THE UNDER THE RADAR LIFER

Here's another guy that doesn't really get the recognition that he deserves, Big Al Downing. He's the piano player in the photo above, in his early band the Poe Cats. This guy did it all, rhythm and blues, rockabilly, country, gospel, and disco. Not to slight his other musical identities, it's his stuff from the rock 'n' roll era that I dig, his early stuff sounding something along the lines of Fats Domino meets Little Richard.

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Listen:
Big Al Downing and the Poe Cats - Down On the Farm mp3 at Rocky 52 1958
Big Al Downing and the Poe Cats - Oh Babe mp3 at Rocky 52 1958
Big Al Downing and the Poe Cats - When My Blue Moon Turns to Gold Again mp3 at Rocky 52 1959

NEVER HEARD OF HER.

I'm posting these for a few reasons. I never heard of Charline Arthur until a few hours ago. I'm reading a bland book about early rock 'n' roll. The stuff in it is the same stuff most of us know backwards and forwards. It a $1 used book and it's just holding me over until I get to the library. I've been tempted to put it down but have been holding out hope that there'd be some nugget of early rock trivia that I's missed, in this most basic book. There, mentioned between Janis Martin and Barbara Pttman was the name Charline Arthur. The book considers her rockabilly but, eh, it's really more country or hillbilly. But another reason I'm posting these is that, whether country, hillbilly or rockabilly, I knew Rocky 52 would have something. That he did. Five songs and a bio. Three of the songs are below and there's a link to the page at Rocky 52. Bookmark Rocky's site. It's invaluable when it comes to anything country, western, hillbilly, rockabilly, bluegrass or early rock 'n' roll. That's another reason for this post, props for Rocky 52.

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Listen:
Charline Arthur - I Heard About You mp3 at Rocky 52
Charline Arthur - Hello Baby mp3 at Rocky 52
Charline Arthur - Burn That Candle mp3 at Rocky 52
Charline Arthur - Two more, bio and discography at Rocky 52

RED HOT DEPOT

Like a lot of people, my first exposure to the song "Red Hot" was through Robert Gordon's 1977 LP with Link Wray. After devouring the LP, yep, the dig was on. It didn't take long to find out that the hit version of "Red Hot" was by Billy Lee Riley (above), recorded at Sun in 1957, with Jerry Lee Lewis on piano. (Gordon's LP also featured Riley's "Flying Saucers Rock 'n' Roll".) It wasn't until years later that I found an earlier version from 1955 by Billy "The Kid" Emerson, also recorded at at Sun. His version (the original?) is a fuckin' party. This would be my cue to hep you to an excellent four CD box set that is the deal of the century. It's called "Rockin' Memphis" and that's where I first heard Emerson's version. It's all stuff recorded at Sun and most of the cuts in the set were licensed to other labels. So you're essentially getting a whole bunch of cool songs that you won't find on official Sun boxed sets. Here's the kicker: Brand new this boxed set goes for about $16! Used copies at Discogs start at eight bucks! There's 114 songs and a 56 page book of liner notes. Get off you wallets tightwads!

Here's the three versions mentioned above and another one by the Beatles recorded in their pre-fame days at the Star Club in Hamburg. Their recording isn't the greatest but you can definitely hear some fine rockabilly licks. John or George? You make the call.

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Listen:
Billy Lee Riley - Red Hot mp3 at Internet Archive 1957
Billy "The Kid" Emerson - Red Hot mp3 at Internet Archive 1955
Robert Gordon w/Link Wray - Red Hot (streaming) at YouTube
The Beatles - Red Hot (Live at the Star Club) (streaming) at YouTube

RIP THE KILLER

I just heard the news this morning. The Killer is dead. Jerry Lee Lewis passed away on Friday after a bout of pneumonia. He was 87 years old. This one really fucking hurts. He was the last of the tier one original rockers. I have total respect for Lewis, not just as a rockabilly artist, not just for his singing, his piano playing, showmanship, or his ability to make any song sound like a Jerry Lee Lewis song. The one quality that he had that evaded a lot of the early rockers: he made mistakes and, this is important, owned them. He fucked up as many high profile rockers did, but he was honest enough to cop to them, right or wrong. You might disagree with some of the things he did, but you cannot accuse him of shrinking away from his actions. Most of them anyway.

