Table of contents for December 2025/January 2026 in Vintage Rock

Next year, perhaps the greatest of all rock’n’roll songs, Blue Suede Shoes, turns 70 years old. And while you can all rest assured that we will be celebrating that anniversary in jubilant style, when news reached us that Sun Records were releasing some “lost” material from Carl Perkins, we were all ears. So for this issue, we met up with Bill Lloyd, producer of the King Of Rockabilly’s never-before-heard album Some Things Never Change, to find out about those long-forgotten sessions in Nashville and in Perkins’ pool house studio. It’s not every day that archive material surfaces from one of our heroes, and this is certainly worth the wait! We were also extremely excited, and very fortunate, to finally sit down with another champion of rock’n’roll: the world’s top Elvis…

Multi-Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Steve Earle has been inducted as a member of the Grand Ole Opry. Earle was welcomed to the fold by friend and fellow Opry member Emmylou Harris, who commented, “Steve is my captain. We have done so many shows together. He has been my friend. He has been an inspiration. He is such a fantastic songwriter. I’ve known Steve for so long, and I know that he went through the fire, but he came out with his sense of humour, his intellect and his humanity, not just intact but even stronger. Steve, I am so proud to know you. I can’t think of a better way to begin the next 100 years than with these words, Steve Earle, congratulations on becoming the next member of the Grand…

Recently crowned as the greatest of all Elvis tribute acts at Graceland during Elvis Week 2024, Weston-Super-Mare’s very own Emilio Santoro has certainly put in the hours to finally score this, the highest accolade available to impersonators of the King. Santoro has built up his reputation over the years, winning numerous awards including bagging his first trophy at just 17. He then won Grand Champion at the Porthcawl Elvis Festival, Blackpool’s Return To Memphis contest in 2019, and the People’s Choice award at the Niagara Falls Elvis Festival in Canada and Images Of The King Professional World Champion in 2022, Europe’s youngest winner. On top of that, Emilio has recorded three LPs, With Love, The Christmas Album and At The Movies. We join him on his current tour of the…

1. SURFIN’ BIRD (1978) A golden era classic ripped to glorious shreds for the band’s debut single 2. THE WAY I WALK (1978) Jack Scott’s calling card gets a filthy workout 3. HUMAN FLY (1978) Surf guitar, pounding drums and voodoo sounds abound 4. DOMINO (1983) A killer vocal and Poison Ivy riding the frets to ransack Roy Orbison’s original 5. GOO GOO MUCK (1980) Sex and horror over a spooky groove 6. WHAT’S INSIDE A GIRL? (1986) Ghoulish erotica meets surf rock 7. LONESOME TOWN (1983) Ricky Nelson’s prom night heartbreaker given a spectral sheen 8. BIKINI GIRL WITH MACHINE GUNS (1990) B-movie-inspired and one of their highest charters 9. CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LEATHER LAGOON (1990) Rumbling highlight from Stay Sick! 10. MULESKINNER BLUES (1995) 1930s country standard…

If a focus group aimed to pinpoint musical subject matter and a presentational style likely to appeal to youngsters, you wouldn’t imagine it would come up with skiffle. Story songs about railroads, hobos, shootings and judges, performed by friendly, often scholarly looking types in sweaters, relying on a lot of hard acoustic strumming, seem an unlikely order. Even the signature song of the genre, Rock Island Line, starts with a spoken preamble by Lonnie Donegan in a mangled “American” accent that goes on for almost a minute. Stan Freberg quickly latched on to these aspects of Donegan’s rendition in a brilliantly funny send-up of the song, paired with an equally spot-on parody of Heartbreak Hotel, on a Capitol Records single. Yet for a short period between 1956 and 1958 the…

Ken Colyer and Chris Barber, from whose band Lonnie Donegan emerged, are two of the unheralded heroes of skiffle and much of the music that followed. They never had skiffle hits in their own right, however. Colyer, the ultimate purist, would have disdained the very idea. Barber was less of a stickler, scoring a Top 20 chart success in 1959 with the jazz-pop crossover Petite Fleur. But he was essentially a jazz man. After Donegan’s departure from his band, he did release one high quality EP, The Chris Barber Skiffle Group, which featured Donegan’s replacement, American Johnny Duncan. But from thereon Barber ignored skiffle. Barber had initially taken on Duncan because of superficial similarities in his sound, and even his appearance, to Donegan. After six months with the Barber band, he…

