Interview from : http://www.dailybreeze.com/
Sun Setzer: Stray Cat
honors
legendary rock label with new CD
BY COREY LEVITAN STAFF WRITER
Brian Setzer's lacing up his blue suede shoes again. After spending most of the past decade revamping swing music, America's favorite pompadoured anachronism has trained his sites back on rockabilly, the marriage of country and blues that gave birth to rock music in the early '50s.
Setzer recently released "Rockabilly Riot! Vol. 1: A Tribute to Sun Records," a CD honoring the famous Memphis label that released Jerry Lee Lewis' "Whole Lotta Shakin' Going On," Carl Perkins' "Blue Suede Shoes" and, most legendarily, Elvis Presley's "That's All Right," the 1954 single generally regarded as the first rock 'n' roll song.
"Rockabilly is really part of our background," says Setzer, 45, phoning RAVE! from his home in the Palm Springs area. "It's a cousin to the blues and country. And it's that important."
Recorded in Nashville (not at the still-standing Sun Studios in Memphis, as Setzer originally wanted, because the logistics couldn't be ironed out), the new CD features Setzer redoing 23 Sun tracks from rockabilly's peak years, 1954-57. They include "Blue Suede Shoes," Johnny Cash's "Get Rhythm" and Warren Smith's "Red Cadillac & a Black Moustache."
But most of the cuts are obscure. One, "Peroxide Blonde in a Hopped Up Model Ford," is only available in it its entirety on "Rockabilly Riot!"
"My friend sent me the song, which I hadn't heard before," Setzer says. "It faded in toward the middle, and I thought the computer file was broken. But we did research and found out that a tape fragment is all that exists of the song."
That's because the original master recording was damaged. So Setzer tracked down the song's writer-performer, 72-year-old Mississippi resident Jumpin' Gene Simmons, to see if he had his own copy of the record or the sheet music.
"He was just thrilled," Setzer says. "He said, 'Oh my gosh, you want to record that old song? I think I got it up in the attic!' "
When Simmons couldn't locate it, he asked Setzer to rewrite the missing half himself.
"He said it was too long ago for him to put himself back in that mind-set," Setzer says, adding that Simmons liked the update enough to sing on it.
Most of the original versions of these songs are easier to locate. And Setzer says his goal is to entice listeners to do just that.
"You can never top the original, even if the original's not recorded that well, because that was the original impulse and idea," says the guitar-slinger, who walks a tightrope between rocking the songs out and remaining true to how they were first recorded.
"I never really did rockabilly exactly like they did it in the '50s," Setzer says. "We always kind of updated it. But I didn't need to go blasting crazy, wild guitar solos around this stuff. I tried to keep it authentic."
Still, Setzer claims "Rockabilly Riot!" is modern enough for the KROQ-FM crowd to relate.
"My son and his friends, who are 18 and surfers, stormed into my room when I was playing 'Red Hot,' " he reports. "They rushed in and went, 'What's this? This is great! It's like '50s punk rock!'
"It must fill in some kind of gap, and that's really the reason I did the record."
Setzer -- raised in Massapequa, Long Island -- has been rockabilly's ambassador to modern-rock generations ever since his Stray Cats exploded with the Top 10 hits "Rock This Town," "Stray Cat Strut" and "(She's) Sexy + 17" in the early '80s.
"When I was a kid, I found out about Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent through the Beatles and the Stones doing covers of rockabilly songs," Setzer says.
In the '90s, Setzer sicced his revivalist prowess on another forgotten form: big band. He created the 17-piece Brian Setzer Orchestra, which had a moderate 1998 hit with a cover of Louis Prima's "Jump, Jive An' Wail."
Setzer says he's done looking for new old ground to cover, however.
"I think it's best if I kind of stick to what I do," he says. "I don't have any plans to revamp doo-wop or anything. I'll just wait for somebody else to come along."
Setzer, who releases his second consecutive solo album of Christmas tunes in October, still remains best known for his Stray Cats catalog. Seeking to please clamoring fans, he reunited with his old sidekicks, bassist Lee Rocker and drummer Slim Jim Phantom, for a European tour last year.
"Maybe there's a chance we'll do it here," he says. "But everybody has their own thing going."
Setzer pauses for a second
"It's hard to understand," he says. "It's not a personal thing at all. We had a great tour. It's just that people want you to go back to the way you were 25 years ago. It's like when people were asking Elvis to make a Sun record again. He did it.
"And I think we kind of did it."