All day today I was toying with doing a mammoth post but there's just too much to say. Jerry Lee Lewis has been on the top of my list of all-timers for decades. I guess the shit hasn't sunk in yet. Before I go to mourn one of the greatest rockers that ever lived, I should mention two books. I highly recommend Nick Tosches's 1982 Lewis biography Hellfire. It's probably the best biography I've ever read. Rick Bragg's 2014 authorized biography based on interviews with Lewis, Jerry Lee Lewis: His Own Story, is good too. In addition to Lewis's version of the years covered by Tosches's book, it fills the gap between '82 and '14. Let's get on with it. Here's a few random songs. RIP The Killer.

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Listen:
Jerry Lee Lewis - Great Balls of Fire mp3 at Bousculade
Jerry Lee Lewis - Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On mp3 at OTSOTM
Jerry Lee Lewis - Breathless mp3 at Internet Archive
Jerry Lee Lewis - Lewis Boogie mp3 at Internet Archive
Jerry Lee Lewis - High School Confidential mp3 at Rocky 52

THIS SAX PLAYER IS AT THE WRONG GIG

Last night I was out in the alley and the kid that lives across the alley was coming home from his karate class. He's about ten years old and a yellow belt, whatever the hell that means. He did what he always does, he starts asking questions. How old are you? Where do you work? Shit like that. After a half dozen of these volleys he asked a question that was so unrelated it was something you could easily find online. I just answered him "Google". Then he asked another unrelated but searchable question. I answered "Google". I should add, at this point, that the kid has a sense of humor and we razz each other all the time. So I wasn't being cruel or mean, I was teaching him how to use his fucking head. After a couple more questions I thought I'd make a point. I answered, "Google. You can find anything on there." With that, the Q & A ceased and we chatted about other alley subjects.

I thought about last nights episode just a couple hours ago. I ran into some great rockabilly cuts from a band I never heard of, the Sabres. I did a search using Duck Duck Go. (Google is actually a last resort for me. Too big.). I found links to the same songs I had already run into, but no bio anywhere, nothing more than a couple sentences. Reluctantly, I tried Google. Nearly identical results. I'm gonna have to go crawling back to that kid. "Hey, about the other night, I'm sorry, I was wrong. You can't find shit on Google!"

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Listen:
The Sabres - My Hot Mama mp3 at Rocky 52
The Sabres - Puppet mp3 at Rocky 52
The Sabres - Take Up he Slack Daddy-O mp3 at Rocky 52

SUCRETS HAS A POSSE

Well ain't that about a suck. I ran into an old link to a Mickey Hawks song and it was kaput. I went to the hosting site and only the home page was still functioning.That wouldn't be a big deal except that there are several links sprinkled around here that I'll have to double check and update if possible. I wouldn't bother but most of the cuts were prime, as in essential, rockabilly. Mickey Hawk was what I was looking for, so let's start with him.

Hawks was a singer and piano player that recorded under his own name and with his band as the Night Raiders. A couple things to note: On the first song, an instrumental, the lead instrument is guitar, and not Hawks at all. Still good though, notable because the guitar player and writer of the song, Bill Ballard, was only sixteen years old at the time. He joined the band at age fourteen. The other thing is Hawks's voice on "Bip Bop Boom" and "Screamin' Mimi Jeanie". It's my very favorite type of rock 'n' roll voice. Enough of a continuous scream that you know they're doing major damage. He's up there with Little Richard, Nick Curran, Gerry Roslie and Bunker Hill. Here we go, I feel myself getting pulled away. Before I go run off to the Land of the Shredded Larynx,  a tip. Read the Hawk profile at the Hound. He does a more thorough job than anybody else.

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Listen:
Mickey Hawks - Cotton Pickin' mp3 at Rocky 52
The Night Raiders - Bip Bop Boom mp3 at Rocky 52
The Night Raiders - Screamin' Mimi Jeanie mp3 at Rocky 52
Mickey Hawks - Rock and Roll Rhythm mp3 at Rocky 52
Visit:
Mickey Hawks and the Night Raiders at The Hound Blog

JERRY LEE, THERE ARE LADIES PRESENT.

I'm as guilty as anyone. When someone mentions Sun Records or the studio itself my first association is rockabilly, followed by blues and hillbilly. And it is always the male artists I think Barbara Pittman (above) would be the only female Sun artist that would immediately come to mind. But there were a lot of women recorded at Sun, enough for a six CD set. All shapes and sizes. Here's four of them.

