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Elvis Presley Biography

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 12:01:00 +0000

Elvis Presley may be the single most important figure in American 20th century popular music. Not necessarily the best, and certainly not the most consistent. But no one could argue with the fact that he was the musician most responsible for popularizing rock & roll on an international level. Viewed in cold sales figures, his impact was phenomenal. Dozens upon dozens of international smashes from the mid-'50s to the mid-'70s, as well as the steady sales of his catalog and reissues since his death in 1977, may make him the single highest-selling performer in history.

More important from a music lover's perspective, however, are his remarkable artistic achievements. Presley was not the very first white man to sing rhythm & blues; Bill Haley predated him in that regard, and there may have been others as well. Elvis was certainly the first, however, to assertively fuse country and blues music into the style known as rockabilly. While rockabilly arrangements were the foundations of his first (and possibly best) recordings, Presley could not have become a mainstream superstar without a much more varied palette that also incorporated pop, gospel, and even some bits of bluegrass and operatic schmaltz here and there. His 1950s recordings established the basic language of rock & roll; his explosive and sexual stage presence set standards for the music's visual image; his vocals were incredibly powerful and versatile.

Unfortunately, to much of the public, Elvis is more icon than artist. Innumerable bad Hollywood movies, increasingly caricatured records and mannerisms, and a personal life that became steadily more sheltered from real-world concerns (and steadily more bizarre) gave his story a somewhat mythic status. By the time of his death, he'd become more a symbol of gross Americana than of cultural innovation. The continued speculation about his incredible career has sustained interest in his life, and supported a large tourist/entertainment industry, that may last indefinitely, even if the fascination is fueled more by his celebrity than his music.

Born to a poor Mississippi family in the heart of Depression, Elvis had moved to Memphis by his teens, where he absorbed the vibrant melting pot of Southern popular music in the form of blues, country, bluegrass, and gospel. After graduating from high school, he became a truck driver, rarely if ever singing in public. Some 1953 and 1954 demos, recorded at the emerging Sun label in Memphis primarily for Elvis' own pleasure, helped stir interest on the part of Sun owner Sam Phillips. In mid-1954, Phillips, looking for a white singer with a black feel, teamed Presley with guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black. Almost by accident, apparently, the trio hit upon a version of an Arthur Crudup blues tune, "That's All Right Mama," that became Elvis' first single.

Elvis' five Sun singles pioneered the blend of R&B and C&W that would characterize rockabilly music. For quite a few scholars, they remain not only Elvis' best singles, but the best rock & roll ever recorded. Claiming that Elvis made blues acceptable for the white market is not the whole picture; the singles usually teamed blues covers with country and pop ones, all made into rock & roll (at this point a term that barely existed) with the pulsing beat, slap-back echo, and Elvis' soaring, frenetic vocals. "That's All Right Mama," "Blue Moon of Kentucky," "Good Rockin' Tonight," "Baby Let's Play House," and "Mystery Train" remain core early rock classics.

The singles sold well in the Memphis area immediately, and by 1955 were starting to sell well to country audiences throughout the South. Presley, Moore, and Black hit the road with a stage show that grew ever wilder and more provocative, Elvis' swiveling hips causing enormous controversy. The move to all-out rock was hastened by the addition of drums. The last Sun single, "I Forgot to Remember Forget"/"Mystery Train," hit number one on the national country charts in late 1955. Presley was obviously a performer with superstar potential, attracting the interest of bigger labels and Colonel Tom Parker, who became Elvis' manager. In need of capital to expand the Sun label, Sam Phillips sold Presley's contract to RCA in late 1955 for 35,000 dollars; a bargain, when viewed in hindsight, but an astronomical sum at the time.

This is the point where musical historians start to diverge in opinion. For many, the whole of his subsequent work for RCA -- encompassing over 20 years -- was a steady letdown, never recapturing the pure, primal energy that was harnessed so effectively on the handful of Sun singles. Elvis, however, was not a purist. What he wanted, more than anything, was to be successful. To do that, his material needed more of a pop feel; in any case, he'd never exactly been one to disparage the mainstream, naming Dean Martin as one of his chief heroes from the get-go. At RCA, his rockabilly was leavened with enough pop flavor to make all of the charts, not just the country ones.

At the beginning, at least, the results were hardly any tamer than the Sun sessions. "Heartbreak Hotel," his first single, rose to number one and, aided by some national television appearances, helped make Elvis an instant superstar. "I Want You, I Need You, I Love You" was a number one follow-up; the double-sided monster "Hound Dog"/"Don't Be Cruel" was one of the biggest-selling singles the industry had ever experienced up to that point. Albums and EPs were also chart-toppers, not just in the U.S., but throughout the world. The 1956 RCA recordings, while a bit more sophisticated in production and a bit less rootsy in orientation than his previous work, were still often magnificent, rating among the best and most influential recordings of early rock & roll.

Elvis' (and Colonel Parker's) aspirations were too big to be limited to records and live appearances. By late 1956, his first Hollywood movie, Love Me Tender, had been released; other screen vehicles would follow in the next few years, Jailhouse Rock being the best. The hits continued unabated, several of them ("Jailhouse Rock," "All Shook Up," "Too Much") excellent, and often benefiting from the efforts of top early rock songwriter Otis Blackwell, as well as the emerging team of Jerry Leiber-Mike Stoller. The Jordanaires added both pop and gospel elements with their smooth backup vocals.

Yet worrisome signs were creeping in. The Dean Martin influence began rearing his head in smoky, sentimental ballads such as "Loving You"; the vocal swoops became more exaggerated and stereotypical, although the overall quality of his output remained high. And although Moore and Black continued to back Elvis on his early RCA recordings, within a few years the musicians had gone their own ways.

Presley's recording and movie careers were interrupted by his induction into the Army in early 1958. There was enough material in the can to flood the charts throughout his two-year absence (during which he largely served in Germany). When he re-entered civilian life in 1960, his popularity, remarkably, was at just as high a level as when he left.

One couldn't, unfortunately, say the same for the quality of his music, which was not just becoming more sedate, but was starting to either repeat itself, or opt for operatic ballads that didn't have a whole lot to do with rock. Elvis' rebellious, wild image had been tamed to a large degree as well, as he and Parker began designing a career built around Hollywood films. Shortly after leaving the Army, in fact, Presley gave up live performing altogether for nearly a decade to concentrate on movie-making. The films, in turn, would serve as vehicles to both promote his records and to generate maximum revenue with minimal effort. For the rest of the '60s, Presley ground out two or three movies a year that, while mostly profitable, had little going for them in the way of story, acting, or social value.

