rockabilly

"Hillbilly music" on speed and whiskey, run through Fender amps. Elvis (circa the Sun Sessions) remains the patron saint, but great music from Gene Vincent, the Burnette Brothers, and others covered the landscape of that era. Its spirit has lived on in later decades, via folks like Robert Gordon, The Cramps, Alan Vega, Brian Setzer, Dave Edmunds, Marxist cartoonist Ray Lowry, and the great Dexter Romweber of Flat Duo Jets.

Rockabilly is a type of music best described as early American rock and roll. Pioneers of the genre include Elvis Presley, Gene Vincent, Eddie Cochran, and Buddy Holly.

There have been several little rockabilly revivals, but nothing compared to the swing revival. In the early/mid eighties there were the Stray Cats and The Cramps and in the late 90s The Reverend Horton Heat.

There are several subgenres of rockabilly including: psychobilly, voodoobilly, country swing, and neo rockabilly. If you are not sure a band could even be considered rockabilly, you can call it probabilly.

Rockabilly took much of it's sound from the country music of the time (as well as R&B). But it didn't just take, it gave back. Many country musicians of the time made the switch to rockabilly in the mid-late fifties and some never made the transition back. Johnny Horton, a great country artist, made some of the best rockabilly there is. Johnny Cash both contributed and took influence from Rockabilly also. Infact during Elvis Presley's early years, Cash toured with him as an openning act. Traditionally Country venues like the Grand 'ol Opry and the Big D Jamboree also started booking Rockabilly acts when it became popular.

On the other end of Rockabilly is it's R&B influence. This influence is evidenced in many artist's song choices, for example, Carl Perkins conver of MatchBox (an old blues standard), Billy Lee Riley's various covers of Doo-Wop tunes and doo-wop influenced dittys. Also, the presence of a few rockabilly acts on black record labels like Chess and King showed the close relation between rockabilly and the genres which helped to spawn it.

A short list of Rockabilly bands, past and present

* Present

• The Raging Teens
• Bourbonaires
• Kings of Nothing
• Starline Rhythm Boys
• Racketeers
• Jimmy Sutton's Four Charms
• Kim Lenz and her Jaguars
• Big Sandy and the FlyRite boys
• Cyclones
• StumbleWeeds
• Bombastics
• Sean Mencher
• High Noon
• Charlie Chesterman
• Flea Bops
• Polcats

*Past
• Carl Perkins
• Elvis Presley
• Johnny Burnette
• Sid King and the Five Strings
• Buddy Holly
• Warren Smith
• Joe Clay
• Sonny Burgess
• Roy Orbison (And the Teen Kings)
• Gene Vincent
• Eddie Cochran
• Johnny Carrol
• Rose Maddox
• The Belew Twins
• Ronnie Dawson
• Orville Couch
• Jerry Reed
• Tommy Mitchell
• Skeets McDonald
• Simon Crum
• Faron Young
• Hank Thompson
• Tommy Sands
• Wanda Jackson
• Ferlin Husky
• Ray Parks
• Link Wray (better known for surf, but he also did RAB)

Rockabilly never really went away.

The first revival occured in the late 60's, spearheaded by the band Sha Na Na. They were huge. They played Woodstock fer chrissakes. Being so close to the 50's, nobody could take it seriously.

In the UK, the rockabilly spirit was kept alive by the rockers. There were the mods, the rockers, and the teds, according to many punk rock history books.

The late 70's spawned The Cramps and The Blasters, who were underground giants, but achieved little pop success. They were lumped in with the punks, because they rocked.

The 80's brought The Stray Cats from the UK, who were really transplants from the US. They were lumped in with the new wavers, because they had poofy clothes and haircuts.

The 90's were dominated by The Reverend Horton Heat and Southern Culture on the Skids, and a pseudo-underground rockabilly scene started to grow into its own thing, thanks to MTV.

The most notable qualities about the rockabilly scene is that it's conservative, peculiarly white, and more concerned about cars and clothes than music.