Lee Rocker, Racin’ the Devil (Alligator Records)


There are enough skeletons, devils, crashed cars, and hellish flames on both the outside and inside of this CD to please even the most discriminating rockabilly enthusiast, but what’s most satisfying about former Stray Cats’ bassist Lee Rocker’s solo Alligator debut is his ability to graft classic Sun licks and shuffles onto more generic Americana. It’s much the same kind of trick Cats leader Brian Setzer tried to pull off with 1986’s The Knife Feels Like Justice, but Rocker doesn’t have the same kind of star pressure on him, so he’s free to appeal to his base with standard fare like “Funny Car Graveyard” and “Race Track Blues” while motoring out into the alt.country with “Ramblin’” and bridging the gap between Springsteen and Hank Sr. on the perfectly titled “Lost On The Highway.” There’s even a new version of the Cats’ signature “Rock This Town” with all the pop chords vacuumed out and replaced by twangy Memphis sevenths, not to mention a killer version of Carl Perkins’ ultra-obscure Decca-era “Say When” and the closing instrumental “Swing This,” which, despite its title, substitutes the Western brand of swing for Setzer’s recent watered-down jump blues. Not everything works — the world may not need another travelogue like “Texarkana To Panama City,” even if the sound is fabulous — but more often than not, Rocker manages to beat the devil of rockabilly revivalism while backing up all those cartoon skulls and fuck-me boots.