Stray Cats “Stray Cats” 1981. Today, April 10th, is Stray Cats’ singer and guitarist Brian Setzer’s 60th birthday (b. 1959). Stray Cats is the band’s first album; produced by Dave Edmunds (Setzer met him in London when the Stray Cats moved there from the US in ‘80), the rockabilly revival record was a huge hit in the UK, going to #6 on the album charts. It was not released in the US until after the success of their sophomore LP Built for Speed (1982, it included several of the tracks that previously appeared on Stray Cats). Stray Cats released three singles in the UK from the album: “Runaway Boys,” which went to #9, “Rock This Town” (#9), which, when released in the US off Built for Speed, went to #9 on the Billboard Hot 100 in ‘82 (and was later listed by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as one of the “500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll), and “Stray Cat Strut” (#11 in the UK). “Stray Cat Strut” was the first single released from Built For Speed in ‘82 and at first only went to #109 in the US but after the success of “Rock This Town,” they re-released it and it went to #3 in the spring of ‘83. Setzer wrote all three of those tracks but there are a few covers on Stray Cats like “Ubangi Stomp,” originally written by Charles Underwood and first recorded by Warren Smith – it would later be considered a rockabilly classic recorded by Jerry Lee Lewis, The Trashmen and several others like Alice Cooper (not exactly a rockabilly artist but he totally brings it on this track). Other rockabilly covers are “Jeannie Jeannie Jeannie” by Eddie Cochran and “My One Desire” by Dorsey Burnette and performed by Ricky Nelson.

I never got a chance to see Stray Cats play live (they pretty much broke up in ‘84, reuniting a couple of times for some tours and one-off concerts) but we did see Brian Setzer Orchestra perform their swing-revival style a long time ago at Summerfest in Milwaukee – possibly in 1996 but I really can’t remember back that far. More recently I saw Brian Setzer in Minneapolis in 2016, though not performing. He was at the Duran Duran and Chic concert I was attending and before the show a bunch of people started pointing over to some seats not that far from us (I had good seats, his were a little better) and then he stood up and waved. I guess he’s married to a woman from Minneapolis and now lives there; our friends who also live there see him out and about occasionally, looking a bit older than he does here on the LP insert from Stray Cats.