• Track Listing

The unsung Crescent City bandleader Paul Gayten made the first New Orleans R&B recordings of the post war era and had the first local hits there in 1947. As a producer, he was responsible for grooming hit singers such as Annie Laurie, Larry Darnell, Chubby Newsome, Bobby Charles and Clarence "Frogman" Henry and became an important individual in the Chess empire before forming his own label in the late 1960s. This thirty-track compilation traces the first half of his high-voltage career in the recording business and proves how necessary he was to the birth and development of New Orleans R&B and rock 'n' roll.