Album Review:

There’s a good chance you’re already familiar with The Bobby Fuller Four, but what you may not have known is that before ’I Fought the Law’ rocketed up the charts, they released a lone hot rod album. KRLA King of the Dragsters was originally intended as a dragster album in the Beach Boys and Jan and Dean style. Certainly the Bobby Fuller Four cut their teeth on the surf music of the day and a quick google search will reveal surf very surfy tracks in their largely forgotten catalog. Put out just a few months before their rise to national stardom, the record is a microcosm of the changing musical tastes of the time. By November 1965, the surf/hot rod craze had more than run its course, and thus, the album was split into two sections; while the side has the unique 'Fuller sound,' side two possesses a surfier style reminiscent of the music two years earlier. Exactly why the group abandoned the original vision remains a mystery, though it makes for one interesting album.

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The first side has little in the way of surf and hot rod music with  ‘Never To Be Forgotten,’ ‘Fool of Love,’ and ‘Let Her Dance,’ having the 1960’s western sound that made the band's hit single so unique. ‘She’s My Girl’ sits somewhere amidst the Beach Boys, the Four Seasons, and the Market’s ‘Surfers Stomp,’ while ‘Take My Word’ and ‘Another Sad and Lonely Night’ take their cues from the Beatles. Side two opens up with the commercial ‘King of the Wheels,’ a pretty good hot rod number in its own right, while the ‘Lonely Dragster’ shows the band as fully capable of performing solid instrumental tracks. The rock and roller ‘Little Annie Lou’ sits between the hot rod tracks, though it does boast some decent guitar work. ‘The Phantom Dragster’ sounds like a cross between Jan and Dean’s ‘Bucket T’ and Buddy Holly’s ‘Peggy Sue.’ ‘Saturday Night’ is another Crickets-type number that could’ve very easily been recorded in 1959. The closing track, ‘KRLA Top Eliminator,’ is a bonafide surf instrumental with ‘Surfin’ Bird’-like interjections now and again.

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KRLA King of Wheels is an interesting snapshot of American rock music. One part surf/drag, one part Buddy Holly, and another part British invasion, Bobby Fuller’s sound pulls from many influences. Coincidentally, in their first album, the diversity and lack of consistency are very the catalysts that drag it down. Sadly, Fuller mysteriously passed away less than a year after its release, ending the band's short run.