by Bruce EderCliff Richard was England's most successful 1950s homegrown rock & roll star, although his credentials have long been suspect, a result of his shift to a softer sound in the wake of "Livin' Doll" in late 1959. But on this album, newly reissued on CD in 1998 in both its stereo and mono versions on one disc, there's no credibility problem -- he sings hard and the band plays even harder. Richard and the Shadows (who were still billed under their original name, the Drifters, on the first pressing's jacket, reproduced here) performed live at EMI's Studio No. 1 on February 9 and 10, 1959, in front of several hundred screaming fans, an audio precursor to the mock concert "played" by the Beatles at the end of A Hard Day's Night, except that there's nothing "mock" about this show. White rock & roll's first professionally recorded live album is a red-hot document of England's first world-class rock & roll phenomenon. At his best here, which is 95% of the show, he sings like a hard-rocking Ricky Nelson with a little bit more power and depth than that description implies, while the Shadows show themselves to be the most professional, if not quite the wildest rock band in England at that time. Lead guitarist Hank B. Marvin has a genuine American sound, with perhaps more embellishment and flamboyance than a lot of American players might have bothered with, while Bruce Welch, Jet Harris, and Tony Meehan reveal themselves as a solid rhythm section. They also rip through numbers like "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" not very much slower than a lot of punk bands 20 years later might have done it. Apart from the inclusion of Ritchie Valens' "Donna" (virtually a tribute, Valens having died a week earlier in the much-lamented plane crash), there isn't a slow or soft number here. Interestingly, the stereo mix (which only appeared as fragmentary tracks in countries other than England, most notably Holland) may be preferred -- the stereo isn't primitive binaural, although the bass and drums, with Richard's voice, are centered in one channel, and the guitars on the other; obviously, this was a live recording, so there was bound to be some bleeding of the sound, thus making this concert disc a bit more "modern" sounding than many of EMI's other early stereo efforts. And Jet Harris' bass and Tony Meehan's drums are certainly more prominent on the stereo tracks. (British import) by Dave ThompsonWith close to 50 years of hit-making behind him, it seems difficult today to believe there was ever a time when Cliff Richard was not a permanent fixture on the U.K. charts; when the Oldest Teenager In Pop was himself a fresh-faced teen, still trying to accustom himself to his overnight transition from a skiffle singer named Harry Webb to Britain's Elvis Presley, of course, but more importantly than that, the only viable rock & roll star the country had produced in three years of trying. Even today, the opening strains of his first single, "Move It," ring with an almost apocalyptic self-assurance, the knowledge that without them, there would have been no Beatles, no Rolling Stones, no Sex Pistols, no Pete Doherty and, if that wasn't immediately apparent when he first cut the song, he never showed it. Insistent beyond his years, confident beyond his then-apparent abilities, all spiffed out in his pink suit and sideburns, Richard took the hopes and ambitions of an entire generation -- his own -- and turned them upside down. Of course the girls screamed at him -- you would, too, if he'd shown you what was possible. Richard, this wild young iconoclast's debut album, retains every ounce of that power. Recorded live at Abbey Road studios in front of an invited (and very vocal) audience of fans, its 16 tracks are a representation both of the star's own early repertoire, and the staples of any aspiring rock & roll band of the era -- a piece of Presley, a bit of Buddy Holly, a lump of Jerry Lee Lewis. Backed, of course, by the Shadows (at a time when they were still called the Drifters), it is a magnificent portrait of the team's capabilities -- the band themselves throw three instrumentals into the brew, including a devastating "Be Bop A Lula" and the self-referential "Driftin'," with guitarist Hank Marvin already perfecting the licks and lines which would soon establish him as the role model for every British guitarist of the next five years. Richard, however, remains the star of the show, whether powering through a confidently lazy rearrangement of "That'll Be the Day" and an energetic "Whole Lotta Shakin'," slowing the tempo for a lovely "Donna" and a dreamy "Danny," or simply letting rip on the song which started it all for him, "Move It" -- and it's a tribute to the original performance that, even with lights blazing, the audience wailing, and the adrenalin pounding, neither Richard nor band can up the ante any further. "Move It" was already the ultimate rock & roller. How can anything improve upon perfection?