*** They Walk Among Us

MUD BOY & THE NEUTRONS

(Koch)

This legendary hard-R&B quartet from Memphis, peopled by guitarists Lee Baker and Sid Selvidge, keyboardist/guitarist Jim Dickinson, and washboard player/percussionist Jimmy Crosthwait, slipped out of the slimy nexus of the drug, blooze, juke-joint, and hippie culture of the early '70s to make a couple of little albums -- Known Felons in Drag and Negro Streets at Dawn -- which practically nobody heard before this collection of both. But among the Memphis music hardcore, Mud Boy & the Neutrons were known for window-shattering, knuckle-busting shows that put the Devil back into rock and roll. (Where he rightly belongs.) The trash-rock aesthetic championed by more-contemporary practitioners like Tav Falco and Southern Culture on the Skids begins here, with filthy covers of Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley tunes, and a take on "Dark End of the Street" that makes this song of clandestine love sounds more like the recounting of a drug deal. Raw, raw, and more raw describes their full-throttle sound. For more details, check out Robert Gordon's book It Came from Memphis. Otherwise, get an earful of grease here.

-- Ted Drozdowski