VA - Voodoo Voodoo: Feisty Fifties Females (2014)

Compiled by R&B and rock & roll authority Dave Penny, the 90-track 3CD set Voodoo Voodoo pays tribute to the distaff side of 1950s R&B music that would inform the rock n roll explosion of the latter half of the decade, from the last shout of the 1940s big band thrushes such as Ella Johnson and Dinah Washington, through the fearsome vocal power of the likes of R&B trailblazers such as Big Maybelle, Ruth Brown, LaVern Baker and Big Mama Thornton, to the early experiments of the mainstream pop singers such as Ella Mae Morse, Kay Starr, Peggy Lee, Lillian Briggs and Jaye P. Morgan. That ages old question, who cut the first rock n roll record?, will never be answered as the style evolved over several years, and in any case everyone has their own idea of what constitutes rock n roll.