Wails the Blues

This LP is a little more tilted toward early-'50s R&B and jump blues than rock & roll. it's still superior R&B on the verge of transition into rock & roll, including the Latin-tinged number that became something of a standard, "I Feel So Bad." Much of the earlier sides here were spirited but similar-sounding jump blues-R&B, broken up by some urbane ballads, most of the material written by Willis himself. Truthfully, it gets more interesting and diverse on the later sides on disc two, in which Willis started admitting some rock & roll and doo wop into his style, as on the romantic ballad "I Can Tell".