Country Cousins

On a Summer Lights stage two weeks ago, Sonny Burgess and Rosie Flores obliterated boundaries of gender and generation with a set of barn-burning rockabilly that left festival-goers agape. Though they come from radically different backgrounds—Burgess from the groundbreaking Sun Records roster of the mid-1950s, Flores from the burgeoning L.A. cowpunk scene of the mid-1980s—they both exude a vitality, a zest for performing, and a love of souped-up wild-hair hillbilly music that burns away the 30 years between them.

They’re also both represented by new Rounder Records releases that further their status as standard-bearers for the roots-rock and traditional country movements. Burgess blasts out of the gate with Sonny Burgess, his first new album of original recordings since 1992’s Tennessee Border. Recorded in Nashville with producer Garry Tallent, a backup band including pianist Billy Livsey, bassist Roy Huskey Jr. and drummer John Gardner, and studio guests such as Scotty Moore and the Jordanaires, Sonny Burgess spotlights Burgess’ still commanding guitar on songs by everyone from Bruce Springsteen (a previously unrecorded tune called “Tiger Rose”) to Steve Forbert (“Catbird Seat”).

Also well represented on the LP are Nashville tunesmiths Radney Foster, Kevin Gordon, Glenn Sutton, Gwil Owen, Fred James, Henry Gross, and Tim Carroll, whose “If I Could, Then I Would” receives a zippy cover. Affectionate liner notes by the Banner’s noted music scribe Jay Orr round out the package. Record stores should be getting the CD this month; Burgess was hawking copies himself after his Summer Lights gig.

Curiously enough, it’s the younger Flores who’s represented by a compilation of older material. In 1987, Flores issued a self-titled solo LP on Warner/Reprise, then the major-label pioneer of the New Traditionalist country movement. (Ten years since Randy Travis—does that make anyone else feel old?) Disappointing sales scotched plans for a follow-up, but the record has long been treasured by collectors, critics and country fans as a vital artifact of honky-tonk’s rebirth.

The LP’s 10 tracks have been reissued on a new CD entitled A Honky Tonk Reprise, which includes Flores’ take on the blistering Wanda Jackson tune “I Gotta Know” and a version of Paul Kennerley and Hank DeVito’s “Blue Side of Town” that predates Patty Loveless’ smash recording by two years. Fans will appreciate the six unreleased bonus tracks, among them a version of Skeeter Davis’ 1963 hit “The End of the World,” as well as fine liner notes by Nashvillian Pete Loesch that place Flores’ work within the context of what was happening both in L.A. and Nashville at the time.

If you missed Burgess and Flores at Summer Lights, you can catch them Saturday night at the Bluebird Cafe, where they take the stage at 9:30 p.m. The following week, the pair will perform at the Dottie West Music Fest in McMinnville.

Nashville soulman Jimmy Hall’s gritty rock ’n’ roll has always had a decidedly bluesy edge, whether he was fronting the ’70s boogie band Wet Willie, singing with Jeff Beck on his Flash LP, or leading his own Prisoners of Love at perpetually well-attended local gigs. But in 25 years of recording he’s never released an entire blues album. That changes on July 16, when Hall’s all-blues record Rendezvous With the Blues arrives in stores.

A project of Capricorn Records, which released eight Wet Willie LPs with Hall in the 1970s, Rendezvous With the Blues features Hall singing and blowing harp with a group that includes Nashville guitarist Jack Pearson, drummer Bill Stewart, and David Hood and Clayton Ivey from the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section. Among the 11 songs are tunes by Muddy Waters and Willie Dixon, along with a version of Sam Cooke’s majestic “A Change Is Gonna Come.” The producer is Johnny Sandlin, best known for his work with the Allman Brothers (and more recently Widespread Panic).

As for Capricorn, the Nashville-based label is now affiliated with Mercury Records, with whom it will market, promote, manufacture and distribute its records. Upcoming Capricorn releases include new records by Col. Bruce Hampton’s Fiji Mariners, Austin’s Ugly Americans, Georgia bluesman Johnny Jenkins, and Cake.

Tom Ovans, the talented singer-songwriter whose career has fared much better overseas than at home in Nashville, will have his new compilation CD Nuclear Sky released in Europe by Demon Records, the British label that’s home to Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe, Joe Ely, Edwyn Collins and others. “They usually sign real super-famous people,” says Ovans, chuckling, “so I don’t know what they’re doing.” The CD assembles cuts from Ovans’ studio albums Industrial Days and Unreal City, along with alternate and unreleased tracks from his 1995 Tales From the Underground CD.

Nuclear Sky will be available in the U.S. only as an import, so watch for it at Lucy’s and Tower; it’s due in stores June 24. Tales From the Underground continues to receive airplay in Europe—especially in France, where the single “Dance With Me Girl” was a Top 40 rock-radio hit—and Ovans will begin work on a new studio album later this year. In the meantime, Ovans’ records are worth seeking out, especially Unreal City and Tales From the Underground, which combine moments of alienation and despair with a madly romantic streak of bohemian lyricism.