Dale Hawkins, of course, is best known for
"Suzie-Q" -- a Top 30
Billboard hit for him in 1957 that turned into a
garage rock standard in the '60s. During that decade,
Hawkins was relatively quiet as a record-maker, but he did behind-the-scenes work as a producer before resurfacing in 1969 with
LA, Memphis & Tyler, Texas on
Bell Records. Named after the three towns it was recorded in, it's a bit easy to overrate
LA, Memphis upon its first listen because it comes as a shock that
Hawkins was more than a
rockabilly cat. He was an early roots rocker, certainly, playing
rockabilly but also touching back on its
blues and
country roots, plus hitting a bunch of stuff in between -- and don't forget the L.A. in the title, either, since he did give this album several splashes of snazzy showbiz pizzazz reminiscent of
Sonny Bono. Those showbiz colors -- primarily the blaring horn charts and studio slickness achieved with heavy reverb and occasionally punctuated by flutes, fuzz guitars, and Mellotrons -- give this album a polish that makes it go down easy but also treads a bit close too kitsch, making this an artifact of a plaid-n-paisley era. But it's also a period piece in another way: it does capture the time when
roots rock was forming in the music of
the Band,
the Sir Douglas Quintet, and
Tony Joe White, and those really are the closest touchstones to
Hawkins' work here. More than any other of his '50s peers -- with the notable exception of
Ricky Nelson --
Hawkins could tap into that spirit, as this often remarkable, always entertaining album shows. Yes, there is a little bit of unintentional camp here, but that's part of what makes it entertaining, since it marks it as a late-'60s LP and makes the visionary stuff here -- the times when he knocks down borders between
soul and
rock, when he digs into funky, bluesy workouts that sound like all genres without belonging to any of them -- still sound vibrant and exciting decades later. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
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