Go Cat Go!: Rockabilly Music and Its Makers (Music in American Life) - Hardcover

Go Cat Go! is the first solid overview of rockabilly, from its crystallization as a recognizable style in 1954 with Elvis Presley's first release through its fadeout at the end of the 1950s and subsequent revival in the late 1970s. Craig Morrison's lively account will bring back memories of "Blue Suede Shoes, " "Be-Bop-A-Lula, " Eddie Cochran, Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly, Gene Vincent, and more. Morrison defines the genre, plots its historical and stylistic development, identifies its main performers and recordings, and presents the who, what, where, and when of the music. He draws on personal and published interviews, printed sources, his own vast record collection, and his insights as a professional musician in re-creating country music's romance with rhythm and blues, which exploded into rockabilly, a music form once described by Carl Perkins as "a country man's song with a black man's rhythm." Characterized by its identifiable country and rhythm and blues inflections, blues structures, the use of an echo effect, a wild or extreme vocal style, a strong rhythm and beat, and an obvious Presley influence, rockabilly peaked rapidly and all but disappeared just as rapidly. Revived in the late 1970s with bands like the Stray Cats, rockabilly is now popular from Japan to Finland.

Craig Morrison teaches courses at the McGill Centre for Continuing Education.