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Johnny Powers, New Spark (for An Old Flame), Schoolkid's Records

Johnny Powers, New Spark (for An Old Flame), Schoolkid's Records image
Parent Issue
Month
May
Year
1994
Copyright
Creative Commons (Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share-alike)
Rights Held By
Agenda Publications
OCR Text

Johnny Powers is a first generation rockabilly hep-cat. He is the "real deal." His career started in the early fifties in the Detroit area, but he soon moved to Memphis and the Sun Recording Studio of Elvis' early producer - Sam Phillips. He was there when rock 'n' roll meant style, anger, sweat, youth and boogie. Issues of anomie and angst - elements of today's rock - hadn't been developed yet. Instead the music was rebellious, embracing an attitude of group solidarity, while singling itself out from mainstream popular music June-moon-spoon sentiments, and later, rock bombastedness. Rockabilly has an attitude and feels no need to change. And one of the best places to hear this attitude in its original intensity is on "New Spark (For An Old Flame),"the recent Schoolkids' Records release by Johnny Powers.

Music writer Peter Guralnick calls "rockabilly" the purest of all rock rock 'n' roll genres because it "never went anywhere." Unlike strands of"new country" contemporary gospel, rock, or rap, which have all shifted in emphasis or stylistic leanings as music creators and marketers aim to please new audiences, rockabilly has changed very little, if at all, since its evolutionary birth in the early -to mid-fifties. What this continuity allows is a familiarity and a rebelliousness that its early purveyors intuitively understood and that newer artists, such as George Bedard and Steve Nardella, continue to support. In a sense, the wild rantings of Jerry Lee Lewis, early Elvis, and Schoolkids' Records recording artist Johnny Powers are still very relevant today.

Although all the songs on this recording are above average, including theTraveling Wilburys' "Rattled" and Leiber Stoller's "Trouble" (made famous by Elvis), some are exceptional. "Something About You" couples a heavy two-step rhythm with piercing guitar picking, clearly highlighting the country side of Powers ' music. Powers' own "Bigger Heartaches" sounds like Elvis at his dirtiest. The vocals are strong and dominant, filled with echoey mumbling, stuttering, and hiccups - the stuff of great rockabilly.

Powers is joined on f our bonus tracks on this recording by two Georges - George Bedard and funk music legend, George Clinton. Bedard adds his superb guitar skills to two 1950s chestnuts: Rufus, Thomas' "Walkin' the Dog" and Bill Monroe's "Blue Moon of Kentucky." The result is great "picking and grinning" music easily crosses any generational barrier between these artists.

Clinton and Powers' work clearly shows that country and rhythm & blues are closely akin. On two Hank Ballard tunes - "Let's Go, Let's Go, Let's Go" and "Work With Me Annie"- Clinton adds his falsetto and sensitivity to the rockabilly conventions of Powers, thus delivering one of the most innovative and catchy sounds l've heard in some time. This pairing of songs and artists make me yearn for the old 45 rpm records. This duo is a killer. Like this album, it is recommended to all who seek good, authentic rockabilly.

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Subjects
Old News
Agenda