How did you get into rockabilly?

The big question: how did you get into rockabilly ? For me, here's the story.

When I was at school I loved the Beatles and McCartney - and I still do. By listening to their records, I realized they did rock'n'roll covers. Therefore I started looking back to the '50s. Everything, from Buddy Holly, Frankie Lymon, Carl Perkins to Ritchie Valens and the Platters. Then, about 1996, I met a musician who was a rockabilly fan. He borrowed me a Stray Cats record, probably Choo Choo Hot Fish or Blast Off!. Man, I fell crazy and wild. I loved the Cats. Since then, Brian Setzer is one of my favorites.

Mine started at age 12 or so when I fell in love with Australian 'Punkabilly' band The Living End.. They led me to the Stray Cats.. and from then I wanted to get my hands on anything that sounded like this 'rockabilly' music that I had just discovered.. And the rest is history


Kid.

DOES ANYONE LIKE THE POLECATS ?
RECORDS ARE ROCKABILLY GUY ,JEEPSTER ,BIG GREEN CAR

D.COLLINS wrote:

DOES ANYONE LIKE THE POLECATS ?
RECORDS ARE ROCKABILLY GUY ,JEEPSTER ,BIG GREEN CAR

YES

.

Banksy, I actually tried to flick your little bug off my screen


Kid.

I grew up listening to my parents "old" music, early Cliff Richard, Everly Brothers, Johnny Cash all the old cats.
Some 10 years later the Stray Cats got big. Just then I started realizing that great old music from my parents was Rockabilly music.
I believe the earliest song that sounded great to me was called "Baby I'm ready if you're willing" by...?? forgot his name.
There was this great slapback sound on it.

Kid Setzer wrote:

Banksy, I actually tried to flick your little bug off my screen


Kid.

Banksy wrote:

Kid Setzer wrote:

Banksy, I actually tried to flick your little bug off my screen


Kid.

.....Reminds me to put my brand new flea collar on.

Add the blue cats from the UK as well.

My 1st taste was Elvis and MY BABY LEFT ME...1 half rockabilly,the other rocknroll.

Can"t mind the year tho.

I started listening to rockabilly music when I was about ten years old. There was a Pop musician here in germany who started a Rockabilly-Band, that was called Dick Brave and the Backbeats, and so you could listen rockabilly music on the radio. All this happened the time when I started to get interested in my Instrument, and when I heard that Sound of that fifty year old Gretsch, I knew that I wanted to become a Rockabilly guitar-player some weeks later I bouhgt my first electric guitar, and I had to be a semi-hollowbody, cause I wanted to have that same sound. Then I listened all the old ones like Elvis, Bill Haley, and Chuck Berry. After I was able to play most of the old songs, my guitar-teacher told me, I should listen to Brian Setzer, and when I heard a local Rockabilly-Band performing the Dirty Boogie, and I realized it was a Setzer-Tune, I bought my first Setzer CDs.

I was bought up on rock n roll ,My Dad was an old rocker and played Buddy Holly ,Johnny and the Hurricanes and Duane Eddy all the time,i had my first brothel creepers when i was 7 and my first drape when i was 10,then 1980 came along and i was blown away by the stray cats and it turned me away from the Teddy boy style and would soon lead me into the psychobilly scene ,and then i went back to rockabilly when psychobilly became to punky.

Rockabilly? Whats that?

February 1981 or so... I was 10 and saw the Cats' Rock This Town video clip (UK version) on the telly.
Fell in love instantly! My parents dug it as well and told me that was "their" music so I checked out their Elvis, Cochran, Bill Haley etc records and I still love it all to this day.

I love threads like this! How did i get into Rockabilly?

I guess Elvis is in there somewhere, but as I recall. and it's not so glamourous, I liked all the old songs by Chuck and Eddie and Gene etc, but I first heard Shakin Stevens version of this Ole House and loved it.

I was gonna continue with such a long story, but that really answers the thread!