While there were some quality efforts on Presley's early-'60s albums, his discography was soon dominated by forgettable soundtracks, mostly featuring material that was dispensable or downright ridiculous. In time he became largely disinterested in devoting much time to his craft in the studio. The soundtrack LPs themselves were sometimes filled out with outtakes that had been in the can for years (and these, sadly, were often the highlights of the albums). There were some good singles in the early '60s, like "Return to Sender"; once in a while there was even a flash of superb, tough rock, like "Little Sister" or "(Marie's the Name) His Latest Flame." But by 1963 or so there was little to get excited about, although he continued to sell in large quantities.

The era spanning, roughly, 1962-1967 has generated a school of Elvis apologists, eager to wrestle any kernel of quality that emerged from his recordings during this period. They also point out that Presley was assigned poor material, and assert that Colonel Parker was largely responsible for Presley's emasculation. True to a point, but on the other hand it could be claimed, with some validity, that Presley himself was doing little to rouse himself from his artistic stupor, letting Parker destroy his artistic credibility without much apparent protest, and holing up in his large mansion with a retinue of yes-men that protected their benefactor from much day-to-day contact with a fast-changing world.

The Beatles, all big Elvis fans, displaced Presley as the biggest rock act in the world in 1964. What's more, they did so by writing their own material and playing their own instruments; something Elvis had never been capable of, or particularly aspired to. They, and the British and American groups the Beatles influenced, were not shy about expressing their opinions, experimenting musically, and taking the reins of their artistic direction into their own hands. The net effect was to make Elvis Presley, still churning out movies in Hollywood as psychedelia and soul music became the rage, seem irrelevant, even as he managed to squeeze out an obscure Dylan cover ("Tomorrow Is a Long Time") on a 1966 soundtrack album.

By 1967 and 1968, there were slight stirrings of an artistic reawakening by Elvis. Singles like "Guitar Man," "Big Boss Man," and "U.S. Male," though hardly classics, were at least genuine rock & roll that sounded better than much of what he'd been turning out for years. A 1968 television special gave Presley the opportunity he needed to reinvent himself as an all-out leather-coated rocker, still capable of magnetizing an audience, and eager to revisit his blues and country roots.

The 1968 album Elvis in Memphis was the first LP in nearly a decade in which Presley seemed cognizant of current trends, as he updated his sounds with contemporary compositions and touches of soul to create some reasonably gutsy late-'60s pop/rock. This material, and 1969 hits like "Suspicious Minds" and "In the Ghetto," returned him to the top of the charts. Arguably, it's been overrated by critics, who were so glad to have him singing rock again that they weren't about to carp about the slickness of some of the production, or the mediocrity of some of the songwriting.

But Elvis' voice did sound good, and he returned to live performing in 1969, breaking in with weeks of shows in Las Vegas. This was followed by national tours that proved him to still be an excellent live entertainer, even if the exercises often reeked of show-biz extravaganza. (Elvis never did play outside of North America and Hawaii, possibly because Colonel Parker, it was later revealed, was an illegal alien who could have faced serious problems if he traveled abroad.) Hollywood was history, but studio and live albums were generated at a rapid pace, usually selling reasonably well, although Presley never had a Top Ten hit after 1972's "Burning Love."

Presley's 1970s recordings, like most of his '60s work, are the focus of divergent critical opinion. Some declare them to be, when Elvis was on, the equal of anything he did, especially in terms of artistic diversity. It's true that the material was pretty eclectic, running from country to blues to all-out rock to gospel (Presley periodically recorded gospel-only releases, going all the way back to 1957). At the same time, his vocal mannerisms were often stilted, and the material -- though not nearly as awful as that '60s soundtrack filler -- sometimes substandard. Those who are not serious Elvis fans will usually find this late-period material to hold only a fraction of the interest of his '50s classics.

Elvis' final years have been the subject of a cottage industry of celebrity bios, tell-alls, and gossip screeds from those who knew him well, or (more likely) purported to know him well. Those activities are really beyond the scope of a mini-bio such as this, but it's enough to note that his behavior was becoming increasingly instable. His weight fluctuated wildly; his marriage broke up; he became dependent upon a variety of prescription drugs. Worst of all, he became isolated from the outside world except for professional purposes (he continued to tour until the end), rarely venturing outside of his Graceland mansion in Memphis. Colonel Parker's financial decisions on behalf of his client have also come in for much criticism.

On August 16, 1977, Presley was found dead in Graceland. The cause of death remains a subject of widespread speculation, although it seems likely that drugs played a part. An immediate cult (if cult is the way to describe millions of people) sprang up around his legacy, kept alive by the hundreds of thousands of visitors who make the pilgrimage to Graceland annually. Elvis memorabilia, much of it kitsch, is another industry in his own right. Dozens if not hundreds make a comfortable living by impersonating the King in live performance. And then there are all those Elvis sightings, reported in tabloids on a seemingly weekly basis.

Although Presley had recorded a mammoth quantity of both released and unreleased material for RCA, the label didn't show much interest in repackaging it with the respect due such a pioneer. Haphazard collections of outtakes and live performances were far rarer than budget reissues and countless repackagings of the big hits. In the CD age, RCA finally began to treat the catalog with some of the reverence it deserved, at long last assembling a box set containing nearly all of the 1950s recordings. Similar, although less exciting, box sets were documenting the 1960s, the 1970s, and his soundtrack recordings. And exploitative reissues of Elvis material continue to appear constantly, often baited with one or two rare outtakes or alternates to entice the completists (of which there are many). In death, as in life, Presley continues to be one of RCA's most consistent earners. Fortunately, with a little discretion, a good Elvis library can be built with little duplication, sticking largely to the most highly recommended selections.

The Stray Cats Biography

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 08:03:00 +0000

The Stray Cats are a rockabilly band first formed in 1979 by guitarist/vocalist Brian Setzer with school friends Lee Rocker (born Leon Drucker) and Slim Jim Phantom (born James McDonnell) in the Long Island town of Massapequa, New York. The group, whose style was based upon the sounds of Sun Records artists from the 50s, had little initial success in the New York music scene, and had to move to England before they saw any success at all within the nascent rockabilly revival there. The group had several hit singles in the U.K. and the U.S. during the early 1980s.

