Crew Cuts - Rock and Roll Bash

Tracks

Side 1

		Track Name	Length
	1	Sh-Boom	02:45
	2	Earth Angel	02:52
	3	Two Hearts	02:40
	4	A Story Untold	02:23
	5	Oop-Shoop	02:20
	6	Do Me Good Baby	02:26

Side 2

		Track Name	Length
	1	Ko Ko Mo	02:38
	2	Seven Days	02:43
	3	Chop Chop Boom	02:08
	4	This Is My Story	02:53
	5	Gum Drop	02:36
	6	Angels in the Sky	02:22

Photos

Videos

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Information/Write-up

The Crew-Cuts were one of the most commercially successful and culturally emblematic vocal groups to emerge from Canada during the first wave of postwar popular music. Formed in Toronto in the early 1950s, the quartet—Pat Barrett, Rudi Maugeri, Johnnie Perkins, and Jay Perkins—combined collegiate polish, tight harmony singing, and a keen instinct for contemporary pop trends, allowing them to cross national borders at a time when few Canadian acts could do so consistently.

Their rise coincided with a pivotal moment in North American music history, when traditional pop, novelty songs, and early rhythm-and-blues influences were beginning to merge into a new youth-driven marketplace. The Crew-Cuts positioned themselves squarely at that intersection. Clean-cut in appearance yet rhythmically alert, they adapted material from Broadway, Tin Pan Alley, jazz, and early R&B into accessible, radio-ready performances that appealed to both teenage listeners and adult audiences.

Signed to RCA Victor, the group quickly became a fixture on charts in both Canada and the United States. Their recordings were marked by buoyant tempos, precise vocal blend, and an unforced sense of swing—qualities that made songs such as “Sh-Boom,” “I’ve Got a Crush on You,” “Ain’t She Sweet,” and “You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby” enduring staples of mid-1950s pop culture. Unlike many contemporaries, the Crew-Cuts sustained momentum across multiple releases, establishing themselves not as a novelty act but as reliable interpreters of the era’s evolving songbook.

Beyond record sales, the Crew-Cuts were central to the sound of early television and radio variety programming. Their music captured a moment when vocal groups functioned as cultural translators—bridging jazz, pre-rock pop, and emerging youth sensibilities—while maintaining a distinctly professional, pan-North-American appeal. Though their success unfolded largely within the U.S. market, their roots and identity remained firmly Canadian, making them one of the earliest examples of a Canadian vocal group achieving sustained international visibility.

Today, the Crew-Cuts are remembered not only for their chart hits but for their role in establishing a pathway for Canadian artists in the pre-CanCon era. Their recordings document a formative chapter in Canada’s recorded-music history, when ambition, adaptability, and vocal craftsmanship allowed a Toronto quartet to leave a lasting imprint on the sound of 1950s popular music.
-Robert Williston

Musicians
Pat Barrett: vocals
Rudi Maugeri: vocals
Johnnie Perkins: vocals
Jay Perkins: vocals

Production
Recording format: Mercury “Olympic” High Fidelity
33⅓ RPM long-playing microgroove record

Artwork
Cover photography: uncredited

Notes
Custom High Fidelity recording
Recorded using Mercury “Olympic” High Fidelity Recording Techniques
Playable on both high-fidelity and conventional phonographs

Liner notes:
The amazing Crew Cuts now have done everything. Not only that. They have spectacularly succeeded in everything they’ve done.

It was a long, winding road from entertaining their classmates and friends in an obscure Canadian school to wowing one of the world’s most conservative, discriminating — and well-heeled — audiences at the distinguished Empire Room in Chicago’s Palmer House. But when you consider all the stepping points along that road, it becomes indisputable: the Crew Cuts have done everything.

And in this Custom High Fidelity knock-down, drag-out bash presented enthusiastically by Mercury Records, the Crew Cuts rock and they roll in the best they’ve ever done.

A fast look at their fast history is evidence enough of their unparalleled versatility and of the wide range of audiences which they not only please, but downright excite.

When Rudi Maugeri, Pat Barrett and the brothers Perkins — Johnny and Jay — began cutting up together just as a change of pace from choir training at Toronto’s Cathedral Choir School, the thought of making a career of their recreation never entered their minds. When they were asked to dance and fashion shows, they enjoyed the kicks. But the four young Canadians began to look at each other with growing seriousness as the following doors flung open before them in rapid succession:

Toronto radio station CKFH gave them a weekly show — no pay, but the prestige. Man on his program agent heard them who arranged a professional date in Buffalo for a weekend. A competitive night club promptly signed the boys for a month. Then came a new medium — television; Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts and a guest shot on a Cleveland program. Strangely, it was not the Godfrey date that was the turning point, but the seemingly minor one in Cleveland. For there they were heard by Bill Randle, the Lake City’s live-wire disc jockey who put them in touch with Mercury Records in a great big hurry.

Record — another medium, another challenge. Within weeks a nation was humming itself, “Crazy ’Boutcha Baby, Won’t You All to Myself . . .” The Crew Cuts had smashed with their first try. But in no way did they smash the way they did their second time out with the now legendary Sh-Boom. From there on, life for the Crew Cuts was one big battle to keep stage door enthusiasts from ripping the buttons off their coats. Theaters, night clubs, fairs, ballrooms, proms, benefits, hospitals, parades, more records, more hits, to keep the pace, the overworked but happy boys bought themselves an airplane — just about the time their fans quit begging for Earth Angel and began begging, instead, for Angels in the Sky.

Besides those really contrasting song titles, Rock and Roll Bash is an unforgettable collection of Crew Cut favorites which include Sh-Boom, Two Hearts, Story Untold, Oop-Shoop, Do Me Good Baby, Ko Ko Mo, Seven Days, Chop Chop Boom, This Is My Story, and Gum Drop.

This MERCURY LONG PLAYING 33 1/3 r.p.m. recording was made possible through the use of new Mercury “Olympic” High Fidelity Recording Techniques which have made possible for Mercury to produce for the record-buying public a studio quality performance. This recording when played on a high-fidelity phonograph gives a brilliant reproduction. This record can be played on a conventional phonograph.

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