DOCTOR’S ORDERS

WELCOME …

The big news on planet rockabilly as Christmas draws

BACK ON TOP

As much a country performer as a rockabilly one, Carl Perkins’ music is one that true rock’n’roll fans continue to cherish, even if his fame never quite soared like that of his contemporaries. With insights and photos from Brian Smith, a former president of one of his British fan clubs, Vintage Rock looks at the Rockin’ Guitar Man’s post-Sun-era career…

Tennessee Walker

New Carl Perkins tracks discovered after being hidden for 7o years

SWEET SIXTY

JOE BROWN CELEBRATES HIS 60TH ANNIVERSARY

ROCK CHICK

The next Kiwi sensation

NICK TOSCHES RIP

October saw the passing of rock writer Nick Tosches

REBEL RISING

SIXTY-FOUR YEARS AF TER HIS DEATH, JAMES DEAN IS BACK

RARE ROCK’N’ROLL RECORDS

Some rockin’ Eddie Cochran this month, as well as Vince Taylor, LaVern Baker and Billy Ward And His Dominoes, courtesy of omegaauctions.co.uk

EVENTS

Neo-Mania: A Night Of Frantic Rockabilly! 25 January

Day of the Ted

We met the maker of a stylish new film about the life of a Teddy Boy in the 1950s

The Strays

It’s a cautionary tale as old as sin itself, of a choirgirl who ran off to join a raucous rock’n’roll band – and never looked back!

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Singles & Ep Reviews

French R&B bruisers, fiery psychobilly, reverb-soaked girl power anthems, plus rockabilly covers of John Lennon and Donovan and a new release from Restless are among this month’s single delights

Vinyl LP Reviews

A bumper crop this month, including some vintage Bill Haley and Elvis, plus scorching new discs from Eddie And The Backfires and Honeyboy Slim & The Bad Habits

CD Album Reviews

On shiny disc this month are some classics from Fats Domino and Bo Diddley, as well as a tribute to sound maestro Joe Meek, a couple of alternative Christmas albums and new cuts from Henry And The Bleeders, Rebel Dean and Tepa Lukkarinen

RISING TIDE

Wales isn’t often thought of as a centre of rockabilly magic, but this September, fans from across the UK decended on Porthcawl for the annual Welsh Rockabilly Fair, as Mark Kemlo reports…

FIT FOR THE KING

The Elvis Festival, Great Yarmouth, celebrated its 40th anniversary in September with an event that was bigger than ever

A LIFE IN ROCK’n’ROLL

This month, Vince explains the reasons why a massive chart hit continued to elude him in his 50s heyday…

AS TOLD TO VINCE EAGER SOUNDTRACK of my life

Douggie Reece has played with some of the biggest names in rock’n’roll, including Gene Vincent, Jerry Lee Lewis, Gene Pitney, Roy Orbison, Conway Twitty and Freddy Cannon to name but a few. Here, he chooses the 10 tracks that changed his life…

BILL BLACK GOES IT (ALMOST) ALONE

Beyond his irreplaceable bass rhythm on record, in

Dreamboats and Bobby Soxers

By the late 1950s the raw energy of rock’n’roll was beginning to make way for a more polished and less threatening kind of star. The era of the teen idol had begun…

20 Smash Hits From The Teen Idols

They had the good looks, but were their records up to scratch? Vintage Rock reflects on a few of the biggest 45s of the teen idol era

THE CADILLAC KING

What would have been Vince Taylor’s 80th year also marks the 60th anniversary of his iconic single Brand New Cadillac. Though never exactly a hit, it’s now considered one of the best British rock’n’roll songs. Taylor, meanwhile, led a life you couldn’t invent. With the help of his band members and rock’n’roll peers Julie Burns pieces together the curious tale of England’s enigmatic bad boy

THE WIZARD OF OZ

They do things differently Down Under, and sureshot guitarist Pat Capocci is at the vanguard of Aussie rock’n’roll. Julie Burns delves into a decade of hard graft that has allowed this slave for the beat to heat things up

Our Gal Janis

Secrets, tragedy and the comeback that never was… Vintage Rock remembers the career of the underrated Janis Martin, the woman nicknamed ‘The Female Elvis’

He’s So Fine

Mr Excitement, Jackie Wilson, was finally acknowledged by the world’s entertainment capital in September, when accorded a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame. An apposite time to look back on the life and career of a man the committee described as “one of the most important and influential artists of his generation”

BLAZING STARS

A much-loved band with its roots in the British R&R revival of the 1970s, The Stargazers are still going strong, with new-on-vinyl album Carry On Jiving