After a gig in London, the Stray Cats met producer Dave Edmunds, well known as a roots rock enthusiast for his work with Rockpile and as a solo artist. Edmunds offered to work with the group, and they entered the studio to record their self-titled debut album, Stray Cats, released in England in 1981 on Arista Records. They were popular immediately, scoring three straight hits that year with Runaway Boys, Rock This Town and Stray Cat Strut.

The follow-up, Gonna Ball, wasn’t as well received, and stung by the negative reviews, the Stray Cats decided to return to the States and make a go of it. They signed with EMI America and in 1982 released their U.S. debut, Built for Speed, which compiled the highlights from their two British LPs. Helped by extensive airplay on MTV at the height of the anything-goes new wave era, “Rock This Town” and “Stray Cat Strut” both hit the American Top Ten, over a year after their British chart peaks. As a result, Built for Speed was a left-field smash, and the Stray Cats were seen as avatars of retro style. Their second American album, Rant n’ Rave With the Stray Cats, appeared in 1983 and produced another Top Ten hit in “(She’s) Sexy + 17,” as well as a minor Top 40 entry in the doo wop-styled ballad “I Won’t Stand in Your Way.”

Personality conflicts began to emerge in the ways the individual members handled their newfound success; Phantom married actress (and former Rod Stewart paramour) Britt Ekland, while Setzer made guest appearances with stars like Bob Dylan and Stevie Nicks and became the concert guitarist for Robert Plant’s Honeydrippers side project. In late 1984, Setzer broke up the band amid much bad blood. Rocker and Phantom immediately teamed up with guitarist Earl Slick and recorded an album as Phantom, Rocker & Slick, while Setzer waited a couple of years before releasing his roots rock solo debut, The Knife Feels Like Justice. By 1986, fences had apparently been mended enough for the Stray Cats to reconvene in Los Angeles and record the covers-heavy Rock Therapy, which didn’t sell that well. The trio returned to their respective post-Stray Cats projects, which both released albums that performed disappointingly. In 1989, they reunited once again for the album Blast Off, which was accompanied by a tour with Stevie Ray Vaughan. No longer with EMI, the Cats entered the studio with Nile Rodgers for the lackluster Let’s Go Faster, issued by Liberation in 1990. 1992’s Dave Edmunds-produced Choo Choo Hot Fish also attracted little attention, and after another covers album, Original Cool, the group called it quits again. They have since reunited periodically for live performances.

Carl Mann - Bio

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 19:43:00 +0000

One of the last discoveries on Sam Phillips' legendary Sun label, piano player Carl Mann was best known for his rockabilly reworking of the Nat "King" Cole pop standard "Mona Lisa." That million-selling hit positioned him as something of a softer, smoother Jerry Lee Lewis, possessed of a crooner's instincts and a velvety vibrato. Unfortunately, Mann was never able to land another hit on the level of "Mona Lisa," despite waxing a fair amount of high-quality rock & roll. Like many early rock vets, he eventually moved into country music when the rockabilly market dried up, but never successfully established himself in that arena, and gradually drifted out of music.

Carl Mann was born in Huntingdon, TN, on August 22, 1942. He grew up in a strongly rural area, where his family ran a lumber business, and fell in love with country music as a child. He began singing in church at age nine and soon moved on to performing country songs at area talent contests. He learned guitar at age ten, and piano at 13, by which time he'd already become a regular on local radio. He also formed a band with several other young musicians, and soon took an interest in the R&B and rockabilly records that some of his DJ friends played on the radio, especially those of Elvis Presley. In 1957, Mann successfully auditioned for the Jaxon label and cut his debut single, "Gonna Rock and Roll Tonight" b/w "Rockin' Love"; those sides marked his first collaborations with guitarist Eddie Bush, who would become an important member of Mann's band, and assisted him on his rearrangement of "Mona Lisa." Mann cut several more unreleased sides for Jaxon over the next year, and caught a break when Carl Perkins' drummer Bill "Fluke" Holland offered to become his manager. Holland brought Mann to Sun Records in 1959, and Sam Phillips signed him to a three-year deal. Mann cut his take on "Mona Lisa" early that year, and while Phillips wasn't keen on releasing it as a single, Conway Twitty heard the demo tape and quickly cut his own version, which began climbing the charts. Phillips hurriedly issued Mann's, which battled Twitty's all the way up the pop charts. Both hit the Top 30, and while they tended to cancel each other out in terms of placement, Mann's wound up selling over a million copies; and he wasn't even 17 years old.

Despite the newfound stardom and several TV appearances, "Mona Lisa" turned out to be the pinnacle of Mann's commercial success. At first, he tried to repeat the formula by rocking up other vintage pop standards, which failed to return him to the Top 40, and perhaps even obscured the virtues of original tunes like "I'm Coming Home." Mann also wasn't helped by the fact that he'd appeared at the tail end of rockabilly's prime, or that Charlie Rich had taken his place as Sun's rising new star. Mann's first album, Like Mann, was released in 1960, but sold disappointingly, and he began to develop a drinking problem that necessitated some time away from music. In 1964, he was drafted into the Army; upon returning to the U.S., he signed with the Monument label, but the single "Down to My Last 'I Forgive You'" failed to return him to prominence. Mann soon left music to return to his family's business, settling down with a wife and finally overcoming his problems with alcohol.

In 1974, Mann attempted a comeback singing straight country material; he issued several singles over the next few years on ABC and Dot, but they didn't fit in with the slick countrypolitan records then dominating the charts. In 1977, Mann got an offer from the Dutch label Rockhouse to record for European audiences; he issued a couple of albums on that label, 1978's half-live/half-studio Gonna Rock'n'Roll Tonight and 1981's In Rockabilly Country. Mann toured periodically during the '80s, returning to Europe every so often, and finally retired to concentrate on the family logging business. He still resides in Huntingdon, TN.

