Artist: The Gants
Title: Road Runner! The Best Of The Gants
Year Of Release: 2000
Label: Sundazed Music
Genre: Garage Rock, Psychedelic Pop, Beat
Quality: WAV (tracks, log)
Total Time: 49:45
   
One of the relatively few garage bands from the Deep South to make a national impression in the mid-'60s, the Gants hit the Top 50 in 1965 with their cover of "Roadrunner." Liberty Records then preceded to bleed the band dry by issuing three cover-heavy albums and five more singles in the next year and a half. They deserved better, because lead singer and guitarist Sid Herring was a performer and songwriter of some talent. Too Beatlesque to be considered a garage band in the usual mold, their original material approximated elements of the Fab Four's sound circa 1965 with a blend of mid-tempo acoustic and electric guitars, close harmonies, and a slight country feel. Herring himself sounded like Lennon, and he wasn't above reworking melodic phrases from "In My Life" and "From Me to You." The strong material tended to be dwarfed by their rushed, cover-heavy albums, and the group never had another hit after "Roadrunner."

Tracklist:
01. Roadrunner
02. My Baby Don't Care
03. Smoke Rings (You Can't Blow)
04. Little Boy Sad
05. Gloria
06. I Don't Want to See Her Again
07. Stormy Weather
08. Never Go Right
09. Six Days in May
10. I Wonder
11. Crackin' Up
12. Summertime Blues
13. Try Too Hard
14. I Want Your Lovin'
15. Spoonful of Sugar
16. Dance Last Night
17. Somebody Please
18. Oh Yeah
19. I'm a Snake
20. Greener Days