Sittin Tight: Early Singles & Rarities (Uk)

The 'Tuff Sax' of John 'Ace' Cannon made him a mainstay of the Memphis music scene for five decades, and far and away the most prolific artist on the Bluff City's Hi label for at least four of those decades. His ability to play anything from raucous rhythm and blues to soothing easy listening guaranteed him a sizeable global audience for his entire career, and particularly among mature West Indian and African record buyers. The amount of albums Ace shifted down the years is vastly disproportionate to the number of hit singles he had both on his own and, for a while, as a member of his label mates Bill Black's Combo. But for the first time, all those early solo singles are gathered in one place, along with a representative selection of the tracks he fronted for Black's Combo, in this new Jasmine compilation - which also starts at the very beginning of his recording career, with some originally unissued material that he cut for Memphis' pioneering Sun imprint in the mid-1950s. These are the recordings on which a 50 year career was built - including two versions of his career song 'Tuff' - and span the whole range of his repertoire. If you like your sax tuff, Ace has the stuff.