Eddie Cochran - Bio

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 13:04:00 +0000

Somehow, time has not accorded Eddie Cochran quite the same respect as other early rockabilly pioneers like Buddy Holly, or even Ricky Nelson or Gene Vincent. This is partially attributable to his very brief lifespan as a star: he only had a couple of big hits before dying in a car crash during a British tour in 1960. He was in the
same league as the best rockabilly stars, though, with a brash, fat guitar sound that helped lay the groundwork for the power chord. He was also a good songwriter and singer, celebrating the joys of teenage life — the parties, the music, the adolescent rebellion — with an economic wit that bore some similarities to Chuck Berry. Cochran was more lighthearted and less ironic than Berry, though, and if his work was less consistent and not as penetrating, it was almost always exuberant.

Cochran's mid-'50s beginnings in the record industry are a bit confusing. His family had moved to Southern California around 1950, and in 1955 he made his first recordings as half of the Cochran Brothers. Here's the confusing part: although the other half of the act was really named Hank Cochran, he was not Eddie's brother. (Hank Cochran would become a noted country songwriter in the 1960s.) Eddie was already an accomplished rockabilly guitarist and singer on these early sides, and he started picking up some session work as well, also finding time to make demos and write songs with Jerry Capehart, who became his manager.

Cochran's big break came about in a novel fashion. In mid-1956, while Cochran and Capehart were recording some music for low-budget films, Boris Petroff asked Eddie if he'd be interested in appearing in a movie that a friend was directing. The film was The Girl Can't Help It, and the song he would sing in it was "Twenty-Flight Rock." This is the same song that Paul McCartney would use to impress John Lennon upon their first meeting in 1957 (Paul could not only play it, but knew all of the lyrics).

Cochran had his first Top 20 hit in early 1957, "Sittin' in the Balcony," with an echo-chambered vocal reminiscent of Elvis. That single was written by John D. Loudermilk, but Eddie would write much of his material, including his only Top Ten hit, "Summertime Blues." A definitive teenage anthem with hints of the overt protest that would seep into rock music in the 1960s, it was also a technical tour de force for the time: Cochran overdubbed himself on guitar to create an especially thick sound. One of the classic early rock singles, "Summertime Blues" was revived a decade later by proto-metal group Blue Cheer, and was a concert staple for the Who, who had a small American hit with a cover version. (Let's not mention Alan Jackson's country rendition in the 1990s.)

That, disappointingly, was the extent of Cochran's major commercial success in the U.S. "C'mon Everybody," a chugging rocker that was almost as good as "Summertime Blues," made the Top 40 in 1959, and also gave Eddie his first British Top Tenner. As is the case with his buddy Gene Vincent, though, you can't judge his importance by mere chart statistics. Cochran was very active in the studio, and while his output wasn't nearly as consistent as Buddy Holly's (another good friend of Eddie's), he laid down a few classic or near-classic cuts that are just as worthy as his hits. "Somethin' Else," "My Way" (which the Who played in concert at the peak of psychedelia), "Weekend" (covered by the Move), and "Nervous Breakdown" are some of the best of these, and belong in the collection of every rockabilly fan. He was also (like Holly) an innovator in the studio, using overdubbing at a time when that practice was barely known on rock recordings.

Cochran is more revered today in Britain than the United States, due in part to the tragic circumstances of his death. In the spring of 1960, he toured the U.K. with Vincent, to a wild reception, in a country that had rarely had the opportunity to see American rock & roll stars in the flesh. En route to London to fly back to the States for a break, the car Cochran was riding in, with his girlfriend (and songwriter) Sharon Sheeley and Gene Vincent, had a severe accident. Vincent and Sheeley survived, but Cochran died less than a day later, at the age of 21.

Billy Lee Riley - Bio

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 16:27:00 +0000

BORN: October 5, 1933, Pocohontas, AR Billy Lee Riley is a rockabilly singer and multi-instrumentalist. An alumni of Sun Records, he was one of the most crazed, unabashed rockers
that label had to offer -- in the company of Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Sonny Burgess, that's saying a lot. Proficient at harmonica,
guitar, bass, and drums, Riley contributed as a sideman to many a classic Sun session, and his combo the Little Green Men (most notably guitarist Roland Janes and drummer J.M. Van Eaton) in time became the Sun house band. Riley recorded for a number of labels in a variety of styles, especially effective with blues. Though never commercially successful, Riley's Sun recordings of "Flying Saucer Rock 'n' Roll" and "Red Hot" (both covered in wooden renditions by Robert Gordon) remain landmarks of the genre.

In listing the names of the Sun faithful who toiled at 706 Union who could have been-and should have been-national contenders, several talented names come to mind and with them, perhaps very
plausible reasons why they never clicked with a national audience. Sonny Burgess had a booming voice like a tenor sax and a band that absolutely burned, but his wild-ass stage show just couldn't be successfully translated to records. Warren Smith had the voice, looks and will to succeed, but was just too country to make the pop charts past the rockabilly boom of 1956. Hayden Thompson huffed and puffed convincingly enough, but was just too late to make it on Elvis' coat tails past a regional level. But the one man who had the looks, talent and the adaptability to pull it off and didn't even come close to having a hit on Sun was Billy Riley. Known to most rockabilly fanatics as Billy Lee Riley, although the use of his middle name didn't come until the mid to late 60s, his meister work at Sun almost runs the whole development of white artists on the label in microcosm, from raw rockin' simplicity to production chasing after then current market trends. Riley's top notch band, the Little Green Men, were literally the Sun house band from late '56 on, housing the talents of both James Van Eaton on drums and the incredible Roland Janes on guitar, the twin musical glue of the label. With Sam Phillips doing the early sessions, handing over the reigns to producers Jack Clement and Bill Justis (an avowed rock hater from day one, despite his hit with "Raunchy"), they tried just about anything to get that elusive hit. Along the way, they made some of the best rockin' tracks ever logged in at 706 Union, played the blues, did doo-wop covers, and sometimes tried like all git out to piggy back on some current novelty trend and sounded uncomfortable doing it as well. But no matter what they cut, none of it sold in big numbers by any stretch of the imagination. Riley went on from Sun to a plethora of labels recording in a number of styles, never finding a mainstream audience for his talent. But the truth lying in the laser beams of his AVI CD Red Hot! The Best Of Billy Riley tells us that sales figures sometimes don't give the real story, because much music of tremendously high quality came from one Billy Riley. He was, as Sam Phillips himself once described him, a real rockin' mutha.