LOL

Nah! I can't end with y'all thinking I'm the worlds biggest Shakin Stevens fan...

... Although Shaky turned me onto the genre, I did the thing that Slim Jim always says in interviews... I saw that Honey Don't was written by C Perkins and I'd work back and find other records by Carl Perkins - yadda yadda yadda.

Polecats were the first of the modern bands, then Matchbox, but when Stray Cats came along.. THAT changed my life and outlook on Rockabilly forever. Then Brian Setzer was a whole new ball game. and he introduced me into all sorts of differnet music.

THAT's how I got into Rockabilly.

Mikey 'Big Boy' Cruddup

My friend taped me best of Crazy Cavan and first song(boppin and shakin) and I was hooked,then I bought Matchbox:s/t lp(that was 1980) and later came cats...and after this new bands started deep "search" to 50´s r-a-b(rare compilations etc)...still on my way

Patrick wrote:

I believe the earliest song that sounded great to me was called "Baby I'm ready if you're willing" by...?? forgot his name.
There was this great slapback sound on it.

hey Patrick,
that song is by Johnny Horton. check out some of his other songs! they are awesome rockablly tunes!


I love Rockabilly music, been a fan of it for a long time, started with Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis, Johnny Horton, Charlie Feathers, now its, Deke Dickerson, Jack Rabbit Slim, The Rimshots, Bob Boz and the Polecats, Candye Kane, Hot Boogie Chillun, Darrel Higham and the Enforcers, Omar and the Stringpoppers, Big Sandy and his fly-rites, Wanda Jackson, Teddy Morgan, Southern Culture on the Skids, The Go Getters, The Seat Sniffers, Carlos and the Banditos and of course Brian and the Stray Cats.

I listen to many many more, but I can't think of them right now. I try to go to Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly weeekend every easter, but missed this years. I hear they are moving to The Orlean's hotel for next year. should be fun, they are also having another rockabilly rave in Las Vegas in October! see you all there!

this a great site for Brian and rockabilly, I'm so glad I found it. as you can see, this is my first post! thanks for all your discussion on this music. I've been reading for a while now.

bobbie aka navajogirl

Well, the earliest one for me was probably Roy Orbison, in my opinion one of the all-time greats. Such an amazing voice. By the way, one of his concerts from years ago was just re-broadcast on TV a few weeks back, and he had Elvis Costello, Bruce Springsteen, and Jimmy Bryant, backing him up, as part of his band, in the guitar section. Of course I'd be remiss to not include Elvis, and all the other folks mentioned before but in terms of the Stray Cats, actually, I think that one of the first few times that I remember hearing the Stray Cats was sometime in the early-to-mid 1980's on a Walt Disney Valentine's TV special, "Romancing", I think was the name. I believe they played Stray Cat Strut and Rock This Town (along with alot of other artists' songs) over a bunch of clips from Disney films.

Grew up in the late 60's listening to my dad's Sun 45's...Elvis (Mystery Train is the benchmark rockabilly song for me), Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, et al,....then, when I was a teen in the early 80's, heard Brian and the Cats on the radio while in high school...I hadn't heard anything that raw in years, and it spoke to me...drifted into electric blues in the late 80's and 90's, 'til my hero SRV died...then came marriage, mortgage, and 2 teenaged boys...got back into Rockabilly with both feet when my son's took an interest in music and hot rod cars in the late 90's, and I wanted to "raise them right" as far as genre goes...now, they get to hear the same music growing up, as I did!
Rob

My mom graduated in '57, and had a box of 45's that we used to listen to all the time: Elvis's early RCA stuff, "Only Make Believe" by Conway Twitty, "Ballad of a Teenage Queen" by Johnny Cash on Sun, etc. American Grafitti brought in an era of 50's nostalgia during my childhood, so the music was pretty easy to hear in movies, on TV specials, or even oldies radio. When the Cats hit in the early 80s, I liked them, but at the time I didn't go totally wild over them...guess I just wasn't ready yet! I was more of a Buddy Holly guy.

