And just who is Mark Lamarr, an American audience asks? Well, Lamarr is a highly successful comedian/presenter/emcee from Britain who also happens to be a record collector of renown in that country. This collection of his favorite Ace recordings is the British equivalent to Jay Leno professing to be an expert on Sun Records and putting together a compilation for Rhino. Besides having excellent taste, Lamarr also writes a great set of liner notes, full of wisecracks and off-kilter humor and a sense that you're sitting around spinning records with the guy in his living room. Although there's a couple of hits aboard from Huey "Piano" Smith (how can you resist?), Lamarr in the main sticks to obscuros from Joe Tex, Frankie Ford, Frankie Lee Sims, the Blue Dots and the Supremes. The blues side of the catalog is well represented, with sides from Sammy Myers, Earl King, H-Bomb Ferguson and Floyd Dixon, while the rockabilly side of the equation gives us rare opuses from the Phaetons, Hershel Almond, Eddy Seacrest and Danny Ray. Not a greatest-hits package by a long shot, but a compilation that instead gives a much better idea of what the label was really all about, and one that's well worth seeking out. ~ Cub Koda, All Music Guide