He's a key figure in the Sun Records saga -- a cohort of Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, and Johnny Cash -- who has shaped dozens of rockabilly, rock'n' roll, and blues hits.... A jaw-dropping artist in his own right, during his 40-plus year career he has performed and recorded with a virtual who's who of popular music -- both as a soloist and as leader of his group The Little Green Men....
...And if you aren't already familiar with Billy Lee Riley, don't worry: his new album Hot Damn! invites you to join in-the-know music fans and discover a cult legend who is still blowing away audiences around the globe.
Filled with rhythm & blues ("I'm Him," "Fine Little Mama," "Rock Me Baby"), uptempo rockabilly ("Too Close Together," "Go On Pretty Baby,"), and smoky ballads ("Winter Time Blues," and the standout "Rainy Night In Georgia"), Hot Damn! gives full voice to Riley's blues background. "It doesn't matter what I'm playing -- country, rockabilly, whatever -- there's a blues flavor to it," Riley admits with a laugh.
For his Capricorn Records debut, Riley chose to record at the old Sun Studios at 706 Union St., Memphis, Tennessee -- where he first began his recording career in 1956. "I'm more comfortable recording there than anywhere else. You don't have all these high-tech people running around and telling you how to play. I wanted this album to feel as close as possible to the way we played music on the front porch or under the shade tree."
With that in mind, Hot Damn! was recorded using old RCA mics and a live, raw style reminiscent of the 1950s. "We would have a ball at every session," says Riley. "I made a point of not overproducing this album, because the blues has to have a natural, honest feeling. We overdubbed guitar and harmonica, but my vocals were cut at the same time as the rest of the track -- all recorded live. It's the only way you can capture that feeling."
Perhaps more than any other song, the deeply personal stance of Hot Damn! is exemplified by the slow blues grinder "How Come We All Ain't Got The Same," in which Riley reminisces about his childhood -- growing up dirt poor, amid the inequity and intolerance of the rural South.
Born 1933 in Pocahontas, Arkansas, Riley spent his early years living on plantations near Osceola and Forrest City -- small rural towns in the Arkansas Delta region near the Mississippi River. Riley's father, a house painter by trade, would work in the cotton fields to feed the family during lean times.
Young Billy Lee began playing harmonica at age six, and learned blues guitar in his early teens. "Blues is the music I grew up hearing on the plantation. There were black families and white families all living together, far from town. We were poor, and playing music was our main form of entertainment."
In 1956 Riley began recording for the Sun label, and went onto become, as journalist Robert Palmer noted years later in Rolling Stone, "the unsung hero of Sun rock & roll." In addition to his own hit singles -- such as "Red Hot" and "Flying Saucer Rock'n' Roll" (featuring a then-unknown piano player, Jerry Lee Lewis) -- Riley played a decisive role in shaping most of the Sun Records hits of that era. With his band the Little Green Men (the name was inspired by the "Flying Saucer" hit), Riley backed Johnny Cash, Charlie Rich, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, and other Sun artists -- predating the legendary "house bands" of the 1960s such as Stax/Volt, Motown, and Muscle Shoals.
On his own, Riley earned notoriety throughout the South with his wild live performances, and in the late'50s his shows were banned by various town councils and college administrators who worried that Riley's raucous "devil's music" would corrupt the souls of innocent teenagers.
In 1959 Riley left Sun, but continued to perform and produce music throughout the 1960s working with everybody from Albert Collins, Willie Cobb, and Johnny Rivers, to Herb Alpert, Pearl Bailey, Sammy Davis Jr., and The Beach Boys. But in 1973, Riley retired from music. "I just couldn't relate to what was going on in music, so I went back to Arkansas to raise my children." The retirement was short-lived: an impromptu 1979 show at the annual "Memphis In May" rekindled Riley's interest in music, and he has been steaming ahead ever since.
Today, Riley still gives scorching live performances in front of rabidly appreciative audiences at various American colleges and throughout Europe (where Riley and his Little Green Men are regarded with particular reverence). Each time he steps onstage, Riley puts every ounce of energy into his music -- and gives the type of show that left audiences stunned and exhilarated in the 1950s.

Idolized by generations of rockabilly and blues artists (Bob Dylan also happens to be one of his biggest fans), Riley now reveals his raw blues roots on Hot Damn!. Close your eyes and you can almost hear the porch swing creaking in the background, and feel the warm Delta breeze on your cheek. And if you're not careful, you might just find yourself the newest convert in Billy Lee Riley's ongoing musical invasion.

Scotty Moore - Bio

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 14:23:00 +0000

Scotty Moore is one of the great pioneers of rock guitar. As the guitarist on Elvis Presley's Sun Recordings, he may have done more than anyone else to establish the basic vocabulary of rockabilly guitar licks, as heard on classic singles like "That's All Right," "Good Rockin' Tonight," "Baby Let's Play House," and "Mystery Train." Moore took the stinging licks common to both country music and blues, and not only combined elements of country & western and R&B, but added a rich tone through heavier amplification. His concise, sharp phrasing, and knack for knowing both what to play and when not to overplay were perfect accents to Presley's vocals. Although his Sun riffs may be his most famous, Moore in fact continued to play on Presley records until the late '60s and laid down some of his best
accompaniments to the star on RCA discs. Unsurprisingly, the best of these were in Elvis' early RCA years in the 1950s, when Moore added more wattage and recklessness to his riffs to come out with classic solos on "Hound Dog," "Jailhouse Rock," and "Too Much," among others.

As extensive as Moore's resumé with Presley is and as well-known as his solos are, he actually contributed more to Presley's career than is often realized. He was crucial to Presley's early live shows and did much to help advance Elvis' career in business capacities. He also did quite a bit of production and recording work, for several decades, in which Presley was not involved. He also had a brief career as an instrumental solo artist, although the mid-'60s album released under his name, The Guitar That Changed the World, was not the ideal showcase for his skills.

After a lengthy stint in the Navy, Moore settled in Memphis in the early '50s, playing honky tonk music when not working at a dry cleaners. His band, Doug Poindexter & the Starlite Wranglers, recorded a routine country single for Sun Records in the spring of 1954. Although the record did nothing, and the band would soon break up, Moore gained a valuable musical partner in their bassist, Bill Black. When Sun Records, and its owner/producer, Sam Phillips, were mulling over trying a recording with young hopeful Elvis Presley, and in general looking for a new musical direction, Moore, Black, and Presley started to play together, groping for some common musical ground. Very shortly after Moore met and played with Presley for the first time, they were in Sun on July 5, 1954. This was the session that resulted in "That's All Right," the first great rockabilly record and possibly the first great rock & roll record made by white musicians. All three musicians made stellar contributions to the track by shedding their inhibitions, mixing country and blues, and going into new territory, Moore's soloing imbued with a masterful fluidity and crisp reverb.