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Listen:
Barbara Pittman - I Need a Man mp3 at Internet Archive
Unknown Singer - Mexican Rock 'n' Roll (demo) mp3 at Internet Archive
Linda Gail Lewis - C.C. Rider mp3 at Internet Archive
Big Memphis Marainey - Baby No! No! mp3 at Internet Archive

LIGHTNING ROUND

Quick, name five women who recorded at Sun Records. Pass? Oh, wait, we have an egghead-abilly over here. Okay hotshot, name a woman who recorded at Sun who also had a brother who recorded at Sun. Oh, you're good. Watch it or you'll get a crease in your cuffed Levis. Now, name a song that both brother and sister recorded separate versions of. Bonus question: Name a man, a brother who had a sister and both had recorded different versions of the same song at Sun and who also happens to be the greatest first generation rocker still among us. (Answers below.)

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Listen:
Patsy Holcomb - I Wanna Rock mp3 at Internet Archive
Jean Chapel - Welcome to the Club mp3 at Internet Archive
Charlotte Smith - I Just Discovered Boys mp3 at Internet Archive
Barbara Pittman - I Need a Man mp3 at Internet Archive
Linda Gail Lewis - C.C. Rider mp3 at Internet Archive
Jerry Lee Lewis - C.C. Rider (streaming) at YouTube
Jerry Lee Lewis - Great Balls of Fire mp3 at Bousculade

HERE HERE'S GLEN GLENN

It's been ages since I've had a smoke and cup of coffee at the same time. I can't smoke in my apartment complex and can't smoke in a coffee shop. That used to be one of my favorite ways to relax, A smoke, coffee and a book or magazine. I was thinking about that today, and then thought about the Jim Jarmusch film Coffee and Cigarettes. I was on that tack when I remembered Glen Glenn's "One Cup of Coffee and a Cigarette". It occurred to me that he was one of the rockabilly cats that slipped through the cracks here. I don't remember if I've posted him before. I'm too lazy to do the full bio thing. No apologies. Because: coffee and cigarettes.

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Listen:
Glen Glenn - Blue Jeans and a Boys Shirt mp3 at Rockabilly Hall
Glen Glenn - One Cup of Coffee and a Cigarette mp3 at Rockabilly Hall
Glen Glenn - If I Had Me a Woman mp3 at Rockabilly Hall
Visit:
Coffee and Cigarettes - Trailer at YouTube
Glen Glenn - Long bio at Deke Dickerson

WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?

Sanford Clark died yesterday, from covid. "Sanford who?" you say. I said it too, then racked my brain. The headline referred to him as a rockabilly artist, that's what threw me. Once I saw the song "The Fool" mentioned it came back to me. Yeeaahhh, I guess you could consider him rockabilly in a stretch, he did have some more up-tempo stuff. But "The Fool", like a lot of his stuff, has more of a Ricky Nelson's "Lonesome Town" or Jody Reynolds' "Endless Sleep" vibe. More of a downer-billy thing going on. You know, the sultry sullen plaintive thing that Chris Isaak borrowed liberally from, to great effect.

For you fiends, check out the full size version of the photo above. Duane Eddy is playing behind him. What's wrong with this picture? The guy that looks like Eddy is the guitar player on the right. The other guitar player, behind the drummer, doesn't really look like him. Now what's wrong with this picture? Hint, two words: solid body.

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Listen:
Sanford Clark - The Fool mp3 at Rockabilly Hall
Sanford Clark - Usta Be My Baby mp3 at Rocky 52
Sanford Clark - A Cheat mp3 at Rockabilly Hall
Sanford Clark - Modern Romance mp3 at Rocky 52
Sanford Clark - It's Nothin' To Me mp3 at Rockabilly Hall

HEY DAD, CAN I BORROW THE KEYS?

I had just closed the front door and was headed down the street to the store. I started thinking about the last song I heard before leaving, "Action Packed" by Ronnie Dee (Ronnie Dawson). I'd heard it a bunch of times but this time it was a giggle fest. It had never really been anything but a second tier rockabilly song, but this time I found it hilarious. Dawson was about nineteen when he recorded it, but it sounds as though he's fourteen. I mean, look at that photo above. And he's got attitude, approaching chest beating. Let's say you're a hot babe in 1959. A guy with a peroxide flat top whose voice hasn't even cracked yet, singing "If you chicks are timid, you just better turn back, 'cause when I take a ride in my car it's gotta be action packed. Hear me, action packed, yeah!" Right, dude's got a learner's permit. In Dawson's defense, he did do the original version of "Rockin' Bones", a song the Cramps covered. That does not lessen the giggle factor.

