This collection includes eight (of 11) songs from the 1967 MGM stereo LP, THE SAM THE SHAM REVUE, which is fine with me as that's my favorite Pharoahs album. For the record (coff) these tracks which comprise the second half of POLYGRAM's THE BEST OF SAM THE SHAM & THE PHAROAHS are:

[2:17] Struttin' / [2:25] I'm Not A Lover Anymore / [2:20] Leave My Kitten Alone / [2:00] Wanted Dead Or Alive / [2:03] You Can't Turn Me Off / [3:05] The Cóckfight / [2:35] Let It Eat / [2:30] Groovin'

"I'm Not a Lover Anymore," is a slow ballad with two bookending allegretto mariachi sections; the band shouts HEY! after each bar of staccato trumpet (four HEYS! every time). "Let It Eat" is more Pharoah zaniness. Another fun track is the story of Rojo, a fighting rooster who at the end "done chickened out." This was a cover of an Archie Campbell single in which Sam narrates the story while a 12 string guitarist plays a melancholy tune and someone does chicken imitations behind him. Everything drips with echo.

Oddly enough, "Black Sheep," the only Billboard Top 100 single from the "Revue" LP, is NOT here.

The remaining nine songs include (in order of release) all of Sam's other Top 100 single 'A' sides and one 'B' ("Big City Lights"). The only tune I would've liked to have seen included here is the "Chinny Chin Chin" flip, "(I'm In With) The Out Crowd," not that it's a deal breaker. I bought this CD and am most pleased with it.

Yeah, I know. Billboard says "Wooly Bully" was the #1 song of 1965. And dear Mom sent me a few records (45s) including "Little Red Riding Hood" (thanks Mom) when I was a GI in Germany. But although I just liked everything the group did, I got a special feeling from sitting in a gasthaus swilling good German beer (chilled for us Amerikaners) and often hearing "Big City Lights" on the jukebox. The sound could be better (No master tapes? Recorded off the 45s?) but if I look to another compilation, will I find "Big City Lights"? Won't risk it. As for "Sam", he had a bad jones for narcotics and when he beat the habit became a Memphis street preacher to thank God for saving him and resisted all efforts to be lured back into the business at which he, perhaps only half-jokingly, called himself a "sham".

Yikes!I know AM radio can make a great song sound weak by playing the s#@t out of a hit record but, Little Red Riding Hood is really a great rock'n'roll tune! I'd go as far as to say Litte Red Riding Hood is even kind of cool in a sinister way. Sam the Sham and his turban-wearing rockers rampaged all over the charts with hits like Wooly Bully and Little Red Riding Hood while the British invasion was in full swing. This is fun, crazy and pure american rock'n'roll in the garage rock and frat tradition. Gee, these guys even drove around in a hearse! How cool is that?

Sound of this is moderate to ok,But lil red riding hood sounds like a record vynl,you could hear the crackling if you listen closely.