WHAT DOES ROCKABILLY MEAN TO YOU??

Great thread dude!

Rockabilly used to mean a way of life to me. Hair Piled high (well as close as), joining a band and hitting the road - I left home at 18 years old to live in a squat in the East End of london, all because of my love of Rockabilly. When I joined the Highliners, they introduced me to a rockin lifestyle. Luke was into old school Rockabilly, and we'd go to the Camden Palace and other venues which were like old style 'hops' and listen to Wanda Jackson and Bob Luman and all those old cats and kittens.

Now, Rockabilly means to me - great music, fantastic guitar players. When you're into Rockabilly, you hear it in lots of players who really aren't rockabilly players. yeah, you got Cliff Gallup, Eddie, Paul Burlison, Robert Gordon, Mark Harman, Mickey Gee, Albert Lee and that other guy...err... Brian Shepherd..nah! Bobby Setzer... ah! can't remember his name right now... But you listen to some other guys, like Jeff Beck, Slash, Angus Young, Pat Metheney. They all have their own roots and styles, but every now and then, you hear Rockabilly in them... it's true.

I don't know if this is just me, but... Rockabilly got me listening to other guitarists, and made me appreciate other music forms. I LOVE great guitar music from Tommy Emmanual to Mustaine and it's the discipline of the roots behind rockabilly coupled with the freedom allowed BECAUSE it's rockabilly. Help me here, does anyone know what i'm talkin' about, cos it's hard to put into words. Examples: Too Hip - the open 'G' pull off and Stray Cat Strut- the augmented slide that breaks all the rules, i mean, you can't play that solo Brian played by text book rules. Technically, it doesn't work, but listen to it and it's sooo cool.

Rockabilly IS my life, but i don't walk around with greased back hair and authentic clothes, but everynow and then, my windows are down (in my contemporary car) and Runaway Boys is blasting for all to hear.

Rockabilly Rules....OK!


Mikey Shepard... i mean Setzer..... what IS that guitarists name...? y'know he was in that band... the Stray caps or something...Jees

I agree with what Mikey said about hearing rockabilly in other guitar players - if you love it, you hear it and see it where others don't.

Hearing rockabilly for the first time was purely visceral, for me. Rockabilly is a hollow-body guitar sound that grabs me way down low and hangs on tight through a wild ride of slap bass and driving drums. I don't much care what I look like as long as I can have that wild ride! The song stops, I can breathe for a second, and then hang on, here we go again!

TEDDY BOY BOOGIE
(Cavan Grogan)
CRAZY CAVAN & THE RHYTHM ROCKERS (Rockhouse, 1975)

Standin' on the corner, swingin' my chain
Along came a copper and he took my name
He put his dirty maulers on my long drape coat
And I whipped out my razor and I slit his throat

[Chorus]
Teddy boy boogie, a-boogedy-boogedy-boo
Teddy boy boogie, a-boogedy-boogedy-boo
Ah-aah-aah-ahh, ah-ooh-ooh-ooh
Teddy boy boogie-boogie, boogedy-boogedy-boo

Well, I'm a teddy boy 'cause that's the life I choose
I wear a drape jacket and blue suede shoes
I smoke a big cigar and I dig the local hop
Saturday night I see my baby dancin' to the bop

[Chorus]

One night I was out on a chicken run
Gettin' my kicks and havin' some fun
A cop car came up from behind
So I whipped out my razor and I changed his mind

[Chorus]

Rockabilly....pure joy. Great music that stirs the soul. Real people singing about real life, ups downs and in betweens. Different musicians will put a different spin on their songs, but there's the roots, the soul that ties it all together. It's something that I can share with my friends and family, and still respect myself in the morning.

I love the retro styles, but it doesn't mean that my closet is chock full of throwback dresses. (although I admit I love the styles, I look/feel great in them, and sew a lot of my own clothes)

Rockabilly--It's all about the music, and the people that love it. It's not about the vintage underwear and purists. That whole purist scene just makes me wanna puke.

Long live Rockabilly,
hrg

Rockabilly= the soundtrack of my brillant Life!

brent wrote:

Also, forgot to mention. I first heard Elvis on a commercial in about 1974 advertising a 2 RECORD set of his hits. I didn't know what rockabilly was let alone a pompadour but I knew I liked it. I remember going to a Kmart and asking my dad to buy me said record set and he said he had some Elvis records at home I could listen to. So I did, constantly. Move along to 1981 and one of the local radio station's "battle of the bands" douhickey's where they play two songs and the listener's are expected to call in to say which one they liked best. Well, one was "Rock This Town" and oddly I don't recall the other but I do remember thinking, "I don't know who this is but it's fantastic". Didn't know who the Stray Cats were or what the term rockabilly was, but I knew this music like Elvis before them, spoke to me. I was 8 years old in 1974 and I think that says something about the purity of old rock 'n' roll and/or rockabilly. No preconcieved notions of what to expect or what to think, I just thought it was the best thing I'd ever heard. I still do and likely always will. From Elvis to Gene Vincent to Jerry Lee to the Cats and Brian, the sound and spirit of the music is the best.

Thanks for letting me remanice

Brent

I turned 4 in 1974 and I had a similar experience with Elvis. I think I actually got that 2 RECORD set you mentioned. "Hound Dog" and "Jailhouse Rock" were my favorite songs then. And I still love them now! Man, I wish I still had that record set. I think it eventually got so warped and scratched it was unusable. Ah, the memories.

I saw this a few minutes ago in the reviews of a guitar lesson with Brian posted on You Tube:

"Rockabilly is a cross of everything that's cool in life"

That pretty much sums it up for me.

as so many people have said in this thread it really isn't about the clothes the gell in the hair etc, its really just about how the music makes you feel...myself i'm a 30 something housewife with 2 kids but i tell you today i went to the gym put the earphones on and blared the stray cats and you know what... i wasn't a mother, wife etc i was me again that teenager who first heard gene and the strays when she was just 13 and thought it was the greatest thing ever... rocka/psychobilly got me through those teenage years (which we all know were hard enough)... i remember scouring record shops with the bit of money i had just to find that something that was different from the ordinary(which if you lived in dublin was very hard to find)....rockabilly if you really love it is something that never leaves you... you might not have the time to listen all the time but when you go back and you hear that sound , well to me theres nothing like it.... the heart beats a bit faster, the smile gets a bit broader and well generally its just GETS YOU...

It reminds me of a very bad time in my life- but it wasn't rockabilly's fault...

Chad