Extract
From Rebel Heart Vol. 7 Liner Notes
In September
1967, to the delight of his loyal fans, Gene arrived in France
to do his first
true promotional tour,
carefully referring to "my brand new album" at concerts.
Rehearsing for a few days with French band
Le Rock 'N' Roll Gang, whose singer
was relegated to a minor backing vocals role, Gene set out on a series
of
highly successful live performances, mixing old and new material,
several of which
were recorded privately
or for radio purposes. In Lyon, a young Swiss fan, Pierre
Pennone. a friend of the promoter, was introduced to
Gene and acted as unofficial
interpreter for him during the day of the gig. When Gene arrived in Geneva for a
concert on the 6th of October, he
recognised Pierre and they spent the next few
days together.
Through contacts, Pierre
had organised an interview with the
major Swiss radio station, and accompanied Gene
when he recorded it that
afternoon. This curious bi-lingual affair is contained here. Later,
Radio Suisse
Romande
recorded the evening concert, and included one song when the interview
was
broadcast the next day. Gene put on
a bravura performance in front of the
enthusiastic sell-out crowd of 1600, which was pronounced by the
die-hard
French fans who had been following him around as the greatest of the
tour. He even
treated the audience to a rare
encore Little Richard's Tutti Frutti, a
song he had not previously performed. The next day, Pierre accompanied
Gene
during his trip to perform at a small Swiss town in the mountains,
witnessing Gene's
initiation to a local
speciality, the fondue (Gene substituted sliced tomatoes for
the dipping bread and drank beer in place of wine),
when by all accounts a
great time was had by everyone. The Geneva recording of Tutti
Frutti later surfaced on
a bootleg album in 1985, and another
six of the songs appeared in 1988 on a rare French EP.
Contacted in 1999, the
radio station confirmed that the tape did not exist in their archives,
another in a
long line
of historical recordings lost or discarded by broadcasters. Luckily,
however, at the time of recording an engineer
at the station had made a copy, and
this has remained in the hands of a local collector ever since. Thus we
are
able on
this CD. for the first time. to experience the dynamic concert in full,
a happy
confirmation that
Gene Vincent was anything but a spent force in the late '60s.