Rockabilly voltage

By JEFFREY LEE PUCKETT © The Courier-Journal
Reviewed July 18, 1998

Crown Electric is smarter than your average rockabilly revival band because it understands what's needed to make a career last longer than the arc of a trend. A band based on hair tonic and thrift-store Western shirts will only pay off until the next revival, and if that happens to be girl groups, well, somebody's out of luck.

"Rockabilly Opera" has its share of fill-in-the-blank retro tributes, but it also digs a little deeper into early roots music, leaving Crown Electric a few options. Songs such as "Radioactive Girl" and "Hot Hamburger" definitely have a rockabilly heart, but acoustic guitars and lap steel open the sound up to include country and swing influences. A few songs fall flat simply because we've heard them too many times before, only with different lyrics; "Pink and Purple Plaid Cadillac," for example, is just an excuse to solo.

Not that soloing is bad, especially when you have veteran players such as Bob Burris (lead guitar), Frank Turner (bass) and Jon McGee (drums) keeping the rhythms tight and to the point. Singer Michael Tevis doesn't need buckets of reverb to sound good, and his clean, acrobatic voice has echoes of Roy Orbison.

Crown Electric, which calls Lexington home, is celebrating the release of "Rockabilly Opera" tonight (July 18) at Headliners Music Hall, 1386 Lexington Road (9:30 p.m., $5). Steve Ferguson and the Midwest Creole Ensemble headlines.

LOUISVILLE SCENE HOMEPAGE