Willie Buck & the Secret 4 feat. Anthony Bruno

Walk On In   double album

(Arrow)

The pairing of Chicago Blues eminence Willie and the Secret 4 ("Link Wray meets Johnny Thunders") allowed for dynamic interpretations of roots-level compositions that commenced feet to shuffling, and swelled within listeners gladness at the fact of life. 'Cause despite hardships that come with the territory, there's a whole bunch of good stuff, too; these 15 tracks are fine examples of the latter.

As is already well-known by afficianados of matters spring-heeled and slick, the Secret 4 is a formidable Blues/Rockabilly/ Jazz powerhouse. Guest saxophonist Bruno, whose previous efforts included ones with the Temptations and Four Tops, hefts a horn "rich and warm, it blows smoke rings and gets soulful, contemporary curves," penned Jazz Weekly.

88 year-old Mr. Buck, of course, looms astride it all, voicing stories as only a soul who's survived each lyric can.

Recommended: "Big Boss Man," "Walk On In," "Ever Change," "Walk'n By Myself," "King Bee," "Can't Be Satisfied," "Lucky Lou," "Wild Rock'n," "Willie's Boogie"

Videos: "Big Boss Man"   "Walk'n By Myself"   "Can't Be Satisfied"   "Lucky Lou"   "Wild Rock'n"   "Willie's Boogie"

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Willie, the Secret 4, and saxophonist Anthony Bruno

Quentin Scott Jones & QDK

s/t

(ITP Entertainment)

Having flashed homicidal Rockabilly chops with Voice Above All Voices RG -- as well as with Golden Age sensation Charlie Gracie and major-rank bopstormers The Rockats -- Quentin digs savagely into more contemporary stylings. The results are equally brass-knuckled and knowingly infectious in superior Pop sway; Quentin's partners Dave Uosikkinen (drums/vocals) and Kenny Aaronson (bass/vocals) -- of Hooters and Yardbirds renowns, respectively -- rally to the crusade as champions of especial skills.

Recommended: "Cold Cold Cold," "Make That Love," "Here Comes My Baby," "She's So Good," "One Last Ride"

Videos: "Cold Cold Cold"   "Here Comes My Baby"   "One Last Ride"

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McKinley James

Even were he not a valuable contemporary connection to greatness that reverbated amongst rafters of Blues joints back in America's rootsier times, Mr. James would still pocket plaudits for personal gifts of simultaneous particularness and universality. Enrichment can be got just by opening one's ears.

Videos: "Back On the Run" b/w "Hooked On You"   live (4:59 July 2026)

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Dave Edmunds: From small things came a palace

Dave Edmund's artistic arc had the legendary guitar-slinger zooming through exaltation, enrichment, and grand evolution. 

In the 1970s and 1980s, he went through brash Pub Rocker, Power Pop, and New Wave periods as refreshing as they were influential. With one boot in the Pub Rock scene, and the other in a burgeoning Rockabilly revival, the irrepressible Welshman with the leather-tooled drawl lightning-bolted his way from Love Sculpture to solo acclaim, from Rockpile renown to still further solo scintillation and, today, revered pantheon status.

Dave's classics from that period are now recommended study in Rock'n'Roll classrooms the world over: "Sabre Dance," a 1970 cover of Smiley Lewis's "I Hear You Knocking,"  "Queen of Hearts," "Girls Talk," "Bad Is Bad," "I Knew the Bride," "Knife and Fork," "Slippin' Away."

Over the same decades, Dave's instinctive bent for Rock'n'Roll perfect pitch earned him abundant production demand. Many benefitted from his production ear: Shakin' Stevens and the Sunsets, Brinsley Schwarz, Ducks Deluxe, the Flamin' Groovies, Paul McCartney. King Kurt, the Stray Cats, Fabulous Thunderbirds, and others. 

