What is Rockabilly?
Rockabilly is a genre of music which grew out of impromptu jam sessions between musicians in the American South during the early to mid-1950s. Performers in such Southern cities as Memphis, Tennessee or Jackson, Mississippi would often perform traditional blues songs in the upbeat style of Texas Swing or popular country music. Early rockabilly musicians would emulate the emotional vocal stylings of black blues singers, while adding the slap bass and bright pedal guitar sounds of Texas Swing and artists such as Hank Williams. Rockabilly drummers also developed a looser rhythm pattern with a strong back beat.
While dozens of musicians in the Memphis music scene were gaining local attention with their new rockabilly sound, a few were able to take rockabilly to a higher level of exposure. A Texas Swing band leader named Bill Haley reworked his countrified version of a blues song into a minor rockabilly single called "Rock Around the Clock." It contained many of the elements of true rockabilly, but still retained some of its dance band flavor. Only when the song was featured in the movie Blackboard Jungle did it become the country's introduction to the rockabilly sound.
Meanwhile, other artists were continuing to perfect the rockabilly sound for their younger fan base. Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash and Roy Orbison all recorded rockabilly songs at the legendary Sun Studios in Memphis, Tennessee. Carl Perkins was especially proficient at the rhythmic guitar picking style associated with rockabilly, as was Luther Perkins and Scottie Moore. Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash both combined elements of blues singing and country music to create the signature rockabilly vocal sound. Rockabilly singers often used whoops, shouts, hiccups and heavy echoes to capture the raw energy of the form.
Once rockabilly went mainstream, however, it lost much of its popularity among the often fickle teen demographic. Ironically, it was former rockabilly artists such as Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly who became more popular as "rock and roll" singers. Other rockabilly performers such as Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash either pursued careers outside of the United States or became more associated with country music. While rockabilly may not have lasted all that long as a mainstream rock subcategory, its influence can still be felt in modern rock music. Several bands such as the Stray Cats have continued to perform in the rockabilly tradition, while other artists have recorded songs using only the spare rockabilly arrangement of slap bass, drums and hollow body electric guitar.
Written by Michael Pollick
