The Raw and the Cooked: Part 1

I’m doing this post solely because of this photo. Well, I like the music a lot too, but the photo has always cracked me up. Who is it? A truck-stop Elvis? A psycho-billy rocker on parole from San Quentin? No, it’s just Sonny Fisher, one of the legion of obscure, forgotten rockabillies from the 1950s. This little EP, packaged and distributed by the English “Ace” label, brings together sides he recorded for the Starday label in 1955.

Sonny’s voice is nothing special and if you are looking for a polished production and flashy guitar work you won’t find it here. What you will find is a sound that perfectly encapsulates early rockabilly: loose, chaotic, spontaneous and yet somehow relaxed. On these sides, Fisher’s band manages to achieve a potent and primitive blend of blues, hillbilly, and Texas swing.

Everything falls into place on “Pink and Black”. Starting with a sizzling ride cymbal, the slap bass and guitar kick in and the song takes off. The band generates an irresistible rhythm and the sound is huge, just with these three pieces. The drummer propels the song forward with some wonderfully sloppy rolls and rim shots that tease us with their unsteady relation to the beat. Same with the guitar player, Joey Long; he’s no Cliff Gallup, but he has a wicked distorted tone and blues-bending style that works perfectly. He bends some notes that seem to twist in space indefinitely, threatening to dive-bomb into disaster. But just when it seems he is about to fall out of time with the band he somehow recovers, a “technique” (was he drunk? were they all drunk?) that lends some nice tension to the proceedings. And then there is Sonny himself. No slouch, he summons one of the all time great screeches in rock and roll history on this track.
Check it out:
Pink and Black.mp3

I don’t know, maybe it’s just me. I always prefer the unschooled, the primitive, the spontaneous and the chaotic to the polished, produced and professional. On these sides, Fisher’s band sounds completely natural, relaxed, rudimentary and artless. But somehow these qualities animate the music and keep it vital. 50 years later it still sounds alive!

The power of the raw and the spontaneous seems to be largely forgotten in our current age of digital perfection. It is a pity. But it is completely understandable when you realize that what we call culture is nothing more than mass-produced standardized product, owned and distributed by global entertainment conglomerates. (It is Warhol’s Tomato Can. Or maybe Duchamps urinal.) In the music segment of the culture industry the big labels churn out artists and product like so many Big Macs, and with the same pathetic unhealthy results. The sad part is that people seem to be quite happy with these choices.