Cobra Records Singles Collection

Shines a light on the neglected Cobra artists, i.e. not guys not named Sam, Buddy, or Otis. Cobra got a great sound out of whoever stepped in their cave, whether it was Shakey Horton, Guitar Shorty(!), Betty Everett, Duke Jenkins' Orchestra, the Clouds, Harold Burrage, or The Calvaes. This 2 CD set goes well with the cheaper digipak 2 CD Cobra comp. that's out there well for a round assessment of Eli Toscano and Willie Dixon's efforts to beat the Chess Bros. at their own game.

As the producer/compiler/annotator of "The Cobra Records Story," which has been out only a few months on Fuel, I can state without a doubt that there is no "newer version" with 14 extra tracks on Fuel. There are several bootleg CDs of Cobra's catalog floating around from overseas thanks to their 50-year public domain laws that may well have more and/or different tracks, and many moons ago Capricorn had a two-CD set out covering the same Cobra/Artistic catalog that was legit. This one has 36 tracks, including a handful of songs that have never been on any CD comp before legitimately. It does a nice job of summarizing the Cobra/Artistic archives, though you'd need five CDs to cover everything!

I read elsewhere that there is a newer version with 14 other songs added. Does anyone know what these song are? It's already a great collection!