In 1954 and 1955, Moore and Black were nearly equal partners with Presley; indeed, on Sun releases they were billed as Elvis Presley, Scotty, and Bill. What's more, Moore became Presley's first manager, in a July 1954 contract that identified Moore as the bandleader. The trio played together live and with increasing success on the Southern circuit, and inevitably, as Presley started to attract wide attention and come into his own as a frontman, more powerful interests edged Moore out of his business role in the band. First Bob Neal, and then Colonel Tom Parker, took over Presley's management. By the summer of 1955, Moore and Black became salaried employees of the act rather than the partners. Drummer D.J. Fontana was added to the band shortly afterwards, and the musicians continued to record, and play live with, Elvis when the singer began recording with RCA in 1956.

While additional musicians on RCA sessions would sometimes make Moore's role less prominent than it had been at Sun, Scotty still added a great deal to Elvis' earliest and best RCA discs. There was the chilling, fiercely echoing solo on "Heartbreak Hotel," the almost avant-garde mad runs up and down the scales on the solos of "Hound Dog" and "Too Much," the brief but blasting one on "Jailhouse Rock," and the bubbly one on "My Baby Left Me," which was as pure and sparkling as anything Moore had played at Sun. Still, Moore and Black became less close to Elvis both personally and professionally. Some biographers have speculated that Parker viewed anyone who had a close personal and artistic relationship with Elvis as a threat to his own power over the singer and that the manager tried to drive a wedge between Elvis and the other musicians, or even force Moore and Black out of the picture. For the soundtrack of Love Me Tender, Scotty and Bill were not allowed to record with Presley. (They did help on other soundtracks from the period, as well as appearing in some Presley movies.)

Frustrated with their limited salaried incomes as Presley became a superstar and earned more and more, Moore and Black gave Presley letters of resignation in September 1957. Although this was patched up after about a month, tension remained, and in any case Moore and Black were out of work again early in 1958, when Presley was drafted. Moore began working at Fernwood Records in production and got a big national hit with Thomas Wayne's "Tragedy" in 1959. When Elvis returned from the Army in 1960, Moore resumed playing sessions for him, although Black was not involved any longer, having started a successful solo career as the leader of the instrumental Bill Black Combo. There wasn't a lot of income from either Fernwood or Elvis, though, so Moore began working for Phillips as a production manager in 1960, continuing to work with Elvis occasionally.

In 1964, perhaps influenced by the success of former bandmate Black, Moore released an entire album of instrumentals for Epic in 1964, consisting of versions of songs recorded by Elvis in the 1950s, on which (with one exception) Scotty had played. Although Moore played well on the LP, it was rather pointless given the superiority of the Elvis versions and sold few copies. In March of 1964, Moore was fired by Phillips, and the guitarist moved to Nashville to work at Music City Records as an engineer, as well as doing some producing. His ongoing work with Presley as a session guitarist finally came to an end in the late '60s, although he did appear on-stage with Elvis on the singer's heralded 1968 television comeback special.

Moore continued to work as an engineer, occasionally crossing paths in this capacity with unexpected clients such as Ringo Starr, Tracy Nelson, Mother Earth, and the Holy Modal Rounders. He got back into playing guitar again, after a layoff of about 25 years, on recordings and live shows with Carl Perkins in the early '90s. In 1997, he did a tribute album to Elvis Presley with D.J. Fontana, All the King's Men, which included appearances by Keith Richards, Levon Helm, Jeff Beck, and Ronnie Wood. The presence of such heavyweights was a testament to the influence of Moore on other guitarists, not just rockabilly ones, but also rockers of a later generation, such as Richards. The Rolling Stones guitarist, indeed, is quite vocal and enthusiastic in his praise of Moore, even saying that it was hearing "Heartbreak Hotel" that made him want to devote his life to playing guitar. Moore's life story, both with and without Elvis, is recounted in the autobiography That's Alright, Elvis, co-written with James Dickerson.

The Sun Records Label Story

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 11:44:00 +0000

Sam C. Phillips was from Florence, Alabama. He had ambitions to be a lawyer, but had to drop out of high school to support his aunt and widowed mother. He became a disc jockey in 1942 at WLAY in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. After a series of jobs on other radio stations, he ended up on WREC in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1946. He was also promoting events at the Hotel Peabody in Memphis, and by 1950 had enough money to start a company to record local events and do custom recording. The company he formed was called Memphis Recording Service, with a small recording studio at 706 Union Avenue in Memphis. He developed contacts with Saul and Jules Bihari who owned Modern Records in Los Angeles and Sam's first recording was of Phineas Newborn, a jazz pianist, for them in June 1950.

A disc jockey on WHBQ named Dewey Phillips (no relation to Sam) came to Sam with the proposal to form a record label to record the many blues singers in and around Memphis. Dewey Phillips would run the label and Sam Phillips would record the music. The name of the record label was "It's The Phillips" The first and only record issued was It's The Phillips 9001/2, "Boogie in the Park"/"Gotta Let You Go" by Joe Hill Louis in August 1950. The record was unsuccessful, and Sam Phillips subsequently negotiated a contract with Modern Records for Joe Hill Louis recordings.

Phillips continued working for Modern Records, cutting sessions for B.B. King, Rosco Gordon and Walter Horton. In 1951, he also started an association with the Chess Brothers in Chicago. After recording Howlin' Wolf and Jackie Brenston, he offered to lease the masters to Chess. Modern Records was upset that Phillips had given Chess the first option on Brenston and Wolf recordings and after that used virtually nothing from the Memphis Recording service.

Jackie Brenston was a saxophone player in Ike Turner's Kings of Rhythm band. Ike Turner had come to the Memphis Recording Service to record an automobile song he and the band had developed called "Rocket 88". Sam Phillips leased the song
to Chess records, where it was issued under the name "Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats." It became one of the biggest R&B hits of 1951.

