Two years ago, the Reverend Horton Heat rolled into Nashville celebrating their first 25 years of keeping rockabilly good 'n' greasy. In an interview with the Scene, Heat frontman and guitarist Jim Heath said, "There are some bands that try to be a museum piece. We perhaps came close at the beginning, but we were always trying to turn it into our own thing."
That statement of purpose applies equally to the two artists the good Reverend will be sharing a bill with Friday at Exit/In — Rosie Flores and Dale Watson. In the sometimes style-obsessed world of neo-rockabilly and nouveau hillbilly, artists can fall victim to the peril of confusing inspiration with imitation — seeking to slavishly re-create the past rather than turning it into "their own thing." Mindless imitation is a dead end these three roots music road warriors have avoided by traveling their own paths throughout their decades of making records and burning up the highways.
Rosie Flores began her career in the late-'70s Los Angeles punk-fueled rockabilly-revival scene. From the very beginning she was mixing and matching her wide range of influences — country, rockabilly, blues, surf guitar and garage rock. She occasionally settled on one style for individual albums, like the straightforward country of her 1987 self-titled major label debut, or 1995's Rockabilly Filly. But despite occasional stops at individual stylistic stations, Flores shines brightest on albums like her most recent release, Working Girl's Guitar, with which she showcases her ability to amalgamate her influences into a tasty and varied smorgasbord, keeping her music fresh and exciting decades into her career.
Dale Watson, on the other hand, planted his flag on one stylistic hill early in his career: hardcore honky-tonk. While that made him a hero to uncompromising country fans when he first appeared in the middle of The Garth Decade — the 1990s — he was often characterized as stubborn and stuck in the past when he threw sharpened barbs at modern country with songs like "Nashville Rash." But Watson knew that languages are only dead when no one speaks them, and the same is true for musical style. He's spent the past two decades proving there are still powerful tales to be told from the honky-tonk pulpit, and he's brought that message to the faithful through such knockout albums as Carryin' On and El Rancho Azul.
For Reverend Horton Heat, grabbing onto rockabilly at the end of the 1980s was an act of pure punk panache. While the short but spectacular success of Stray Cats in the early '80s brought "the original punk rock" back into the spotlight, for some it only confirmed the style as a best-forgotten joke from rock's early history. But Jim Heath and his cronies knew better. Ignoring the rockabilly fashionistas, they dragged hillbilly bop back into the spotlight with frantic stage shows and twisted humor, updating it for a new audience and lighting a fire that simmered a spicy gumbo of rockabilly reinvention that has continued from their first release (1990's Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em) right through to their most recent long-player, Rev.
So no matter how you like your roots served up, when Rosie, Dale and the Reverend take the Exit/In stage Friday night, it's sure to be a musical meal that will satisfy the most discriminating of palates. But have a fire extinguisher handy, just in case.
Email music@nashvillescene.com