When punk exploded onto the scene in the mid-1970s, the key ingredient making it such appetising fare for youngsters boiled down to one thing: energy. Press hacks were up in arms about the swearing, the safety pins and the terrible hair, but for the teens of the day, this was simple music, delivered with devil-may-care impudence. Sick to the back teeth of insipid-looking musicians stringing out solos on guitars or keyboards that seemed to go nowhere, here was music that got straight down to business, with no worries about complicated lyrics or smart chord changes. But this cut-to-the-quick approach was also what made rockabilly, less cynical than punk but just as direct and unpretentious, appealing to another group of young British music fans at the time. Given that fact, it’s…

THEE HEADCOATEES THE MAN-TRAP SESSIONS: VOLUMES 1 & 2 DAMAGED GOODS Just ahead of the release of Thee Headcoatees’ new album Man-Trap, these two EPs offer a mix of album tracks and exclusive recordings that serve as an exquisite taster to what will be their first new longplayer since 1999’s Here Comes Cessation. Volume 1 of The Man-Trap Sessions lifts two tracks from the album and pairs them with a couple of additional songs, while Volume 2 leads with a solitary album cut along with a trio of tunes not available elsewhere. The tracks that are set to appear again consist of He’s Gonna Kill That Girl, which is a cover of the Ramones’ You’re Gonna Kill That Girl, and the Billy Childish composition I Can’t Find Pleasure which was…

The Hemsby Rock’n’Roll Weekender makes a grand return to the calendar on 7-10 November for the event’s 71st’ spectacular at Hemsby Beach Holiday Park. Expect the usual high-class bill of rock’n’roll and roots music with headliners including Toto And The Raw Deals, Big Sandy & His Fly-Rite Boys, Dylan Kirk & The Killers, Marcel Riesco with The Ray Allen Band and The Jive Aces, plus the mighty John Lewis & His Trio, Tex Speed Combo and Alan Power & The Aftershocks. Hemsby #72 tickets are also available now, taking place on 5-9 March with an international bill that features Sonny George of The Planet Rockers with Boz Boorer’s All-Star Band, Marcel Bontempi, CM Wolf & The Backbones, Roy Dee & The Spitfires and Restless. Beyond those sizzling line-ups comes all…

FESTIVE FOLKESTONE JIVE 9 5-8 December FEATURING The Kingcats, Good Rockin’ Tonight, Phil Haley & His Comments, Joey & The Jivers LOCATION Grand Burstin Hotel, Folkestone BOOKING WEBSITE holidayrock.co.uk IOW ROCK’N’ROLL WEEKEND 13-16 February 2026 FEATURING Jerry Lee Lewis & Chuck Berry Special, The Zodiacs, The Midnight Dynamos, Peter Gill & The Good Time Charlies LOCATION Norton Grange, Yarmouth BOOKING WEBSITE boogaloopromotions.com PAIGNTON ROCK’N’ROLL WEEKENDER 27 Feb-2 March 2026 FEATURING Mark Keeley’s Good Rockin’ Tonight, The Mee Kats, Glenn Darren & The Krew Katz, The Zodiacs LOCATION Beverley Park Holiday Park, Paignton BOOKING WEBSITE ventureawaymusicweekends.co.uk HEMSBY ROCK’N’ROLL WEEKENDER #72 5-9 March FEATURING Sonny George, CM Wolf, Marcel Bontempi, Toto & The Raw Deals, MFC Chicken, Restless LOCATION Hemsby Beach Holiday Park, Hemsby BOOKING WEBSITE hemsbyrocknroll.co.uk BLACKPOOL TOWER BALLROOM ROCK’N’ROLL WEEKENDER…

Down By The Riverside (Ken Colyer Skiffle Group) B-side of a Decca 78 of 1955. This is skiffle as purist Colyer deemed it should be played, straightforwardly, without the histrionics that would soon rocket Lonnie Donegan into the pop stratosphere. Colyer’s whiskytinged voice is backed by brother Bill (washboard), Alexis Korner (guitar), and a banjo and string bass. Likeable, but unlikely to spark a teenage revolution. Freight Train (Chas McDevitt Skiffle Group) This reworking of an Elizabeth Cotten folk song, led by Nancy Whiskey’s plaintive vocal, is one of most beautiful skiffle records, deeply evocative of the era. Sadly, some gloss was taken off by a lawsuit from Peggy Seeger contesting song ownership, leading to an out-of-court settlement. McDevitt’s group were in the middle of a US tour at the…

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Films about juvenile delinquency were a feature of US cinema for many years before 1945, with Dead End (1937) an early example. Based on a Sidney Kingsley play and set in a milieu of slum housing, petty crime and social realism, it was a critical and commercial success and provided Humphrey Bogart, who appeared in it as a gangster, with a key role. Whilst Kingsley, and writers like him, would be expunged from Hollywood during the McCarthy years, its success proved that an appetite clearly existed for films about teenage misbehaviour, violence and poverty. Many of these portrayed outsiders, such as the Marlon Brando biker film, The Wild One (1953), which remained banned in the UK up till 1967, due to its characters being enthusiastic hooligans. A particularly famous example…