When many of the bluesmen that Phillips had been recorded migrated to Chicago and started recording with Chess Records directly, the Chess brothers also stopped using masters made by the Memphis Recording Service. The fact that he was unsuccessful in getting the material he was recording out through other record companies led Sam Phillips to start his own label. Sun Records was born in February 1952. Sam's brother Judd Phillips joined the company to handle promotion. Judd had been involved in country music promotion with Roy Acuff before moving to California to work on radio station publicly for Jimmy Durante. Judd knew how to get product exposure on radio. Judd eventually left Sun Records and had a short-lived label himself called Judd Records. He was manager for Jerry Lee Lewis for many years.

The first record on Sun was to be number 174 by "Little Walter" Horton and Jack Kelly titled "Blues in My Condition" [billed as by "Jackie Boy and Little Walter"] but a negative reaction to samples circulated to radio stations persuaded Phillips not issue the record commercially. Sun 175 by Johnny London titled "Drivin' Slow" was the first record to appear in record stores.

A local disc jockey on WDIA named Rufus Thomas had the first hit on Sun with a recording of "Bear Cat" (Sun 181) which was an answer record to Big Mama Thorton's popular R&B hit "Hound Dog". The success of "Bear Cat" and the follow-up "Tiger Man" (Sun 188) enabled Phillips to get national distribution deals. Sam Phillips had further success with blues recordings by Little Junior Parker, Billy "The Kid" Emerson and Little Milton Campbell. He also recorded a few group recordings, his most successful was by a group of inmates at the Nashville State Penitentiary who called themselves the "Prisonaires". Their recording of "Just Walkin' in the Rain" (Sun 186) written by lead singer Johnny Bragg was an R&B hit and in 1956 was made into a pop hit when Johnnie Ray released a cover on Columbia Records.

The Memphis Recording Service, in addition to recording bar mitzvahs, weddings and making off-the-air transcriptions for local radio stations, also recorded personal records for people walking in off the street. For four dollars they would record two songs. A young truck driver in Memphis named Elvis Presley stopped in one day on his lunch hour to record a song for his mother's birthday. Sam Phillips was not there that day, so Marion Keisker, the Sun office manager, recorded Elvis. As Elvis sang the first song she decided to make a tape copy to play for Sam. She not only played the song for Sam Phillips, but kept pushing Sam to use the young singer. Eight months later, in 1954, when he needed a singer for a song called "Without You", Sam called Elvis Presley into the studio. Elvis was terrible on the song, so Phillips asked him what else he could do. Elvis sang religious, gospel, western and even Dean Martin material. Elvis told Sam he was looking for a band and Sam put him in touch with Scotty Moore and Bill Black. Elvis rehearsed with Scotty and Bill and then went back to the Sun studios. The first song recorded was "I Love You Because" and some other country oriented songs. During a break, Elvis, Scotty and Bill were messing around in the studio, Elvis was banging on a guitar and singing "That's All Right, Mama" an old country blues song by Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup. When Sam Phillips heard this, he told Elvis to start over and he would record it. Sam Phillips recognized that in Elvis he had what he had been looking for, a white singer who sounded black. They knew that "That's All Right, Mama" (Sun 209) would be the first single for Elvis Presley. During the next few days, they recorded Bill Monroe's "Blue Moon of Kentucky" for the second side of the single. Sam took a dub of the record to Dewey Phillips, Sam's former business partner and top DJ on WHBQ. Dewey played the song over and over, listeners called in with their enthusiastic reaction. Dewey called Elvis into the studio for an on-air interview, emphasizing that Elvis was a graduate of Humes High School. Dewey said later he wanted to get that out since many listeners thought Elvis was black and Humes was an all-white school.

Sam Phillips and his artists had merged white country music with black rhythm and blues to create a new sound. Elvis made five singles for Sun records, each of them combining a blues song on one side with a country song on the other, but both sung in the same vein. Each release got more and more attention. His fourth single, "Baby Let's Play House"/"I'm Left, You're Right, She's Gone" (Sun 217) made #5 on the Billboard Country and Western (disc jockey) charts and #10 on the C&W best seller charts. The fifth single, "I Forgot to Remember to Forget" (Sun 223), made it to #1 on the Country and Western charts (both juke box and best seller charts), while the flip, "Mystery Train," made #11. Elvis' dynamic stage shows were also creating a sensation all over the south. Elvis had a new manager named Colonel Tom Parker who wanted to take Elvis to a major record company. Sam Phillips knew that he couldn't keep Elvis when his Sun contract expired, so he sold Elvis' contract and all of Elvis Presley's Sun recordings to RCA Victor for $40,000, split $35,000 for Sun Records and $5,000 to Elvis (which may have represented unpaid record royalties).

With the success of Elvis, other young country singers were drawn to Sun Records. Among them were Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison and Charlie Rich. Sam Phillips soon abandoned blues recording and concentrated on this new music, called rockabilly, a combination of "hillbilly" (as country music was then sometimes called) and rock & roll. Sun Records produced hit after hit. Carl Perkins was on the verge of major stardom with "Blue Suede Shoes" (it reached #2 on the pop charts and #1 on the country charts, despite a cover version by the enormously popular Presley), but was involved in a serious automobile accident which left him unable to cash in on his popularity. Jerry Lee Lewis had two giant smashes in "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" and "Great Balls of Fire". On a tour of England, the newspapers revealed that Lewis had married a 13 year old girl while not legally divorced from his previous wife. Lewis had to cut the tour short and come home, his career temporarily in ruins. Jerry Lee Lewis continued recording for Sun for several years but he never recovered from the bad publicly to have a hit of the magnitude of his first two. He was able to revive his career later by moving into country music on the Mercury Record label. Johnny Cash was probably the most consistent record seller on Sun but left the label for Columbia in 1958.

In the October of 1957, Sun Records established a subsidiary label called Phillips International. This label had successful releases by Charlie Rich, Carl Mann and Bill Justis. Sam Phillips opened a new studio in Memphis (at 639 Madison Ave.) in mid-1960, replacing the studio at 706 Union. He also opened another studio on 17th Street in Nashville in February, 1961. Both studios were popular, gaining revenue for the Phillips corporation by recording music for other labels in addition to Sun and Phillips International.

