Rockabilly music maintains a level of darkness as a genre. For those of us who love rockabilly and listen to a lot of rockabilly songs, it’s easy to forget that many people don’t even know what rockabilly is. So while one could legitimately argue that rockabilly itself is dark, there is another level of darkness that runs even deeper. That obscurity, those obscure artists and their recordings, contain an immense treasure for the lover of rockabilly music.
Like every musical genre, rockabilly has its royalty. Of course, there is the King, Elvis, along with Carl Perkins, Gene Vincent, Eddie Cochran, Johnny Burnette, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis, and others who have found varying degrees of fame and fortune. The music these cats made defines rockabilly history and for anyone new to the genre, well you can’t go wrong with these names. Listening to their music will give you a great education in the rockabilly tradition.
But once you get familiar with these guys and start scratching below the surface, that’s when you really start to uncover the untold riches that lie below the surface. First you come across names like Wanda Jackson, the Queen of Rockabilly and some of her fantastic early rockabilly recordings. That whets your appetite for more girly rockabilly and you soon discover Janis Martin, the Collins Kids (with Larry and Lorrie Collins), Rose Maddox and Sparkle Moore.
Then, when you realize there was a lot more to the rockabilly genre than you thought, you dig even deeper. There you find names like Jack Scott, Glen Glenn, Sleepy LaBeef and Billy Lee Riley. You learn about Sun Records and discover with no small surprise that Johnny Cash, Conway Twitty and Charlie Rich started in the same place as Elvis and you begin to realize the influence this small Memphis record label had on not only the world of rock and roll, but also modern country music.
Now you’re really interested. Further investigation turns up names like Earsel Hickey, Groovy Joe Poovey, Charlie Feathers, Warren Smith, Joe Bennett and the Sparkletones, and many, many more. It isn’t long before you start to realize that the first thing you knew about rockabilly wasn’t anywhere near the complete puzzle. Perhaps those more famous names are the big pieces of that puzzle. But you realize that just with those big names and their most famous recordings, you have hundreds of little holes in the picture.
It’s those names and the recordings that start to appear out of the mist of darkness that really start to complete the picture. There is no doubt for anyone who loves the rockabilly genre that this music is fun. But like any good puzzle, the real fun comes with the discovery. Each new piece you discover, each one you fit into its proper place, gives you a more vivid understanding of the whole story. And what a rich, rich history this rockabilly history is!
So what new puzzle pieces have you discovered lately? If you’ve already discovered all the names I’ve left here, try Paul Louise, Mr. Mack, Sonny Sheter, Coye Wilcox, Norm Sharkey, Hugh Lewis, Bill Thomas, Ebe Sneezer And His Epidemics…