Those years saw Edmunds winning in various stylistic modes, though his fine efforts all shared righteous Rock'n'Roll grounding. Among important efforts yet meriting consideration:

In 1979, ably backed by his Rockpile confreres, Dave wrought his melange of pub rock-skirting-rockabilly and winking wit. One would be hard-pressed to cite a more potent package. 2023 import.

Freshly returned is this 1980 cult-favorite that presented rave-ups and gently crooned movements, instilling in its era (and beyond) masterclass lessons in musicianship. Judicious teen cats who'd only recently unearthed dust-blanketed wax sat forward. 

As a combo, Dave Edmunds, Billy Bremner, Nick Lowe, and Terry Williams were celebrated for ripping up stages as they blasted rousers accessible to all hip ears. (And their gifts had helped Edmunds's 1979 Repeat When Necessary [Swan Song] become the treasure-chest it was.)

It was to the day's New Wave fashion-sense that the four cleverly tailored Pub Rock, Rockabilly, and Power Pop inclinations into party-time finery. Seconds of Pleasure was and remains a delight for discriminating turntables.

Yep Roc's LP rerelease includes a 7" 4-track titled Nick Lowe and Dave Edmunds Sing the Everly Brothers. A scant 1000 yellow vinyl copies of this LP were pressed. Haste is counseled. 

Some cuts came into being whilst Rockpile was extant. Members assist mate Dave, as they had on his previous Repeat When Necessary. Also present are outtakes hailing from jams previous. ("Baby Let's Play House" dates from a 1968 session.) Such is the immaculate Pop shimmer of "It's Been So Long" that Ray-Ban cheaters are advised. The Wicked Pickett's "Three Time Loser" is stepped up a bit, though Dave's reading retains the original's determination. General appraisal turns up jocular outings of crisp vintage, slid betwixt tunes culled from Elysium's Seeburg. 

Significant is Dave's free-skimming recollection of George Jones's 1964 "The Race is On." Backing him here are the Stray Cats, whose own debut full-length was produced by Dave the same year.

2015's all-instrumental "On Guitar...Dave Edmunds: Rags and Classics" was the culmination of a career quite well spent. The star not only engineered and produced, but played every instrument, as well.

Having long since proved himself as a stormy rocker, Edmunds let up on the accelerator to explore an impressive range of musical area populated by Merle Travis, the Beach Boys, Elton John, Booker T and the MGs, Kate Bush, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. 

And while I'd long had a profound appreciation for Edmunds's trademark swaggering rock'n'roll output, and never for a single moment doubted his amazing fretwork abilities, I was stunned by the majesty and fulfilled ambitiousness. 

At each passage's unfolding - some tenderly articulate, others imposingly declarative - the listener was reminded that true musical power lies not only in bombast or volume, but even more spectacularly and compellingly in wisely-measured, educated application.

Dave played all instruments with appropriate regard for their places in the whole. And it was greatly to his credit that, as producer, he ensured a harmoniousness in which each part advances the triumph of the whole.

Gentle, melodic narrative and lush, placid backdrop can provoke emotions and imaginings not likely to bloom from ear-shattering gallop. Maturity lends a richness, a seriousness to endeavors. One knows when a master speaks.

Dave Edmunds, a careening rocker who knew exactly how to knock a house down, contrived palaces.

Johnny Thunders & Wayne Kramer's Gang War!

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(Skydog Records / Jungle)

In a moment here that captures Johnny's too-cool-for-any-a'you attitude, he prefaces "These Boots Are Made for Walking" by offhandedly snorting at the audience: "Shut up, shut up. You're gonna get what you get anyway. So shut up!"

(I recall a Creem magazine bit from the time. Wayne recounted a Gang War gig incident in which Johnny emptied a full pitcher of beer on the heads of front-row fans, who loved it. "I thought, 'We've got something here,'" the former MC5er laughed.)

July, 1980: I was in the crowd at Minneapolis' Sam's, and Gang War were headliners. Local legends The Hypsterz, who ignited 1960s fun tunes with post-'77 Punk flamethrowers, had opened to raucous acclaim.