The world’s most successful rock’n’roll musical returns to the stage for another tour of the UK Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story 28 AUGUST 2025 BIRMINGHAM HIPPODROME, BIRMINGHAM Since it premiered in Plymouth in 1989, Buddy has gone on to enjoy over 10,700 performances around the UK, including 14 years worth of shows in the West End. It might not be the first jukebox musical – Elvis opened in 1977 for starters – but it’s certainly one of the most popular. An unabashed celebration of the music of Buddy Holly, it focuses on a series of landmark events between 1956 and 1959, beginning with a live KDAV radio broadcast in landlocked Lubbock that sees Buddy and boys switch from straight-laced’n’safe country to rock’n’roll – an unannounced (and unapproved) live turn that…

Sonny Curtis, guitarist for The Crickets and composer of I Fought The Law and Walk Right Back, died at the age of 88 on 19 September. Curtis’ death was reported on the Buddy Holly Facebook page: “We are very saddened at the recent passing of our much-loved dear friend and close Buddy and Cricket colleague, Sonny Curtis. A brilliant songwriter, musician and wonderful soul. RIP in Rock’n’Roll Heaven.” Born in Meadow, Texas, on 9 May 1937, Curtis was a childhood friend of Buddy Holly and the pair were soon performing together, including opening for Elvis Presley in 1955 and ’56. Curtis’ classic standard I Fought The Law – his “most famous copyright” as he called it – first appeared on 1960’s In Style With The Crickets album and would go…

Jonathan Church Theatre Productions and Chichester Festival Theatre in association with Nica Burns have announced the West End debut of the new musical Marie & Rosetta (reviewed in VR77). Opening on 28 February 2026 for a limited run until 11 April, the critically acclaimed musical, written by George Brant and directed by Monique Touko, will be showing at Soho Place in London’s famous theatre district. Multi-award-winning singer and actress Beverley Knight continues in the role of Godmother Of Rock’n’Roll Sister Rosetta Tharpe, while Ntombizodwa Ndlovu also returns, making her West End debut as Tharpe’s beloved singing partner Marie Knight. “Sister Rosetta Tharpe and her legacy had long been overlooked in music history,” commented Knight. “She deserves her place as one of the architects of rock’n’roll, a gospel-singing, guitar-shredding heroine who…

Celebrated rockabilly, doo-wop and swing singer Vicky Tafoya has died aged 57 after a lengthy battle with colon cancer. A fan of 50s and 60s music growing up as a teenager, thanks to a musical education from her mother, Tafoya joined the Doo-Wop Society Of Southern California and was a central player in the revival scene of the 1990s, touring for many years in the States and across the globe. She signed to Penrose Records in 2019, after forming Vicky And The Big Beat in 2001, and, having shared a stage with numerous greats of the doo-wop and R&B worlds, built a reputation that led to her status as The Rhythm And Blues Queen of Southern California. “Vicky Tafoya possessed that rare gift of a soul singer,” wrote The Raincross Gazette.…

“The music culture here is pretty special,” says Charlie Halloran, trombonist and bandleader of Charlie And The Tropicales. Growing up listening to New Orleans jazz and Jamaican ska in St Louis, Missouri, Halloran followed his musical dreams down to New Orleans in his early twenties. He started out playing traditional jazz, releasing his first album Charlie Halloran & The Quality 6 in 2015. But he soon branched out, joining swing revivalists Squirrel Nut Zippers and playing funky R&B with Allen Toussaint and Jon Cleary. Digging into the crossover between Caribbean music and New Orleans jazz and R&B led to the forming of Charlie And The Tropicales, a band whose sound mixes all the flavours of dance music from the mid-century, including New Orleans rock’n’roll, Trinidadian calypso, Colombia cumbia, Cuban son…

“I’ve just always liked obscure things, strange names – and once I found rockabilly I just couldn’t listen to anything else… Rockabilly should have inspired something to happen that was so great, so passionate, so sexual that it should have taken us to another place.” Lux Interior, NME “What I think of as the really raunchy rockabilly most people didn’t hear. It was underground music. The real wild stuff was either obscene or messy-sounding. I mean it’s beautiful, but I don’t see how anyone could have heard it unless they were in the town where that record came out or where that nut lived. The real filth, that’s what we listen to.” Poison Ivy, Los Angeles Times “I’m a vampire. I’m 164 years old,” Lux Interior once purred. “So I’ve…