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Listen:
Ronnie Dawson - Action Packed mp3 at Rocky 52 1958
Ronnie Dawson - Rockin' Bones mp3 at Rocky 52 1959
Ronnie Dawson - Who's Been Here? mp3 at Rocky 52 1961
Ronnie Dawson - Rockin' Dog mp3 at Rocky 52 1994
Video:
Ronnie Dawson - Sucker For a Cheap Guitar at YouTube 1997, Nick Curran on guitar

I'M SORRY MS JACKSON

You'll have to forgive me for subjecting you to this one. I'll assume that most of the nuts that hang around here are familiar with Wanda Jackson. Right up there with her biggest songs is "Let's Have A Party". It's a great song that should rate high for anyone into old school rockabilly. That isn't what you'll have to forgive me for. You should eat up every last note of that song, her version in particular. Now, here's the tough part. Try forgiving me for plopping down this short cover by a German outfit that goes by the name of Psychotic Tanks (or went, the song was recorded in 1980). Theirs is quite possibly one of the worst cover versions of any song that I've heard in my life, and believe me I've heard a shitload of dubious covers. This one takes the cake. I'm not sure what kind of party they're singing about, but it sure sounds like a downer. I'm not going to bag on every last note. Listen to it and let me know if there is anything redeeming in it. Okay, they reinvented the song, but that's like reinventing the wheel and making it square.  To be more accurate, a square wheel and you're trying to roll it uphill in deep mud. Choosing this song to cover is not even clever. I don't mind the abrasiveness of it, but, shit, why this song. Where the fuck is Blixa when you need him?

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Listen:
Wanda Jackson - Let's Have a Party mp3 at Rockabilly Hall
Psychotic Tanks - Let's Have a Party mp3 at Margauxville

PITY JOHNNY DOLLAR

What makes a man move from rockabilly to country and western? Sometimes it's a bigger audience. Sometimes the rockabilly guy was country before he hopped on the rockabilly bandwagon and it was just easier to go back to what he was originally doing. In Johnny Dollar's case, it might have been that his life became just the hard luck story that country and western songs are all about.

Dollar recorded a few rockabilly songs that didn't get released. not back when he recorded them. The hard luck story may have started there. The recordings finally saw the light of decades later, not because Johnny Dollar was a marquee name but because a rockabilly revival occurred that had everyone looking for unreleased masters of every rockabilly burp and fart recorded back in the day.

In the late fifties Dollar had given up rockabilly and became an insurance salesman. In 1964 a chance meeting with Ray Price got his foot in the country and western door, and he signed with Columbia. Still, shit did hit fan. He had four failed marriages, became an alcoholic, fought depression and then developed throat cancer and had to quit singing. In 1986, he killed himself. I could not find any mention of his dog dying or his house getting repossessed.

As much as I like his rockabilly sides (the first three below) I must direct you to the complete WTF that is the introduction of his de rigueur tear-jerker "Forever is Over". It's the fuzz Dad, as in full-on Davie Allan worthy fuzz at the beginning of the song. Exactly four notes of fuzz. That's it. Dude couldn't get a fair shake anywhere

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Listen:
Johnny Dollar - Car Coated Baby mp3 at Rockabilly Hall
Johnny Dollar - Slim Jim Baby mp3 at Rockabilly Hall
Johnny Dollar - Green Eyed Cat mp3 at Rockabilly Hall
Johnny Dollar - Crawling Back To You mp3 at Rocky 52
Johnny Dollar - Forever is Over mp3 at Rocky 52

MISSED IT BY THAT MUCH

Somewhere between Gene Vincent and Hasil Adkins there are heck of a lot of oddball rockabilly wannnabes. Guys that, while not as crazed as the Adkins, ain't nowhere near Vincent. They're just off. Whether it's the material, the singer, the playing, or the recording quality, something is off. And there's a shitload of this type of rockabilly. I kind of dig it.

The production on these two by Warren Robbe is so out of whack it's almost as if the session was sabotaged intentionally. The guitar is buried and that muffled picking is about the only thing above average about these. Robbe's not blameless. He's surely not going to get his share of girly action by singing songs about his damn chicken pen.

