Brian Setzer 'Rockabilly Riot Vol. One - A Tribute to Sun Records' album

Even in Nashville, Brian Setzer stands out. It's not because of that pompadour; that 'do has been old news here since Elvis. It's not the duds; folks don't care what other people wear here, as long as it's got soul; Brian's rockabilly rags fit that bill like a comb in a tight back pocket.

No, people crane their heads when he pulls into the Station Inn to pop a longneck and chill because Nashville cats know their music. They know when a master is in the house. And even in this sea of sizzlin' pickers and whammy-bar jammers, Brian Setzer stands alone.

For a few weeks this year, he was a regular on the strip that runs along Lower Broadway to the Cumberland River. And in between visits to sit in with local honky-tonk heroes, Setzer was in the studio, cutting Rockabilly Riot, Vol. 1: A Tribute to Sun Records -- the album that confirms that he is, among other distinctions, the unrivalled king of rockabilly guitar.

You can hear in the swing and swagger of his guitar licks and lip-curling vocals that Setzer knows what made the Sun sound revolutionary: that head-on collision of country and R&B that gave birth to this music, the prototype for rock & roll. It's the sound that put fins on fine cars and a blonde on each true believer's arm.

The Sun label was where all this began. Memphis radio deejay Sam Phillips started it in 1949 but it wasn't until 1954, when Elvis walked in and cut "That's All Right, Mama," that all hell began breaking loose -- "hell" being the golden age, when suddenly the studio was filled with guys like Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, and the hot players that backed them up. You would have to fast-forward more than 30 years, to the halcyon days of punk, to find anything this intense and, unfortunately, short-lived. By the end of the fifties, rockabilly, just as punk would do in the late seventies, had cooled down. Its leaders were in the Army, worn out by booze, or -- already -- dead. Worse, some had started doing stuff that wasn't as threatening or thrilling -- music that sounded better in your living room than on your car radio as you're about to hit some hairpin curve full speed.

But it left its mark. And every now and then it changed the life of some young man who had missed that era but somehow found a way to live it anyway.

Setzer, for instance. He was a Long Island kid who actually liked all kinds of music, from big band jazz to Delta blues. But rockabilly simmered in his gut, with punk fanning the flame until he had no choice but to start a band called the Stray Cats, drag them over to England, and set the world on fire. After booting three singles in a row to the top of the charts, they came back home, shot their debut album Built for Speed to number two on Billboard, and packed houses from coast to coast with greasers, punks, middle-aged fifties refugees -- pretty much anybody who was ready to tear it up to "Rock This Town" or "Sexy & 17."

When the Stray Cats scattered, Setzer shrugged, did a 180, and once again turned music on its head. As leader of the 17-piece Brian Setzer Orchestra he kicked off the nineties swing band revival. Others followed his lead, but nobody jumped the blues so hard or left dance floors littered with as many hyperventilating jitterbugs. He even picked up three Grammys in the process.

But even when playing those slick charts, or collaborating with Clash legend Joe Strummer, or doing a Disney soundtrack, Setzer always kept that Sun sound somewhere near the surface. It was only a matter of time, then, that he'd put distractions aside, head down to Nashville, find the best band in the world for this kind of music, and pay tribute to the place where his music began.

From the first downbeat, the musicians on Rockabilly Riot Vol. 1 lock onto Setzer's groove and never let go. Kevin McKendree, seasoned on the road by the blues and booked full-time on roots & rock sessions in Nashville, pounds churning rhythms on the 88s like nobody his age has a right to do. Mark Winchester nails every slap and pull on his upright bass. Bernie Dresel, a Setzer Orchestra alumnus and the consummate rhythm professional, recreates the snare and single-cymbal feel that modern drummers never seem to quite figure out.

With the right musicians lined up, Setzer covered every other detail, from recording technology (vintage microphones only, a rusty old water cistern for reverb, no digital echoes allowed) to material. The songs on Rockabilly Riot include classics ("Blue Suede Shoes," Billy Lee Riley's "Red Hot") and hidden treasures, like "Peroxide Blonde in a Hopped Up Model Ford," written by Sun legend Gene Simmons but never recorded until now -- with Simmons himself, still jumpin' at age 71, on harmony vocals. And that's not the only cameo: The Jordanaires add their inimitable harmonies on "Stairway to Nowhere," sounding like they've been waiting for this moment since Elvis left the building.

The result is more than a great album -- it is in fact the most authentic rockabilly project of the past several generations. Setzer's energy is contagious; in an intimate setting with Cash's "Get Rhythm," or following Carl Mann¹s steps in spinning "Mona Lisa" through her paces, or on a high-stylin' stroll with "Boppin' the Blues," he's having the time of his life.

Which is, after all, what rockabilly is all about. The arrival Rockabilly Riot is the best news of the season -- except, of course, for that Volume 1 teaser tagged onto the end of the title.

So ... is rockabilly dead? Hoss, as long as Setzer can sling his Gretsch, crank up his Supro amp, and sing like tomorrow doesn't matter, it's just beginning.

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Brian Setzer - Rockabilly Riot Vol. One - A Tribute to Sun Records