On 14 April 2012, after a lengthy wait, Sonny Curtis was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame as a member of The Crickets, with drummer JI Allison, bassist Joe B Mauldin, and rhythm guitarist Niki Sullivan. The induction was unique in that it was offered by special committee in order to correct the Hall’s past oversights in missing out the band members so vital to the success of the headline artists – The Crickets having not been included along with Buddy when he was first inducted in 1986. Also inducted that day were the members of The Comets, the Blue Caps, the Famous Flames, the Miracles and the Midnighters. Smokey Robinson had the honour of inducting the bands saying: “The groups don’t sing back-up, their harmonies make…

Armed with a wide perma-smile, his voice was nasally but he had a magnificently attacking approach to a song, unprecedented for a British singer of the time Two thirds of the way into his single Lost John, Lonnie Donegan ad libs, “If anybody asks you who sung this song/Tell them Lonnie Donegan been here and gone.” Few other British artists of the time, let alone skifflers, would have had the audacity to be so self-referential. If Elvis was the King of Rock’n’Roll, Lonnie, in a much smaller pool, was the King of Skiffle. At first glance, you might think that was just hype. Armed with a wide perma-smile, his voice was thin and nasally. But he had a magnificently attacking approach to a song, unprecedented for a British singer of the…

Few people who caught Sweet Nothin’s on the wireless in the autumn of ’59 would have ever guessed the real age of its firecracker singer. For anyone who actually bought the single, however, it was hard to reconcile the image on that sleeve, of an angelic-looking, white-bread, all-American teenager, with the throaty, confident, fully-bloomed vocals they heard on the record. Listened to now, there’s something undeniably disconcerting about the lyrics this 14-year-old was being asked to sing, and the knowing, sexually mature manner in which Lee delivers them, so much so that some radio stations banned the song on its release. “Uh huh, honey, alright,” she murmurs in the intro, as we hear an indistinct male voice (actually Louis Nunley of the Anita Kerr Singers). “My baby whispers in my…

Aside from his production credit on this recording, Mark Linett’s history with surf goes back to even before 1 April 1995. “Prior to recording this, I’d made maybe three records with Los Straitjackets, who are one of the more successful surf revival bands,” he tells us. “And I also did a record with a very interesting, fun band from the South Bay called The Ziggens that Elliot Easton produced. They do a lot of stuff, but they do a few surf-style tunes with a lot of humour. You know, even in the titles, the name of the album we did was called Pomona Lisa and they had a song on the record called Surfin’ You Say! I mean, I really like that. So I had had a direct experience with…

01 MARY’S BOY CHILD HARRY BELAFONTE (RCA) While it may not have the same rock’n’roll cachet as Bobby Helms’ Jingle Bell Rock, Chuck Berry’s Run Rudolph Run, or Brenda Lee’s Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree, Harry Belafonte’s earnest celebration of the nativity remains a perennial favourite and was the sparkling star atop the UK Christmas tree in 1957, sitting at No.1 on the chart for seven consecutive weeks. Mary’s Boy Child, written by Jester Hairston, completed a triumphant year for the “King of Calypso”, who had already scored Top 10 hits with The Banana Boat Song (No.2) and Island In The Sun (No.3) that year. The smooth sounds of Belafonte have since been usurped by Boney M, whose 1978 version ranks as the UK’s fourth biggest Christmas single, while this original…

Carlos Diaz founded Spanish indie El Toro Records, one of the scene’s most highly respected and successful labels, in 1996, and has been the man behind some superb releases, taking in a wide array of genres including roots music, rock’n’roll, rockabilly, western swing, rhythm & blues and instrumental surf. Theirs is a bounteous catalogue that includes past legends brought back to life – from Billy Riley to Big Mama Thornton – as well as a roster of the current scene’s brightest talents, amongst them Aisha Khan, Charlie Hightone, Gina Haley, the Doel Brothers, Marcel Bontempi, John Lewis and other top draws. Carlos also oversees the Screamin’ Festival in Spain, one of the calendar’s most anticipated weekenders taking place on 8–14 June 2026, the year of El Toro’s 30th anniversary celebrations!…

In September of 1950, Atlantic’s bright new hope Ruth Brown stepped into the label’s New York studio to lay down Teardrops In My Eyes, a song that, once released, would reinvent her as an artist and change her fortunes forever. When the song’s creator Rudy Toombs first played Brown the track, the singer was reluctant to take on something that she felt would place her too far away from familiar torchsong territory. But with the help of Atlantic label boss Ahmet Ertegün, she was eventually persuaded to up the rhythm. And we should all thank our lucky stars she agreed. Released 75 years ago, in October 1950, Teardrops In My Eyes not only became Atlantic’s first ever 45-rpm record, it also gave Brown her first Billboard R&B No.1 hit, maintaining…