*** HOT RODS & CUSTOM CLASSICS

(Rhino)

Packaged to look like one of those plastic hot-rod models, Hot Rods & Custom Classics is Rhino's four-CD ode to cruisin' culture, replete with a 64-page booklet featuring Tom Wolfe's "Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamlined Baby" essay. The point of the collection seems to be that automobiles, now mere housing for stereos that boom out tunes, were once second only to "chicks" in inspiring rubber-laying three-chord rockers. Caddys, Chevys, GTOs, T-Birds, and Mustangs get their due from the ducktail novelty twang of the era's Gene Vincents, Johnny Fortunes, and Beach Boys. But Custom Classics is also heavy on meatier stuff from Chuck Berry, Bill Monroe, Hank Williams, and Howlin' Wolf, uncovering chestnuts like Johnny Cash's "One Piece at a Time" and Jackie Brenston's seminal "Rocket 88" along the way. It doesn't feel quite right to have the B-52's, Phranc, and Golden Earring brushing shoulders with Bo Diddley, Canned Heat, Albert King and a "rev off" between two engines. But it's Custom Classics' lack of stylistic bias that rams home its examination of the car's ever-pervasive influence on American rock.

-- Tristram Lozaw