The headliners gave raving attendees (who came in all technicolor descriptions) all the slapdash icy-kool Rock'n'Roll we'd shelled out for. Wayne's MC5 heritage and Johnny's Dolls dream/nightmare background collided and made spectacular messes we thrilled to, all over the club later immortalized in Prince movie Purple Rain.

The night previous to the Sam's show I witnessed (having managed to be in the second, stage-front pogoing row), Wayne/Johnny/Gang War had played in the same building's crackerbox 7th Street Entry club. That gig had surely featured identically hep phenomena: Rousing and electricity charged performances from Wayne and the rhythm players; a truly kicky string of tunes transmogrified into new creatures with sneering talons; and Johnny's characteristic loveable shambolism (which Walter Lure told an interviewer was at times affected -- y'know, image.)

Wayne's calculatedly fierce guitar lent sinew to the curled-lip enterprise. It was offset, in skewed counterpoint, by the wreckless-crazy careening up-and-down the neck for which Mr. Thunders was globally infamous. As a graffiti-note stylist, he was, and will forever be, without peer. (Who knew treble strings could sound like razor blades?)

Issued by Skydog in 1992, and rereleased last year as a limited-edition, red/black splatter vinyl LP by Jungle, this  has since been produced as a compact disc. Barreling sideways from its grooves are the magic that JFK-era teens dug from ear-pressed transister devices, but wonderfully twisted and thrown out LOUDER by leathery Punk Godfathers who'd not just tooled around the Rock'n'Roll block, but were also wise to its alley's perils -- and were entirely cool with them.

(In closing, Johnny blasts the audience: "You kids have been disgusting!")

Recommended: "Ramblin' Rose," "London Boys," "These Boots Are Made for Walking," "M.I.A.,," "The Harder They Come," "I'd Much Rather Be With the Boys," "Hey Thanks," "Courageous Cat theme," "Around and Around," "Do You Love Me"

Videos: "London Boys"   "M.I.A."   "The Harder They Come"   "Hey Thanks"   

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Wayne Hancock

Within the twanged echo of Americana troubadour Wayne's inimitable phrasing can be heard (and must be respected) his decades of zig-zagging across our glorious land, spreading common-folks' musics as only he can. On his tour bus as we speak. One of the greats.

Video: "Lonesome Whistle" (live 2026)

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The Bootleggers

Rust, Bones, & Rock and Roll

(Self-issued)

Several cuts in, a paean to noble warriors to whom so much is owed nearly overwhelms, with passionate sentiment equaled by instrumentation in moments pensive and massive. Its quiet sincerity is underscored by surrounding tracks' dissimilarity; they rip and snort, as Country rockers alway do when free of leash and tearing down badlands highways. Call it respite amidst bust out.

Some forty years of barndoor-booting experience bellow. Jumping up and out elsewhere are all the factors our lives in the fast lane have taught us to hold dear: Moving constructions of majesty and depth; guitars raising up glorious disorder that takes no shit; yowling vocals too fired up to pause for breath; saxophone that embellishes passages with ripping tonal hues; and a rhythm section that absolutely refuses to let up. 

Rust, Bones, and Rock'n'Roll was partially crowd-funded. During its recording, singer/guitarist/founder Didier Cere had told Artez, My Village: "To support us, if you enjoy music played by real musicians, recorded in a real studio, you can participate and help make this final album a reality."

He added: "We are totally independent, artistically and economically. We finance all our projects, albums and music videos through record sales."

Recommended: "Austin Texas Let Me Stay Awhile," "Teddy Boy Stomp," "Rock'n'Roll in the Bayou," "Redneck Rock'n'Roll," "Tex Avery Wolf," "For U Vietnam Vet," "Rock'n'Roll Radio"

Videos: promo (:53)   Previous clips: "Jumpin' From 6 to 6" (live)   "Made in Rock'n'Roll"

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The James Oliver Band

The Bubble Has Burst

(The Last Music Co.)

