IN THE 1980S, the Stray Cats, led by Long Island, New York–native Brian Setzer, were something of a time machine, transporting audiences to the bygone era of the 1950s, with its heyday of Sun Records legends like Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis. On their 1982 album Built for Speed, the band fused early rock and roll and rockabilly with more modern elements of punk music, quickly finding a place in a pop landscape that from the outside might have seemed a tad unwelcoming. After all, that year saw the release of seminal albums like Michael Jackson’s Thriller, Prince’s 1999 and Roxy Music’s Avalon. But with songs like “Rock This Town” and “Stray Cat Strut,” and their complementary videos in constant rotation on the burgeoning cable channel MTV, the Stray Cats vaulted their retro sound into the mainstream.
There’s more to the story, however. The 1980s were dominated by the rise of shred guitar, which would largely fall out of favor with the release of Nirvana’s 1991 grunge classic, . But Setzer’s playing, while as brash and adventurous as that of the shredders’,was something entirely different. At the age of 16, Setzer’s muse was sparked when he heard the rock and roll gem “Be-Bop-A-Lula” by Gene Vincent and the Blue Caps, after which he developed a deep reverence for the early rock era’s largely forgotten musical forms. He would go on to electrify audiences by playing his big, orange Gretsch 6120 hollowbody electric guitar through a pair of vintage Fender Bassman amps as he plied his unique blend of rockabilly, swing and jump blues.
