slightly lesser condition fetched about four times in a 2025 eBay auction of what I paid. I'm grateful to have this disc for such a good price--and to share it with you. It's the music that matters most.

Cash Box might have been ashamed to tout the virtues of the suggestive A-side, but they approved overall with a best-of their classic zingy phrases.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/66iekmkdehci0zbqpezlx/2236a.mp3?rlkey=jwetiahwltakeons5od3hzn4s&st=5l2zzevi&dl=0

Logsdon might be forgiven if the flip-side were a ballad; he delivers another scorcher in "You're Gone, Baby." This harder-edged bopper has guitarists Garland and Martin gettin' down in fine style. A stop-start arrangement spotlights Buddy Harman's fantastic drumbeats on a record that fades out way too soon. One senses the studio recording continues well past that fade-out and begs the baffling question: why'd they do things like this? Would 30 more seconds of guitar goodness have harmed anyone? I believe the answer is:

NO!

    Premature end aside, this is a fine, fine piece of rockabilly--up there with Carl Perkins' best for Sun Records, and that's no small compliment.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/mtsprl9ntal4u61bjnwuv/2236b.mp3?rlkey=b1btfjw5iexbsnj9nuggzk726&st=xl0120ze&dl=0

Logsdon put a hold on his recording career after this single. He spent a few years as a popular radio disc jockey, with some live appearances as a straight country artist. King Records signed him in 1963 after he released four EP singles on his custom Jimmie Logsdon Sings imprint. After six King releases, Logsdon made another EP of gospel material for an Ohio imprint, then let seven years pass before his final single--again for a hole-in-wall label--in 1973. He then retired from music. It's possible he was approached by European promoters to come to England and perform his rockabilly classics. If so, he declined. He spent his remaining years away from the stage and microphone, aside from an occasional live appearance. He passed on in 2001 at 79.

Tomorrow: Lou Christie and girl-group The Tammys return with an ahead-of-its-time 1964 single. Two wild, unusual and compelling songs with arrangements by Charlie Calello. Twilight zone material, kids!