Never having witnessed James demolish stages, I'm nonetheless certain innumerable orange-and-blue sparks ricochet from his Tele in all kinds of frantic directions -- so alarming are the masterful attacks the man rips screaming with joy from the Blues bible. Classics well-covered always enjoy welcome. Players at his elbow are of first-order rank (and include Mr. Geraint Watkins), turning on dimes as miles flash past. And the casualness with which James tosses off lyrics? Why, that only attests to his natural-born fluency.

Recommended: "Baby What You Want Me to Do," "Messin' with the Kid," "Killing Floor," "Matchbox," "Boom Boom," "My Way," "Red Hot Mama," "Flip Flop and Fly," "Blues in C Natural"

Video: "Messin' with the Kid" (live April 2026)   "Killing Floor"  (live 2021)   "My Way"

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JR and his blue train

Blue Train

(Backfire)

It takes a heap o' humanity to rock the Blues all through the wee hours, 'til Sol peeps o'er the horizon. Add to that the brobdingnagian hard-life survivin' (plus freight cars of talent) required to pull off original rockin' rocketry in the manner of Blue Moon and Red Cadillac -- and to the comb-back cool degree it merits. Every ounce jitters herein. (Certain of these selections appeared on the combo's previous disc, which in no way diminishes their firepower.)

Recommended: "Beggin," "Crazy 'bout that Woman," "Bop Till Five," "On the Run," "He's a Man," "The Legend of John Henry," "First Time," "Be Your Lovin' Man," "Blue Train"

Videos: "Beggin'"   "Crazy 'bout That Woman"   "Be Your Lovin' Man"

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American Patrol go Ameripolitan

AP General Jerry Sikorski tells me he just entered his group's "I Ain't Never Been a Cheater" in the Rockabilly classification of the Dale Watson-founded Ameripolitan's 2027 Award competition. 

Previous awards winners include Nick Curran, Kyle Eldridge, Jane Rose, The Lucky Stars, and Nic Roulette.

In reviewing AP's recent platter last May, I wrote "Sandburg's line about coming in on 'little cat feet' has no relevance here. Opening track 'I Ain't Never Been a Cheater' makes like a lion with its tail stuck in a wall socket." 

"I Ain't Never Been a Cheater" (live)

The Ameripolitan Awards nomination period is now open, and will remain so until late summer / early fall. Nominees can be put forward not only by bands themselves, but also by peers and fans.

Following the nomination term's conclusion, top nominees will be compiled. Official voting on final nominees will end in October or November. General Ballot Blaster voting will then be open until late December or early January.

The Ameripolitan Awards ceremony is set for February. 

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Back in the Day, 1995

Blue Devils

In Bed with Betty   10" vinyl

(Fury Records)

Throw yourself into the Bluesabilly go-go maelstrom. Guitars graduated Cool School. Sax honkings and head-back screams ricochet crazily off unrefined Big Beat provocations that'd surely scare hell out of snoots. Where matters concern the idealized Dream Girl undraped, all wagers are off and all limitations crash away.

Recommended: "Betty Page," "Mystery Girl," "Bloody Mary." "Sweet Love," "Tail of a Rattlesnake," "She Does the Do," "Vibrations"

Videos: "Betty Page"   "Mystery Girl"   "She Does the Do"

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WyattChristmas Five

Are You Ready?

(PART Records)

The union of first-chair musicianship -- in American genres familiar to jukers, dancefloor denizens, and goodtime elbow-benders -- and ingenious lyrical delving into matters of universal existentialist qualities magnetizes. Add in sometimes broad wit that sailed its hat across the room. Think, laugh, and shake your good foot.

