Search - Stray Cats :: Stray Cats - Greatest Hits [1992]

Three guys who changed my live

nacho | Bilbao, Basque Country, Europe | 09/15/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The Stray Cats is my favourite R'N'R band for all the times. He mixed the spirit of the classsic sound of the fifties and the fury of punk. Trough eight official records and many bootlegs and compilations Brian, Lee and Slim, now sounds like a classic like Gene or Eddie. Thanks for all the moments of pure R'N'R you bring to me. I'm spanish and my english is no so good."

Rockabilly Never Sounded So Good - And From Curb Yet

09/01/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"When this band from Long Island, New York - Brian Setzer [vocals and guitar], Lee Rocker on string bass [born Leon Drucher], and drummer Slim Jim Phantom [born Jim McDonell] - roared onto the scene in late 1982 with Rock This Town, the younger generation thought they were hearing something new, while us older folk wondered if Sun hadn't discovered some old rockabilly tapes in their archives.



They weren't around long as a group - they disbanded in 1984 - but in that short span they had five hit singles for EMI America, four of which made Top 40. Actually their first single release was Stray Cat Strut in mid-1982, but it only managed to lurk beneath the Hot 100 for several weeks. However, after Rock This Town surged to # 9 later that year, Strut got a new life and, early in 1983, it became their best single, peaking at # 3. Kind of like a repeat of Bill Haley's Rock Around The Clock which did nothing in its 1954 release, but became a smash a year later.



Also in 1983 (She's) Sexy + 17 made it to the # 5 position, while I Won't Stand In Your Way topped out at # 35 that November. Their last charted hit [and my personal favourite] was 1984's Look At That Cadillac which could only manage a # 68. Even so, in terms of chart success, their brand of rockabilly did infinitely better commercially than most of the original purveyors of the genre.



The group also recorded two albums in Britain in 1981 and 1982. In 1985 Phantom and Rocker formed a new group - Phantom, Rocker & Slick - without chart success, following which Phantom played Charlie Parker's drummer in the movie Bird. Setzer, who would also play Eddie Cochran in the film La Bamba, formed the Brian Setzer Orchestra in 1998, devoting himself to a resurrection of 1930s and 1940s "jump" music.



This Curb bargain product is one of their better efforts, even containing a page of liner notes written in 1992 by Don Ovens."