The move to the new studio on Madison Avenue in Memphis was important for another reason. Apparently, the old studio on Union Street was for most of the years only equipped with monaural recorders. The new studio featured an upgrade to stereo machines, and the stereo material released from Sun mostly seem to have been recorded, or at least overdubbed, after the move. The original issues of the albums on Sun, Phillips International, and Judd were all mono, to our knowledge. Reissues of these albums have turned up in rechanneled stereo, but it apparently wasn't until the late 1960s that the original tapes were dug out and some of the original stereo issued on vinyl. A recent CD on the AVI/Sun label featuring Charlie Rich's recordings from 1959 show that Sun's Union Avenue studios did have some stereo capability before the move, but the stereo recordings from that era are few and far between.

Sun Records had become a major force, almost becoming a national label. Unfortunately, its slate of talent left the label one by one, and wasn't replaced by artists of similar stature or talent. By 1963, Sun was pretty much back to the status of a regional label. By 1968, Sun was almost moribund, issuing very few singles. Sam Phillips had made a lot of money from the record business and even more from his other interests (he was an early investor in the Memphis based Holiday Inn hotel chain among other things). On July 1, 1969, Sam Phillips sold the Sun Record label to Shelby S. Singleton, Jr., a very successful record producer for Mercury records. Singleton recognized the value of the catalog and re-released the great Sun recordings on a series of albums on the Sun International label in the United States. He also leased the recordings to other record companies around the world. The Sun Record material is perhaps the most reissued music in the history of the record business, with the amount of record releases far exceeding the original output. Singleton mined the Sun archives extensively, including releasing stereo masters, and almost all of the unissued material in the vaults now has been released.

Sun Records was first and foremost a singles label, only 12 albums were issued on Sun and another 8 on the Phillips International label. The only Sun albums that stayed in print past the early 1960s were the seven Johnny Cash albums. Because in the intense interest in the Sun label, many of the albums are very collectable. Probably the rarest albums are two of the later releases on Phillips International, a great blues album by Frank Frost, PILP-1975 and an R&B album by Frank Ballard, PILP-1985. The most in-demand album on Sun itself is probably Sun LP-1225, Dance Album of Carl Perkins. This album was reissued with a new cover and a new title, Teen Beat. The Teen Beat cover may be even rarer than the Dance Album cover.

The following discography covers the original albums on Sun and Phillips International, the albums released on Shelby Singleton's Sun International label. Also included are the albums of reissued Sun material from around the world, although we're sure this listing is not complete. The discography of Judd Records which was owned by Sam Phillips' brother Judd Phillips is also included.

This discography was compiled using our record collections and the following books: The Sun Records Story, Catalyst, Sun Records: The Brief History of the Legendary Record Label, and Good Rockin' Tonight: Sun Records and the Birth of Rock �N' Roll, all by Colin Escott and Martin Hawkins, Elvis, A Biography by Jerry Hopkins, and The American Record Label Directory and Dating Guide, 1940 - 1959 by Galen Gart.

johnny burnette

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 10:21:00 +0000

Johnny Burnette was a Rockabilly pioneer born on March 25, 1934 in Memphis, Tennessee. Along with his brother Dorsey Burnette and a friend, Paul Burlison, in the early 1950s he formed the Johnny Burnette Rock and Roll Trio. They are considered to be the ones who originally coined the phrase "Rockabilly". Although they managed to get a recording contract, in 1957 the group split up due to a lack of commercial success but while living in California in 1960 Burnette had a back-to-back major hits with songs he wrote titled Dreamin and You're Sixteen followed by Little Boy Sad a year later.

Johnny Burnette's career was cut short at the age of 30 when he drowned in a boating accident on August 14, 1964. He was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.

His name and song-writing abilities gained prominence again when Ringo Starr released a cover of You're Sixteen in 1973.

Rockabilly Rod Reunion returns in 2010 on May 29-30 with NHRA Heritage Series

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 12:32:00 +0000

Rockabilly Rod Reunion returns to The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway
May 28-30 for three days and two nights at two venues

Featuring: NHRA Hot Rod Heritage Drag Racing Series, Bo Huff's Ultimate Garage Party & Car Show, pin-up superstar Sabina Kelly, Jason Beam's pinstriper showdown, tattoo showcase and the ultimate burn-out contest. It's more show and more go for less dough!

Friday, May 28 - Day 1
The Strip at LVMS (10 a.m.-5 p.m.) - NHRA Hot Rod Heritage Test 'n' Tune.

Neon Garage at LVMS (5 p.m.-2 a.m.) - Bo Huff's Ultimate Garage Party kick-off
and car show, featuring: nine consecutive hours of live bands, vendor displays, cruising, flame-throwing. Neon Garage is located in the infield of the 1.5-mile superspeedway.

Saturday, May 29 - Day 2
The Strip at LVMS (9 a.m.-5 p.m.) - NHRA Hot Rod Heritage Series qualifying and Nitro Funny Cars.
Swap meet, car cruise, pinstriper showdown (10 a.m.-2 p.m.), rockabilly DJ and live music, tattoo artists and tattoo showcase. $2 draft beer all weekend long!

Neon Garage (5 p.m.-2 a.m.) - Bo Huff's Ultimate Garage Party & Car Show.
The bands keep it cranking, pin-up contest at 10 p.m. ($1,000 to win!), guys' pompadour contest, car show judging (5 p.m.-Midnight), vendor displays, and much more. $2 draft beer all weekend long!

Sunday, May 30 - Day 3
The Strip at LVMS (9 a.m.-5 p.m.) - NHRA Hot Rod Heritage Series final eliminations.
Car cruise, car show awards ceremony (2 p.m.), swap meet, hot rod runs, burn-out contest (3 p.m.), rockabilly DJ and live music.

Spectator admission:
3-day adult super pass (all 3 days at The Strip and both nights at Neon Garage): $49.
3-day kids' super pass: $15.
Single-event segment tickets: $25 for adults, $7 for kids. Kids 5 and under are free.

Vehicle passes: $75 (includes full-event ticket to the show, one car show entry and one pass down the drag strip on Sunday).

Camping: $75 (located at LVMS drag strip's "Burn-out RV" lot) Move-in Friday at 11 a.m. and stay until 11 a.m. Monday.

Swap meet: $45 (10' x 20' space on Saturday and Sunday at The Strip).

Tickets are on sale at: www.LVMS.com and Ticketmaster.

Additional event info: (702) 632-8213.
from-lvms.com