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Listen:
Warren Robbe - My Chicken Pen mp3 at Rocky 52
Warren Robbe - Single Man mp3 at Rocky 52

TWTTY WAH TWITTY

Here's one that a friend recommended to me years ago. I had no interest whatsoever in Conway Twitty. My only impressions were from the seventies and after. Leisure suits and a square Dad hair cut didn't exactly ring cool, nor did his output at the time. Hell, as far as I was concerned he was straight cornball country. Then my friend made my listen to "Lonely Blue Boy". He pointed out how he drags out the "is" in the line "Lonely Blue Boy i-i-is my name". It's as painful as a one syllable word can be.You'll dig the guitar intro too. This sucker has all the ingredients. I'll bet you dollars for donuts, if the Conway Twitty name wasn't so well known there would have been a Cramps cover. I've posted it before, years ago. If you've heard it alreadty, hey, there's another one down there, "Long Black Train", straight up rockabilly, including a tight solo and requisite mumbling of lyrics.

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Listen
Conway Twitty - Lonely Blue Boy mp3 at Punch Drunk Love
Conway Twitty - Long Black Train mp3 at Rocky 52

YIKES! WHAT'S THIS WOOD THING ON ME?

I've posted Benny Joy stuff several times, I know. Humor me. One more time, because I was listening to him yesterday and hit me why he wasn't better known back in the day. Total palm-to-forehead doh! moment. Look at that photo above. That's not a live shot. That's not a candid shot. That is a posed photo, chosen as a promotional photo. Dude looks like a walking time bomb. Either that or he's worried that the guitar is diseased. The collegiate outfit just amplifies it. Oh, man, what coulda been.

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Listen:
Benny Joy - Miss Bobby Sox mp3 at Rockabilly Hall
Benny Joy - Crash the Party mp3 at Rocky 52
Benny Joy - Little Bittie Everything mp3 at Rocky 52
More Benny Joy here and here

KNOW THEM

When it comes to rockabilly, there's that first tier. A lot of Sun Records acts there. Elvis (at the beginning), Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Billy Lee Riley and so on. Come to think of it, Riley's more of a second tier in terms of recognition. And that's not saying that recognition equals quality. It rarely does in music. The wild shit doesn't get noticed by the masses. Ask most fiends of any particular genre, the first tier is littered with "safe" musicians, in the mold bank-able acts (Jerry Lee Lewis being an exception in regards to "safe"). So, there is the second tier, where Riley resides. But he's in good wild company. A few second tier acts would include Gene Vincent and the Blue Caps (the first three LPs anyway) Eddie Cochran and Johnny Burnette and the Rock 'n' Roll Trio. And Burnette's what tonight is about. Someone you should know.

Class act: The trio with Gene Vincent (second from right)

Burnette and trio had some minor hits but none big enough to keep in print, not for a few decades. It wasn't until the late seventies that their stuff started to get reissued, Bear Records out of Germany if I remember correctly. For anyone into rockabilly enough, who had a bunch of Charly's Sun reissues, and the French reissues of Gene Vincent's, the Johnny Burnette and the Rock 'n' Roll Trio reissue was a revelation, the first inkling that all the first tier and second tier stuff might be just the tip of the iceberg. Of course, I'm speaking of rockabilly fans, not the hard hardcore rockabilly freaks. They likely had valued copies of the originals, rolling their eyes right into their fucking pompadours. They had third tier stuff, Mac Curtis, Ray Campi, Ronnie Self. Fourth tier stuff and so on. The rest of the iceberg.

I well remember when the Johnny Burnette virus crept through the people I knew. It was essential stuff. It still is. Rather than sit here even longer I'll just leave these here. If you know nothing about Johnny Burnette and the Rock 'n' Roll Trio, for crying out loud, you can find a lot if you look. I'm tapped out for the night. Just remember: Essential.

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Listen:

Johnny Burnette and the Rock 'n' Roll Trio - Train Kept A-Rollin' mp3 at Beware of the Blog
Johnny Burnette and the Rock 'n' Roll Trio - Tear It Up mp3 at Internet Archive
Johnny Burnette and the Rock 'n' Roll Trio - Honey Hush mp3 at Rockn Dog
Johnny Burnette and the Rock 'n' Roll Trio - Rockabilly Boogie mp3 at Rocky 52
Johnny Burnette and the Rock 'n' Roll Trio - All By Myself mp3 at Internet Archive
Johnny Burnette and the Rock 'n' Roll Trio - Oh Baby Babe mp3 at Internet Archive

FOREGOING THE SPIT SHINE

A quick one. Looking for some rockabilly I hadn't heard, I landed on Al Ferrier. His stuff was raw enough, pretty much what I was hoping to find. Dubious studio quality, slightly exaggerated vocals, simple guitar solo, in other words second, possibly third, tier rockabilly that doesn't quite get it right and in doing so, gets it right. Someone who likely lacked the pizzazz of a Elvis Presley, or Carl Perkins, but sixty years later makes for worthwhile rockabilly shake. I was still sitting on the fence until I ran into the photo above which just screams rock 'n' roll, Check him out. Messed up hair, rolled up sleeves and a Telecaster getting ten sorts of twanged. That'll do.

