The slight jangle on a cleanly, sprightly played electric guitar.
The primal thud of swing-dancing bass strings.
The contained assertions of rappity-tappity drums.
These are some of the symptoms of rockabilly, that all-American form of music that picked the sweetest fruits of blues and the brightest flowers of country-western and melted them together. It was the short, picturesque bridge that crossed our culture over into the new world of rock 'n' roll.
The early icons of rockabilly have revered names today: Bill Haley, Big Mama Thornton, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, Carl Perkins, Wanda Jackson, Sister Rosetta Tharpe and some we'll talk about later. It was a rich genre because it touched so many others.
It lives on today in Prince George in a dedicated trio of good-time stage hounds called The Chevys. Tim Yule is on vocals and guitars, Dennis Smith standup bass and Dale Doiron is the drummer.
The Chevys are going for a spin around the city in the next few weeks, and the joyride starts this weekend right where all great musical evolutions took place: at the crossroads.
"We are kicking off the new brew at CrossRoads Brewing," said Yule. "They have a new beer coming out and they wanted a rockabilly band to be there to help. We played Alefest last year, so I guess they associate us with craft beer. Craft beer and car shows - that's where rockabilly really fits best," and if you know the history of the CrossRoads building, this one place has both elements in effect.
They will hit the in-house stage at 7 p.m. on Satuday night, no cover charge.
"The allure of rockabilly is the simplicity," said Yule. "It lends well to trios. It's not particularly electronic other than a guitar to an amp, so it's clean and clear and retains that innocence in the music. It has a great beat, there's room for great melodies and lyrics or just keep it simple. It has a charm, that way. That's why it keeps lasting."
The Chevys play a small but robust collection of original material they have penned themselves. They play a small but robust collection of covers that aren't exactly rockabilly except when they do it. And they play a larger collection of songs right off of the historic rockabilly best-of list.
"There's some flexibility to that term, although there are some purists in town who will debate what makes a rockabilly song and what shouldn't be included, but we are darn proud of our inclusiveness with what rockabilly means," Yule said. "We will do a couple of originals almost every show we do, but we really try to hit the whole spectrum. Some people would identify the golden age of rockabilly as Buddy Holly and Elvis and the Everly Brothers, but the thread continues up through Stray Cats and Chris Isaak and Rae Gordon. The last Bryan Adams album had a lot of rockabilly in it and so we do one of those songs in our set. You hear it in Jeff Lynne's stuff (Lynne produced that mentioned Brian Adams album) back to his time with ELO, you can even find it in Queen, you can find it in punk. Because it had such an influence on the invention of rock 'n' roll, it's easy to spot the roots even today."
The Chevys are even honing in to one tight spot on the calendar. On Dec. 22 they are performing a seasonal concert (admission by donation) at Cafe Voltaire inside Books & Company.
"There are lots of rockabilly Christmas songs. You might not have known that's what they were, but we'll play them for you that night: Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree, Run Run Rudolph, there's a lot you'll be familiar with."
Yule said the band was influenced by the opinion of CFIS-FM radio host Camshaft McLeod who has the Saturday afternoon program Cam's Greaser Garage that gives this genre some regular attention.
"Cam kept urging us to do a record. He figured The Chevys needed to put our original material into an album," Yule said. "So, we're doing it. My sons (Darby and Erin Yule form the popular punk-pop duo The Statistics) have been into it hugely, they really know their way around studios and recording gear, but I've never done anything like this before. I have virtually no experience at that, so we'll use them as consultants. But I think it'll be fun to have those songs we've written have a home, of sorts."
