Pushed into the sub-Hollywood film/music-biz scenario by his actor/impresario father, the barely legal Hall starred in six exploitation flicks from 1959-1964, including now-revered cult classics such as Wild Guitar, Eegah, and The Sadist.
Littered with outrageous film sound bites, this exhaustive 48-track collection (highlighted by trash-rock music archeologist Miriam Linna's 28-page booklet of colorful and fascinating biographical liner notes) features all of Hall's rarely heard, hipster-cool, beach-inspired rockers culled primarily from newly discovered master tapes of his earliest solo recordings. Plus, there's previously unreleased material showcasing his wild, frat-rock-influenced backing group, the Archers, live in 1962 at a Pensacola drive-in, and in 1964 at a Pasadena dance club.
Sun-kissed, surf-heavy instrumentals served as the soundtrack to Hall's Z-grade movies, his amateur acting and musical endeavors reflecting the lowest common denominator of the teenage market, intrinsic to the cheap motion pictures that flooded the drive-in market during the relatively innocent pre-Vietnam War years.
When listening, you definitely won't confuse Hall with Dick Dale or Bobby Fuller, but there is something inherently embraceable and down-to-earth about these rudimentary and rebellious string-bending episodes reflecting an era of grass roots perseverance, the impact of Elvis and the subsequent breakdown in the moral purity of youth.