Apparently the Old Canberra Inn was originally a coach stop between Yass and Queanbeyan and there is little doubt that many travellers at the time were crying out for the 1950s to arrive so those long, lonely nights moving between these places would be enlivened by the foot-stompin' rhythms of top quality rockabilly – originally regarded as the kind of music that would drive teenagers wild with excitement and parents wild with fury.
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In the appropriately titled history A Rocket in My Pocket, writer and musician Max Decharne sums up the rockabilly sound as follows: "Youthful enthusiasm, urgent rhythms and stripped down arrangements driven along by a slapping upright double bass."
Elvis Presley got things started in 1954 with the Sun Studios recording That's all Right. But as rock'n'roll was a somewhat fluid term back then, it was hard to pin on any one sound, so the likes of Elvis and Johnny Cash were apparently considered more akin to country music than jumped-up versions of rhythm and blues. But there were some attuned cats out there of the cars, liquor and dancing variety who noticed something a bit raw and unpolished about a new type of rock'n'roll that had an extra strain of teenage desire captured on jittery nuggets like Webb Pierce's Teenage Boogie and Charlie Feathers' Everybody's Lovin' my Baby – both from 1956.
Although many rockabilly artists remained in obscurity, recording one solid-gold seven inch and then disappearing from the scene like many '60s garage punkers did a decade later, some like the aforementioned Charlie Feathers and raw rocker Johnny Burnette charted a musical path no less compelling than Presley, Orbison, Perkins and the like. It so happened this was a parallel trail that represented the earliest stirrings of what is now described as alternative music – kind of like first-wave rock'n'roll but a tad more unrefined that later bands like The Cramps took to the extreme when punk rock struck in the 1970s.
All this essential pop-culture history will surely seep through the floorboards this Saturday when rockabilly arrives at the Old Canberra Inn to revitalise it as a live-music venue once again. The spirit of Johnny Burnette will be lurking in the hearts and minds of keen retro acts The Fuelers, The King Hits, Bad Luck Kitty and The Groove Kings who conjure the guts and resolve of primal '50s rock'n'roll in their own way. And although my car of choice turned out to be a Mitsubishi Mirage rather than a Cadillac, the Rockabilly Relaunch should get the right stuff going for all concerned.
ROCKABILLY RELAUNCH
When: April 11, 11am till late
Where: Old Canberra Inn, Lyneham
Tickets: Free
