High-School Drop-Out Hero

by Greg Davis

The recent death of Dale Earnhardt briefly put the spotlight on high school dropouts who have gone on to greatness. Another such high school dropout will be releasing the CD, titled Ignition, of his most recent musical project, '68 Comeback Special, on June 12, 2001. I'm referring to Brian Setzer, guitar slinger/singer/songwriter extraordinaire. Setzer rarely gets the recognition he deserves. However in an era of musical stagnation and mediocrity (a Tool CD is the current top seller, need I elaborate further?), Setzer's new rockabilly project, which features thirteen original songs, is a welcome bit of virtuosity.

In the last twenty years of fronting bands as lead singer and lone guitar player, Brian Setzer has revived and brought mainstream popularity to two obscure, but uniquely American genres, rockabilly and swing. He accomplished this by first mastering each genre as a singer and guitar player, then adding original songs that improved on the genre while sticking to his vision through much adversity until finally commercial success was achieved.

Setzer's singing and guitar playing as leader of the Stray Cats fueled the rockabilly revival of the early 1980's. The Stray Cats did better-than-the-original covers rockabilly classics like "Jeanie, Jeanie, Jeanie" and "Baby Blue Eyes" and added original masterpieces "Rock this Town" and "Stray Cat Strut" to their #2 selling album Built for Speed. Setzer's masterful guitar solos often combined raunchy rock and roll licks, country-flavored fingerpicking, lead chords, and fluid jazz runs as in the solo from the Stray Cats' original song "Too Hip, Gotta Go" from their album, Rant and Rave with the Stray Cats.

After the Stray Cats broke up, Setzer decided to try an idea that had been brewing in his mind for some time. He wanted to see if he could combine his lead guitar playing and singing with a swinging big band. Taking eighteen swing musicians on the road and making enough money to pay them in 1992 when grunge band Nirvana was at #1 was a daunting task to say the least. Setzer often had to pay the band out of his own pocket. The Brian Setzer Orchestra, as it was called, met with only modest success with their first two albums. Setzer almost had to give up on his beloved orchestra for lack of money when the BSO hit it big with their double Grammy-winning third album, The Dirty Boogie.

The BSO started out playing covers of swing classics, but Brian Setzer has never been satisfied to be a nostalgia act. He mastered swing giving updated treatments to classics like "In the Mood" and "Jump, Jive and Wail" and then put his own stamp on it with such original songs as "This Cat’s on a Hot Tin Roof", "Let’s Live it Up," and "Switchblade 327." Along with everything else Brian Setzer does, he also writes out the sheet music for the whole orchestra.

As a long time fan of Brian Setzer I'm glad that he is finally getting some of the recognition, especially as a guitar player, that he deserves. He dropped out of high school (rockabilly rebels don't go to school as he pointed out in the Stray Cats song "Rebels Rule") to pursue his dream of playing rockabilly for as wide an audience as possible. Today, there is no singer/guitar player who ever lived who could fill his shoes. That's right, not Hendrix, not Clapton, not Vaughn – no one could the shoes of Brian Setzer – "the rockinest cat in the galaxy."