(Personal note: I read a Blues-site critic's faint praise of this rollicking-fun compendium. He rightly commended instrumental knacks, but kvetched about allegedly frivolous wordage. It's been my altogether unpleasant experience that rigid Blues doctrinaires (who, while asleep, can rattle off the number of songs Ivory Joe Hunter recorded in the spring of 1947, and tell you which of them were in certain time signatures) are among the most rebarbative folks you'll ever turn away from.)

Recommended: "Are You Ready?," "My Best Friend Went Crazy," "Changing Times," "Devil's Got a Hand On Me," "Alligator Bar Blues," "Riot in My Trashcan," "Please Do Like You Did It," "Too Far Too Long Away," "I Am Waiting"

Videos: "Are You Ready?" (live)   "Alligator Bar Boogie" (live)   "Too Far Too Long Away"

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Memphis Lightning

Personal Obsession

(Self-issued)

"Built on the Blues, wired for Rock'n'Roll" would be an irresponsibly hifalutin' claim, were it to issue from most mouths. But it only begins to capture the jump-back phenomenon now before us. Motivatin' in zeal and at high volume are robust travels in the key of damn straight. (Darren "Lil' Bluesman" Thiboutot Jr's solos will make big toes jump up in boots.) To quote the rousters themselves: "The Blues has built us into the band we are today." 

"My sound is a blend of all of my heroes and influences from genre to genre, mixed together to form a sound that purely comes from my soul," Lil' Bluesman told Blues GR last April. "I write a lot of music with my old man [Grammy-nominated Big Red], and you’ll hear elements of Blues, Rock, Pop, Roots, Country and more! I write music that has meaning and feeling to me, and my songs range from rockers, to soulful ones, tear jerkers, to pure guitar pyrotechnics!"

Recommended: "Personal Obsession," "The Road is My Home," "The Rock and Roll," "Good Man," "Perfect World," "You Got Nothing," "Come Back Home," "Halloween in July," "The King of Cool"

Videos: "The Road is My Home"   "You Got Nothing"   "Good Man"    "The King of Cool"

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Canada's Bopcats echo onward

Popular-music mavens will recount that the 1980s Rockabilly Revival had geographically scattered jitter-bop paragons. Upstart indices could be located in NewYork, California, London, Japan, and many points beyond.

Canada's Bopcats warrant recollection, to speak nothing of evergreen appreciation. Tim "Sonny" Baker. Teddy Fury. Zeke Rivers. Jack de Keyzer. Men of rampage.

"They call themselves the Bopcats," a 1981 CBC reporter explained. "And for three years they've been squeezing out a high brand of Rockabilly in and around Toronto."

"I think the American Rockabilly is a lot more honest...," drummer Teddy told the CBC interviewer. "We approach it with a sense of today, same as the Stray Cats."

Theirs was a fervent assault that laced belovedly familiar genre gesticulations with full-on firepower that bespoke Punk uproar. Country-tinted numbers provided pacific ease between pummelings. Bopcats' drag-out fashion of bopping the Blues was fierce enough to trigger burg-wide sirens.

"Rock'n'Roll is really the only kind of music I really know. I've always really liked it," Zeke told a 1982 TV interviewer. "We don't really play solid, old Rockabilly. We more like to play Rock'n'Roll with Rockabilly Roots."

"What we do is basically, it's our own stuff," Sonny added. "And it's quite contemporary."

s/t (1980)

Notable tracks: "Rockin' a Dream," "Kiss Goodbye," "Down the Line," "Let's Go," "Buddy This Is It (the Stand)," "Don't Say Sorry," "Rainbow Girl," "Cool Off Baby"

An exhilerating freshness was announced by opening changes, which turned and shifted with acrobatic alacrity. To be sure, one sussed underlying hillbillies-on-juice bent, but youthful agitation and vernacular did their parts to tear away old-ways cobwebs.

Being rockers of sound bloods, of course, they tore up Feathers' "One Hand Loose" and Buddy's 1956 "Down the Line." And in the combustible combo's hands, Tiny Bradshaw's 1951 "Train Kept A-Rollin'" came out like a blade-swinger's snarl.