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Listen:
Al Ferrier - Honey Baby mp3 at Rocky 52
Al Ferrier - Let's Go Boppin' mp3 at Rocky 52

WE'RE THE GOOD OL' BOYS

After mentioning Mickey Hawks the other day, I went back to check the other posts that had mentioned Hawks and found that some of the links were bad. We can't let that happen, not for the person who recorded the hell's-a-poppin' "Bip Bop Boom". In fact, there's two links down there for that one, in case one goes dead. You need to hear it.

Here's some a brief thing I wrote a few years ago, but you really need to go to the Hound Blog and read the bio. Here's the drivel:

They don't get any more stealth than this. The Night Raiders, sometimes billed as Mickey Hawks with Moon Mullins and his Night Raiders, and sometimes just Mickey Hawks. (Hawks is the guy in the top left.). Surely these guys were all about the bait and switch, playing the safe prom band angle and then letting loose once the stage was theirs. Maybe not. All I know is that they were capable of some wild shit, way wilder than that photo implies. The song below is just an teaser, a guitar instrumental credited to Hawks, even though he was the singer and piano player. The guitarist was a sixteen year old whizkid named Bill Ballard. He joined the band at the age of fourteen. Unbelievably badass. He wrote it too.

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Listen:
Mickey Hawks - Cotton Pickin' mp3 at Rocky 52
The Night Raiders - Bip Bop Boom mp3 at Rockabilly Hall
The Night Raiders - Bip Bop Boom mp3 at Rocky 52
The Night Raiders - Screamin' Mimi Jeanie mp3 at Rocky 52
Mickey Hawks - Rock and Roll Rhythm mp3 at Rocky 52
Visit:
Mickey Hawks and the Night Raiders at The Hound Blog

THAT LOOK WHEN YOU KNOW YOU'RE THE SHIT

I heard a shitty version of Ray Charles's "Hallelujah I Love Her So" yesterday. When that happens my normal practice is to immediately listen to another version I know is good, usually the original. This time, for whatever reason, I immediately thought of Billy Zoom's version. The version that I was thinking of is from 1981 and, although live, is a near dead ringer of Eddie Cochran's version recorded somewhere around 1957-'58.

Billy Zoom Band

Zoom was the guitarist for X, which I would hope some of you knew. Before that he was a rockabilly guy with as good a credential as you could get. He was Gene Vincent's guitarist towards the end of his career, just before he passed away. Zoom went on to record with his own band for Ronny Reiser's Rollin' Rock Records, a rockabilly label in L.A. It's just insane when you think about it. With all the retro stuff going on in recent decades, roots music, classic cars, cuffed Levis, and such, you'd be forgiven if you thought there's always been a market for rockabilly since the mid-late fifties heydays. Not so, not in the U.S.. The long hairs took care of that. Okay, so there was a market, but it was a tiny market, and consisted of only total fiends, total purest types. The fact that Rollin' Rock existed at all is just crazy. At the time Zoom was recording for them, covering Johnny Carrol's "Crazy Crazy Lovin'", most of what would become L.A.s first generation punk rockers were listening to Bowie.

Okay, we can agree that that's just nuts. But what gets me is that Zoom's cover of "Hallelujah I Love Her So" was recorded in 1981, he'd already been with X, a seminal L.A. punk band, for roughly four years, enough time for three singles and a couple LPs. Yet he retained the straight up rockabilly chops with his side thing.

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Listen:
Billy Zoom Band - Hallelujah, I Love Her So (live) mp3 at Billy Zoom 1981
Billy Zoom Band - Crazy Crazy Lovin' mp3 at  Billy Zoom Rollin' Rock 1975
Billy Zoom Band - Bad Boy mp3 at Billy Zoom Rollin' Rock 1976
Billy Zoom Band - Say When mp3 at Billy Zoom Rollin' Rock 1975
Eddie Cochran - Hallelujah, I Love Her So (streaming) at YouTube
Ray Charles - Hallelujah, I Love Her So (streaming) at YouTube
Johnny Carroll - Crazy, Crazy Lovin' mp3 at Rocky-52.net
Visit:
Billy Zoom interviewed by Buddy Seigal (Buddy Blue) from the OC Weely, 1998
Billy Zoom's Official site
Rollin' Rock Records