When it comes to exploring the 1950s roots of rock and roll, one can do a lot worse than to delve into the catalog of Reverend Horton Heat.
Singer/guitarist Jim “the Rev” Heath has been preaching the gospel of that era of music via a slew of albums of original material released by labels both indie and major.
Reverend Horton Heat performs at Mill Valley’s Sweetwater Music Hall at 8pm, Thursday, Oct. 8.
He’s found his music labeled psychobilly, alt-rock and latter-wave rockabilly and is well versed in not only some of the same ground the Stray Cats have trod, but also old-school country and blues. The 2023 release, Roots of The Rev, his 12th studio outing fronting the Reverend Horton Heat (not counting his 2005 Christmas album, We Three Kings), finds the Dallas native and longtime friend/stand-up bass player Jimbo Wallace doing a creative flex on a dozen covers.
Recorded in a super lo-fi manner on an array of vintage studio equipment that constituted a mic for each player, with Heath occasionally dropping in drums for each song after the fact, this collection drew on the catalogs of everyone from Elvis Presley, Gene Vincent and Carl Perkins to Conway Twitty, Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash. Aside from being a pandemic project when musicians everywhere had a ton of time on their hands, Heath looked at it as a nod to musicians he admired and knew personally or otherwise.
“Especially during the early days of our group, there weren’t many rockabilly bands out there,” Heath said in a recent interview. “The older rockabilly artists were constantly looking for guys that could play that style because a lot of the older [sidepeople] were gone or didn’t want to do it.
“I backed up a lot of pretty cool people, and then Jimbo backed up some cool people on our own, separately and together. And then we have had some run-ins with some notable people, opening for them or getting to meet them and do shows or recordings. I thought we should do a cover song from each one of those people and it would be kind of fun to do. Plus, having worked with all those people, I really wanted the stories to get out there,” he continued.
The result with Roots of The Rev is a musical travelogue of roots music that finds Heath and Wallace serving as the listener’s tour guides. With the former’s twanging vocal phrasing and the latter providing a rock-solid bottom, listeners are treated to an irresistible reading of Eddie Cochran’s “Twenty Flight Rock” accentuated by some Jordanaires-flavored harmonies, a snappy reading of the Nelson perennial “Three Days” and “Rockin’ Bones,” a stomping opener originally cut by rockabilly cult artist Ronnie Dawson.
Elsewhere, Heath tips his cap to fellow Texan Gene Summers with the Jerry Lee Lewis-kissed “School of Rock ’n Roll” and kicks it into overdrive with some fleet-fingered riffing on Crescent City rocker Jerry Byrne’s “Lights Out.” Expect this frenetic energy to translate on stage when the good Rev and his bandmates plug in.
“While we never had a big hit song, we’ve had some that got a lot of airplay, but never one that was a big enough song that we had to play it,” Heath explained. “But at the same time, with our fans, there are certain songs that we almost have to play because that’s what our fans want to hear. Among them are ‘400 Bucks,’ ‘Baddest of the Bad,’ ‘Big Little Baby,’ ‘In Your Wildest Dreams,’ ‘Galaxy 500’ and ‘Bales of Cocaine.’ People get upset when we don’t play one of the Rev’s ‘hits.’ We’re adding in quite a bit more cover songs right now because of the new album. We recorded ‘Ace of Spades,’ and that’s not even on the new album.”
Heath was bestowed his stage name by an overzealous club owner in the Deep Ellum area of Texas after the latter was trying to pump up publicity for his new club that Heath was headlining. And while the Stray Cats enjoyed enough success in the 1980s to bring predictions of a rockabilly revival, that never came to pass. But Heath’s “Rev” persona and the band’s live show attracted enough attention to land him a record deal with Sub Pop.
The band’s debut, Smoke ’Em If You Got ’Em, dropped in November 1990, right before grunge blew up in 1991. In the decade that followed, Heath got signed to major label Interscope Records, where he put out a number of solid releases including 1994’s “Liquor In the Front” and 1996’s “Space Heater” before the likes of file-sharing, changing musical tastes and streaming landed him back on a number of indie labels. He was just fine with these developments.
“We worked at some really great studios with some of the top people ever in the world producing and recording,” he said. “With the rise of digital and things like Napster and iTunes, the guarantees you were given that allowed you to record your album started going down, down and down. Since we were getting offered such little money to record, I decided to get a ProTools rig, work with a bunch of microphones I collected, and we decided to do it ourselves. That was one of the most fun decisions I ever made. I love it, and there are some good things [that came out of that]. I don’t have to worry about anybody questioning the songs and what I’m doing.”
Having been inspired by what he calls mid-20th century music that runs the gamut from Henry Mancini, Ennio Morricone and movie musicals (The Sound of Music and My Fair Lady were favorites) to surf music and the aforementioned rockabilly, Heath’s passions still run deep and wide. And it’s a big part of the reason why the 65-year-old rocker is four decades into leading the Reverend Horton Heat.
“I found that If you can draw a big crowd playing your own original music in your hometown, then the only thing that’s keeping you from rock stardom is the will to get in a van and drive,” Heath said. “I tell young musicians to get themselves a really good running van, and if one guy can fix it, that’s even better. You’ve got to get out there.
“During my whole career, that’s the hardest thing about music of any genre. You’re in a hotel room by yourself. You’re alone and eating truck stop food. You’re getting sick and you don’t know where to go to the doctor,” he continued. “It’s a hard thing. You want to be a rock star? I guarantee you’ll be a rock star. You’ve just gotta be ready to wash your hair at Burger King and do stuff like that.”
Reverend Horton Heat plays with the McCharmlys at 8pm, Thursday, Oct. 2 at Sweetwater Music Hall, 19 Corte Madera Ave., Mill Valley. Tickets are $41.70. sweetwatermusichall.org.
