Brian Setzer – Gotta Have The Rumble

31-12-2021

Brian Robert Setzer (born April 10, 1959) is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He found widespread success in the early 1980s with the 1950s-style rockabilly group Stray Cats, and revitalized his career in the early 1990s with his swing revival band, the Brian Setzer Orchestra. In 1987, he made a cameo appearance as Eddie Cochran in the film "La Bamba". Brian Setzer has a very large guitar collection which spans many decades and brands. He favours vintage equipment and hollow body guitars, and currently endorses Gretsch guitars. Every decade has its own retro craze spearheaded by a true believer who brings classic sounds and styles back into vogue. Brian Setzer performed this trick not just once but twice: first as the leader of the Stray Cats, the trio who brought rockabilly back into the charts during the '80s, and then as a figure who helped popularize the swing revival of the '90s with the Brian Setzer Orchestra. Both of these sounds were grounded in the '50s, which is when rockabilly was born, but it was also the heyday of the kind of jump blues Setzer loved, such as Louis Prima and Big Joe Turner. While the Stray Cats were purists of sorts, indebted to the big beat of Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent, as a solo act Setzer wound up fusing these aesthetics together, playing rockabilly guitar to a swinging beat. With this jumping sound, he cultivated a loyal following, consisting of not a few latter-day disciples, that stretched well into the new millennium, developing the long-running, successful career that many of his idols never had. Though Setzer's first solo effort, 1986's "The Knife Feels Like Justice", was a heartland rock album, his big step forward came with 1994's The Brian Setzer Orchestra, where his rockabilly/swing fusion first took hold, and with 1998's "The Dirty Boogie", he took that sound to the pop charts. His work with the Orchestra and the occasional holiday-themed release dominated his solo career, but he took detours back to rockabilly, most notably on 2005's "Rockabilly Riot, Vol. 1 : A Tribute to Sun Records" and 2021's "Gotta Have the Rumble". "Gotta Have The Rumble" is Brian Setzer's first studio album in 7 years. The album is produced by Julian Raymond (Glen Campbell and Cheap Trick) and all tracks are (co-)written by Setzer. The album was recorded in both Minneapolis (Setzer's new home) and Nashville. "Gotta Have The Rumble" is a blazing hot album from start to finish, American music boosted to 10, with songs full of dynamism and bravado. Highlights include "Checkered Flag," "Smash Up On Highway One," "Drip Drop," "The Cat with 9 Wives," "One Bad Habit," and "Rockabilly Banjo." "Obviously, it's a reference to my motorcycles and hot rods, something that hasn't changed since I was 15 years old," Brian Setzer says of the album title "Gotta Have The Rumble". "I still have the same passion for going fast and adrenaline. But it's also about my hearing problem with tinnitus, the ringing of the ear. It was pretty bad, and I realized that I couldn't play the way I wanted to. As I recovered, standing in front of a small amplifier just didn't cut it. The sound from my big amp makes the guitar rumble. Which is a big part of my sound. I was really despondent for a while because I thought I wouldn't be able to do that again. So, "Gotta Have The Rumble" refers to both of those things."

1 Checkered Flag

Written-By - Brian Setzer, James McDonnell

4:05

2 Smash Up On Highway One

Written-By - Brian Setzer, Mike Himelstein

3:47

3 Stack My Money

Written-By - Brian Setzer, Mike Himelstein

2:46

4 The Wrong Side Of The Tracks

Arranged By [Arrangement] - Timothy Lauer

Strings - David Angell, David Davidson, Kevin Bate, Kristin Wilkinson, Stephen Lamb, Timothy Lauer