Collins Kids

Rock Boppin' Baby - 11/1/1958


It's 25 years since I heard this incredible record. Even then, the performance seemed long lost in the mists of time. To see it performed now is like a trick. This was impossible before, never to be realized. Here it is, well worth the wait - but it's extra special because I never knew I was waiting in the first place.

Imagine this song sung by a 30-year old vamp backed by Gene Vincent's aging Blue Caps in the mid-1960s and this would be cheesy, forgettable. But prim teen Lorrie Collins' full-throated vocal in 1958 paired incongruously with goofy kid brother Larry balances the equation, completes the logic, and creates a one-of-a-kind beauty.