For every rockabilly festival staged here, there are 10 held overseas.
The songwriting has never really stepped forward from the '50's.
As a genre, rockabilly's post-Elvis profile has seldom been lower in the United States. Many labels that produced fresh bass-slappin' sides during the '90's are now out of business.
My D'Angelico is a jazz archtop guitar. That guitar was made for Glenn Miller's guitar player in 1939. It's a '39 D'Angelico New Yorker.
People out there maybe know who Junior Parker is and some of those Sun Records blues guys.
I don't think there is a musician today that hasn't been affected by Elvis' music. His definitive years - 1954-57 - can only be described as rock's cornerstone. He was the original cool.
Elvis Presleys' first album had more energy and more enthusiam than any other album at the time - when it was released it just blew everything else out. It changed the whole landscape of music
I thought it would be cool to take flat-picking and put it in overdrive. I thought it would bend the ear.
The jazz chord substitutions in a country song... that was another thing that bent people's ears. I guess that my favorites are the unique ones. It's not how fast you play. It's that unique blending of different stuff I'm most proud of.
I wanted to go back to Sun. Unfortunately, most of the gear is gone from Sun. The way I take it now, it's almost like a tourist destination. So, it would have been pretty difficult to have brought all the gear into Sun to make it like it was in the '50's.
Elvis is not so difficult as Johnny Cash because his voice is so distinctive. If you try to copy Johnny Cash, it's just going to sound dumb.
It is hard to play Blue Suede Shoes. I know everyone has heard it 10 million times, and that makes it even harder to play it, but there's a very laid back tempo on that. I was surprised at how slow it really was.
