BRIAN SETZER: A STRAY CAT ALONE

BRIAN SETZER: A STRAY CAT ALONE

Brian Setzer was the main man behind the Stray Cats. Sure, Slim Jim Phantom and Lee Rocker may have given the band its rocking backbeat, but Setzer was the brains, the face, the voice, the guitarist and the songwriter behind the Stray Cats’ sensational appeal. Who’d have thought when Setzer formed a band in his native Long Island that he’d be kicking off a national phenomenon by aping the rockabilly music that people like Elvis Presley, Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran had created over two decades before? Setzer and his two cohorts left their New York island for Great Britain where they initially kicked off the rockabilly craze (after all, the appeal of that kind of music never really faded in the U.K.) before returning to the States, releasing two hit LPs, several hit singles and sold-out tours from coast to coast. Before long, every town had its own rockabilly band...or two or three, all trying to ape the Stray Cats, who in turn were aping something that was big before they were even born.