One sensed the Bopcats had never encountered a genre staple they couldn't grab hold of and pump up with intoxicating New Day oxygen.

"Buddy This Is It" scooted down the clay road with home-folks' tunefulness that surely would set woods on fire. More relaxed and emotive, "Don't Say Sorry" shone tenderly.

A most propitious introductory platter.

Videos: "Rockin' a Dream"   "Buddy This is It (the Stand)"   "Rainbow Girl"

Wild Jungle Rock (1982)

Songs etched into the LP's wax bore out Sonny's words with hand-standing exclamation points. As had been so of their debut, regard for vintage stylings stalked the deck alongside new and brash-out-loud creatures. Titles like "Too Fast Past," "Dressed to Kill," "Train Called Rock'n'Roll," "Earthquake," and the titular barnstorm showed off rockers versed in Then, hip to the Punk Now, and possessed of a wicked ferality they thoroughly dug throwing into everyone's agape mugs. 

Too, interspersed amongst the unleashed ravers were Countrified charm ("Home to Me") and the somewhat more Bluesish "What Did I Do Last Night?" 

Videos: "Wild Jungle Rock" (live)   "Dressed to Kill"   "What Did I Do Last Night?"   "Earthquake"

(In 1993, Attic released both Bopcats' LPs on CD. Appended to tracks, in the place of "Earthquake," was the Rock Angels' "Calling All Girls," penned by de Keyzer. No related video could be located.)

But the global gush of acclaim the Bopcats merited never materialized. Cynics (myself being in that number) would credit that as illustrating life's inexplicable unfairness.

Following the foursome's 1983 dissolution, some members briefly worked as new combo Rock Angels (absolutely not to be confused with annoying Bratz dolls' Rock Angelz.). All found divergent paths beckoning.

Drummer Teddy Fury cast his lot with the Royal Crowns, with whom he recorded numerous discs, and became one of Canada's finest bartenders. Fretboard hitman Jack de Keyzer issued numerous Blues safaris, becoming one of the Great White North's finest Blues purveyors. (Twice, Jack pocketed Juno awards, and seven times Maple Blues ones.)

Royal Crowns videos: "Badlands" (live 2011)   "Caveman Boogie" (live 2012)  

Jack de Keyzer videos: "I Want to Rock With You" (live circa 2007)   "On the Money"

The eventual careers of Sonny Baker and Zeke Rivers, per online research, did not involve performing. Sonny was said to have abandoned his post-Bopcats R&B/Soul band Ten to Midnight, and settled into retail and managerial labor with Sunrise Records.

Zeke took an altogether unlikely course that resulted in a Ph. D and teaching sociology and criminal justice in Massachusetts. (Long since absent by then, I'm certain, was the lofty ebony pomp and forehead-obscuring waterfall the bass agitator had once sported.)

What could have / should have graced sales charts and glossy magazine covers, then, is today but a memory -- though one relished by collectors of hot vinyl; we dig that cool notes can be forever heard.

Some two decades ago, while preparing a piece about Teddy's Royal Crowns, I spied an online notice that three CDs of live Bopcats performances (recorded directly from the soundboard) were newly on the market. I bought one from the seller, whose name was unknown to me, and explained I planned to review it.

Upon learning of my intention, the seller -- merely a "friend" of the Bopcats, he insisted -- sent the remaining two for free. (I did review the discs for Marc Bristol's Blue Suede News.)

I related that exchange to Teddy during a subsequent online conversation. The drummer replied that it was in fact, surely, bassist Zeke himself.

"If you catch him on a good day," Teddy emailed. "He'll tell you about his Rock'n'Roll past. But if you catch him on a bad day -- and it sounds like you did -- he'll deny having been in the group and say he was only a friend."

(Note: "Zeke Rivers" is too close to the name "Deke Rivers" -- Elvis' Loving You character, to be innocently coincidental.)

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