Sheree Homer, “Catch that Rockabilly Fever: Personal Stories of Life on the Road and in the Studio” (McFarland, 2010)

“On July 5, 1954, Elvis Presley, Scotty Moore, and Bill Black forever changed musical history,” writes Sheree Homer in Catch that Rockabilly Fever: Personal Stories of Life on the Road and in the Studio (McFarland, 2010). It was on this day that the trio recorded Arthur ‘Big Boy’ Crudup’s “That’s All Right” at Sam Phillips’ Sun Recording Studio in Memphis, Tennessee. Rockabilly was born. Rockabilly is a rambunctious musical style that combines the liveliest elements of country, gospel, and rhythm and blues. Homer captures the essence of rockabilly through biographical vignettes of forty-six rockabilly artists including Carl Mann, Elvis Presley, Ronnie Hawkins, Buddy Holly and the Crickets, Ricky Nelson, Laura Lee Perkins, High Noon, and Cari Lee Merritt. These portraits include legends as well as newcomers, southerners as well as Californians, pioneers as well as revivalists. Much of Homer’s material come from personal interviews with the artists themselves or those who were close to them. What better way is there to understand a musical style than through the lives of the people, both past and present, who make it?

Catch that Rockabilly Fever is a 2011 finalist in the Association for Recorded Sound Collections Awards for Excellence in the “Best Research in Recorded Rock and Pop Music” category.

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