Headed Out Of Memphis by Cold Blue Steel

They have toured with X-Beatle Ringo Starr, Bo Diddley, Delbert Mcclinton and many others.

Two-time Dallas Observer Music Award-winners for "Best Blues Band", Cold Blue Steel performs a variety of classic American tunes with incomparable enthusiasm, showmanship and authenticity. Their song list includes Stax and Motown soul favorites of the early '60s, Elvis and Memphis rockabilly, tunes from many Texas blues artists (Freddie King, Albert Collins, T-Bone Walker and the Fabulous Thunderbirds), swing compositions, and finishing oft with some classic country and western and '50s rock and roll.

CBS is enjoying the success of their second hit CD, "Headed Out Of Memphis" which was recently released nationally through Icehouse/Priority Records, The album is being played on over 100 radio stations nationwide as well receiving international airplay in several European countries. It has also gotten favorable reviews in a number of prominent national music magazines such as Blues Review and The Album Network Several well-known Texas musicians are featured on the new CD, including Grammy Award-winning keyboardist Tim Alexander from Asleep at the Wheel and national recording artist, Reverend Horton Heat.

Due in part to the success of "Headed Out of Memphis", the band has now added Europe to their touring schedule. Their 1997 tour covers eight countries in twenty-three days.

Their first CD, "Drivin' To Mexico" was the largest independent selling blues release in Texas history. Both the CD and cassette versions are in sixth pressings and requests for live appearances are at an all-time high.

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You might expect a CD on a blues label entitled Headed out of Memphis to be influenced by B. B. King, or Howlin' Wolf, or maybe even the Stax sound of the 1960s. But the presiding deity here is none other than ... ELVIS, and the prevailing sound is '50s rock n toll,

The title track is a tribute to The King, a mid-tempo boogie in which Cold Blue Steel front man James Buck simulates the vocal style of another '50s rock 'n roll icon, Wolfman Jack, to celebrate Elvis's influence on American culture. The ghost of yet another 50's icon, Marilyn Monroe, materalizes as a late-night hitchhiker in "Hollywood Blond."

"Monkey's Uncle," driven like the rest of the tunes by the rollicking guitar work of Mark Pollack, contains some not-too-veiled references to the feat of white patents during the Eisenhower years that rock n roll was exposing their sweet little children to the rhythm and sensuality of black R&B; "The music they were playin' had a jungle beat/They were jumpin like some monkeys in a coconut tree." Only here "monkeys" is not some derogatory caricature of African-Americans, but a depiction of white kids dancing their buns off to this new music that would "never stop."

Texas blues and rock 'n' roll are branches on the same tree, and there are some good samples of the Texas mound here as well. Check our Pollack's solos on "Shufflin' Little Lady." for example, or the instrumental "Dave-In' (with Asleep at the "Wheel keyboardist Tim Alexander providing stellar accompaniment). Other branches appear, too: hints of the Kinks in "Big Time Operator," and jump blues in the final tune, fittingly titled "We're Outta Here." There is one slow blues tune, the respectable, if somewhat generic, "Just Got in from Dallas."

It all blends together into what Buck calls "Tex-rock-blues," an upbeat, eminently danceable music played with few pretensions and lots of snap in the boots. So slick back that hair, don that leather jacket, and let this CD take you back to the golden age when Elvis was king.

Mark Buechler

Average Customer Review: 5