What really got me into it was years later - I saw BSO on Conan O'Brien. They did Angels We Have Heard On High. It took me a couple of days to wrap my head around it, to be honest. My first kneejerk reaction was to be offended; I'm a Christian, and that performance was so outside of my lifelong experience with that song, that I thought it was disrespectful, almost to the point of being sacrilegious.

Despite that first reaction, I went back to the tape, several times, because I've learned over the years that I don't always get things right the first time. I was TOTALLY wrong about this song...I now view it as one of the ultimate expressions of faith and absolute, total joy that is too often missing from praise music. I have become a Setzer-holic, and I didn't have to hand over my "Christian card" either! I appreciate how Brian works his faith into some of his albums (This Old House, St Jude, etc.), but that doesn't make him a "Christian" artist...he's just a Christian who happens to be a musician!

In the last couple of years, I've also renewed my interest in the early rock'n'roll stars (Buddy and Elvis, the Killer, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, and I've also been an Orbison fan since I was a kid) as well as some current RAB artists (Big Sandy, Crash Justice, Jason D Williams).

Umm, I reckon as corny as they are, the Elvis movies that they used to show on week end afternoons probably got me interested in music. I guess that I then started to listen to his Hound Dog, etc music. When the Cats came on the scene, I just fell in love with the sound and look.
My parents were happy because they could understand the words! "Notta lika dat rubbish they playa on da radio!" I can still hear my father say! hahaha!!
I guess like anything, it finds you, not the other way around!
Cheers Pete.

D.COLLINS wrote:

DOES ANYONE LIKE THE POLECATS ?
RECORDS ARE ROCKABILLY GUY ,JEEPSTER ,BIG GREEN CAR

the polecats were my first concert in 1981 in hamburg , germany

I think it was when I first heard American Pie by Don McLean. I wanted to know the origin of the song because I knew nothing about what he was singing about seeing as I was growing about in the age of sh!tty music. So I found most of the song was about Buddy Holly and the other big cats. I buy "That'll Be The Day" and thought, "Wow, every band today is terrible, this music was made for me."

I may hate to admit it, but it was the likes of Mud, Racey & Showaddywaddy that did it. I loved Mud's version of "Oh Boy" and Racey's "Runaround Sue", but of course never realised that they were cover versions. Showaddywaddy were brilliant at the time. The next thinbg that happened was my Uncle gave me two Bill Haley albums, closely followed by an Eddie Cochran album. That was it 0- I was caught, hook, line and sinker.

When this taste got developed by the appearance of The Shakin' Pyramids, Stray Cats and The Polecats, there really was no turning back. I've moved a little more intro RAB but still keep a wide interest in all things rockin'.

I got into Rockabilly through Jimi Hendrix first, and this is a 4 degrees of Hendrix. I love Jimi, and he loved Chuck Berry and so Chuck Berrys sounds and tone got me into it in one direction.

I also had a huge period in my life through the 80's that I was into Punk, ans one of the best Rockabilly songs is from the Misfits "American Nightmare" which is just a rockin' tune.

Lastly, and this is how wide and strange my music base is, is the song "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" by Queen. That is a great tune and has the beat and slight echo and a great Elvis like vocals.

And of course the Stray Cats back in the 80's were a big influence except I didn't know what to call it other then a great band. Rockabilly to me didn't get tagged until after.

I've also always loved the song "Twenty Flight Rock" no matter who did it.......

Great thread

I think the first "rockabilly" stuff i heard was Crazy Cavan. I used to hang around a record shop called Spinning Disc in Chiswick, West London (anyone know what happened to Terry?). The shop delt mainly with 50's and early 60's stuff. I heard all sorts down there, then sort of drifted into the Polecats, Stray Cats, Guana Batz, Meteors, Restless. I was a regular guest at the (in)famous Club Foot in Hammersmith...... Never looked back