The term "Rockabilly"

Does anyone know how the term "rockabilly" was borned?

I´ve read a story at Billy Burnette´s website, which I don´t know if it´s a joke or if it´s serious, and it goes like this:


As the young Burnette brothers rehearsed their now-legendary Rock 'n Roll Trio at home with guitarist Paul Burlison, their first-born toddlers (Rocky & Billy Burnette) would set a bathroom plunger down as a "microphone" stand and wiggle away as if they too were on stage making music. So a song was named "Rock Billy Boogie" which soon also became the name for an exciting new subgenre of a vital new music called Rock And Roll.


If that´s the origin, it sure is interesting.... but is it true? Any idea?

I've read that it was the other way around - Johnny named his son Rocky and Dorsey named his son Billy, so that when said in sequence, their names would sound sort-of like "rockabilly". Don't remember where I read it, but it was a long time ago. Funny coincidence, either way...

Anders

I always just imagined it was the merginf of hillbilly and rock...


I don't know..


Kid.

You can chalk it up to the blues, cracker style!

I've read a lot of interviews with people like Carl Perkins, Sonny Burgess, Johnny Cash, Ray Campi, and many others who were rockin' it back in the 50s, and at the time, they didn't refer to it as rockabilly. I think some called it "Bop" or "Hillbilly Bop." Rockabilly was sort of attached to it years later, distinguishing it from rock-n-roll because it contained countrified hillbilly elements. The story about Burnette Brothers' kids and the song Rockabilly Boogie (or Rock-billy Boogie) is accurate as it pertains to that song, but I don't know that you can say that they intended it to be the label for a whole genre of music.

The hillbilly element is crucial for me when I'm in the mood to label music (which isn't often). People single out Eddie Cochran as a rockabilly artist - and in his early years, I think I could stand by that. But songs like Summertime Blues, Somethin' Else, and Jeannie, Jeannie, Jeannie, are far too rockin', with virtually no country element to be found, for me to consider them rockabilly. For me, I gotta have the 'billy to call it rockabilly.

Much of the Stray Cats catalog is "really rockabilly," but some of it flat out rocks, owing little or nothing to Joe Maphis or Merle Travis. "How Long You Gonna Live Anyway?" is a rocker, but I wouldn't necessarily call it rockabilly just because there's a doghouse bass on it. That being said, the 'billy influence dominates so much of their recorded output that they have definitely earned the "Kings of Rockabilly" titles bestowed upon them back around the "Blast Off" days.

Personally, I'm inclined to go with TV's "Blues done cracker style" definition. But I guess the thread is more about the etymology of the word "rockabilly" than a discussion of how it has been applied or misapplied over the years.


Gotta-have-the-billy

Rickabilly wrote:

The story about Burnette Brothers' kids and the song Rockabilly Boogie (or Rock-billy Boogie) is accurate as it pertains to that song, but I don't know that you can say that they intended it to be the label for a whole genre of music.

In the book (or whatever it was) where I read the story, the whole point was that they named their sons after the music, not the other way around. Which could only be true if the term ROCKABILLY was being used at the time. Since they were both born in 1953 (Billy is one month older than Rocky, born resp. May 8th and June 12th, according to All Music Guide), it's safe to say the boys are older than the actual term.

That said, I find it hard to believe that the Burnettes invented the term, it's most likely just a story somebody made up later on. Now if I could only remember what book it was...


Anders

I would have to agree the term rockabilly had to be floating around in some regions long before it was widely used. Without today's media saturation and instant communication, it was slower to catch on with the mainstream (i.e. most homes had no TV, radio was limited, music was very regionalized, etc.). Even when Elvis was on the Louisiana Hayride in 1955, they were calling him the "Hillbilly Cat." When rock-n-roll (which one can argue had been around for several years) exploded in 1955-56, the "rock" and the "billy" were combined more often to distinguish between it and more countrified fare, like Merle Travis, Hank Williams, etc.

I'm less concerned with whether or not the music is rockabilly, rock-n-roll, western swing, bop, rhythm and blues... than I am with how it makes me feel. I have a feeling most of you feel the same way. The people who are drawn to Setzer tend to have a diversity in their tastes in music.

And-yet-I-still-use-billy