Tag: Rockabilly
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Eddie Cochran ‘Singin’ To My Baby’ (1957)
Eddie Cochran’s Singin’ To My Baby captures the restless creativity of one of early rock and roll’s true pioneers. More than just a singer, Cochran was a studio innovator who experimented with multitrack recording, distortion, and overdubbing at a time when those techniques were still new. He played nearly everything himself—guitar, piano, bass, and drums—giving…
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Roy Clark ‘The Lightning Fingers of Roy Clark’ (1963)
The Lightning Fingers of Roy Clark is perhaps one of the more apropos album titles I’ve seen over the past three years. This guy could absolutely shred with the best of them in a way that’s nearly inconceivable, especially for a guitarist operating in country music during the early 60’s. Every single riff he plays…
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Social Distortion ‘Social Distortion’ (1990)
Social Distortion carved out a sound as raw and restless as the Southern California streets they came from, fusing the sneer of punk with the swagger of rockabilly into a sound that sounds like the flick of switchblade in some biker bar in Nowhereville, USA. When lead singer (and primary songwriter) Mike Ness howls through…
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The Blasters ‘American Music’ (1980)
The Blasters are a rare childhood friends become music stars success story– brothers Paul and Dave Alvin formed the band with their childhood friends John Bazz and Bill Bateman in Downey, CA during the spring of 1979. Adding boogie-woogie pianist Gene Taylor into the band, they released their debut album American Music in 1980 that…
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Eagles of Death Metal ‘Peace Love Death Metal’ (2004)
Eagles of Death Metal is a fun little garage rock project fronted by principal songwriter Jesse Hughes with contributions by alternative rock legend Josh Homme. The name is a play on words to 70’s rock band the Eagles, and the fact that they aren’t a death metal band makes that little inside joke even more…
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Carl Perkins ‘Dance Album’ (1957)
Carl Perkins is sort of a forgotten pioneer of American rockabilly, a musician whose influential sound helped shape the early days of rock and roll and gave birth to some of its biggest stars. Take for example his massive hit “Blue Suede Shoes”– most people associate that song with Elvis Presley (for obvious reasons), but…
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Buddy Holly ‘Buddy Holly’ (1958)
Buddy Holly’s impact on rock and roll is profound and enduring. He shaped the genre’s evolution in a few pivotal ways, from his innovative approach to songwriting and his distinctive style which set a new standard for rock and roll. With hits like “Peggy Sue” and “Everyday”, Holly’s sound combined energetic rhythms with a blend…
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Chris Isaak ‘Heart Shaped World’ (1989)
Chris Isaak’s blend of moody rockabilly drenched in reverb and magic dust is a haunting blend. Heart Shaped World features a sort of expertise for uncanny world-building that is immediately gripping the moment you first hear it. It sounds like a live concert put on by a 50’s rock and roll band taking place in…
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The Black Keys ‘El Camino’ (2011)
Garage rock is one of my purest loves, and The Black Keys were one of the bands that encompassed the garage rock movement of the early 2000’s. Initially the band was just a two-piece drummer/guitarist blues rock combo a la The White Stripes, and while they experienced some underground success during the decade alongside their…
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Elvis Presley ‘Elvis Presley’ (1956)
Elvis Presley certainly wasn’t the inventor of rock and roll, and his relationship with the Black musicians he copied during the 1950’s was a complicated one that ran the gamut of personal opinion at the time, but he was undoubtedly America’s first rock and roll star, a landmark in pop culture and one of the…
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The Everly Brothers ‘They’re Off & Rolling’ (1958)
The Everly Brothers were at the crossroads of country music and R&B in the late 1950’s and served as an influential act on a generation of bands that followed them in the 1960’s. The most notable band they influenced was The Beatles– early in John Lennon and Paul McCartney’s career they actually referred to themselves…
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Johnny Cash ‘At Folsom Prison’ (1968)
I’ll be in attendance at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville tonight for the first time in my life and cannot wait. This is the birthplace of American country music, the Mecca where it all started, and has long been on my bucket list of places to see a live show. It’s going to be…
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Waylon Jennings ‘Honky Tonk Heroes’ (1973)
Waylon Jennings is an almost mythical force in the history of outlaw country, a sub-genre that bucked the norms of the Nashville establishment in the early 70’s. Disillusioned with both the artistic and sonic constraints of producers like Chet Atkins who favored slick production over a more organic and natural sound, artists like Jennings and…
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The Crickets ‘The Chirping Crickets’ (1957)
Despite dying at the age of 22 years old in a tragic plane crash that was called “The Day The Music Died” (an event forever immortalized in Don McLean’s cultural cornerstone “American Pie”), Buddy Holly was a pioneering force in the meteoric rise of rock and roll in the mid-1950’s. Along with helping to establish…
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Jerry Reed ‘East Bound and Down’ (1977)
Jerry Reed is the kind of guitarist that you listen to for the first time and it either inspires you to further dedicate yourself to the craft or causes you to give it all up and pivot your hobby to knitting quilts. The man is that good. Reed is a fingerstyle guitar player which is…
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