Sarip Dol & Samseng Kampung Dusun
Contributor: Khid Buck
Rockabilly is an amalgamation of the words Rock and Roll, and Hillbilly. It’s what happens when a Southern White kid, born in the 1930s, surrounds himself with Blacks and their music but is still unable to shake what he truly is – a hillbilly. Such was the case of the immortal Elvis Aaron Presley when he burst into the scene with hits like his cover of That’s Alright – originally written by a Black Blues musician named Arthur William Crudup.
The King himself.
There is a small group of kids (both Black and White) today who say that Elvis stole Black music. I do not intend to entertain this fringe of “cancel culture” except to say that there is an interview – on record – of another respectable Black Blues musician named Riley B King (BB King) who said, “They did not make a mistake when they called Elvis the King of Rock and Roll.” Now I don’t know about you, but as both a Malaysian Rockabilly fan and a BB King fan, that’s enough for me.
After the 1950s, Rockabilly began to fade out of the limelight. Folk Rock began taking centre stage, as did Blues Rock and Pop Rock. In Malaysia, we had Pop Yeh-Yeh which was a “very slightly” localised version of The Beatles’ more famous pop songs. Overseas, however, it wouldn’t be long before the Rockabilly Revival Movement began.
In the 1970s, Rockabilly split into two different scenes: Those staying more “true” to the original Rockabilly sound back in the 1950s, and those who combined elements of Punk with Rockabilly = Psychobilly. I won’t get into Psychobilly because there is already an article from MAMY regarding the genre here.
Stray Cats.
As for the Rockabilly Revival, though there are several names, there is none more prominent than the Stray Cats. In fact, the Stray Cats is so popular that any video you see today about “how to get the Rockabilly sound” will tell you that you need – or at least should get – a hollowbody guitar, preferably a Gretsch, preferably orange, preferably a pro series, preferably a Gretsch G6120T Brian Setzer (frontman and guitarist for Stray Cats) Signature model.
In truth, Rockabilly in the 1950s favoured the Telecaster and an accompanying acoustic, or a Les Paul with vintage P90s. Setzer himself, in fact, is reported as saying the reason he went to a Hollowbody was to try to find “his own sound”.
The Rockabilly Revival would not contain itself to America or Europe, it would eventually grab Asia by the balls especially in countries like Japan, and our neighbours Thailand and Indonesia where there are still vibrant Rockabilly scenes. There is some discrepancy as to where it started in Asia but some Indonesian Rockabillies from Jogja insist it started there.
Here, in Malaysia (somewhat unexplainably) Rockabilly never really took off. There have been obvious signs of interest among Malaysians across the interwebs but no one ever took up the challenge. We have bars and pubs full of talented musicians playing Country and Blues, over in Sarawak there’s the near-annual Siniawan Country Music Festival yet any Googling of Malaysian rockabilly will at worst get you nothing, at best will get you to a Facebook group which has been largely inactive.
The one band we did have – which seemed very promising – was Sarip Dol & Samseng Kampung Dusun (SKD) fronted by the talented Mie who fronted the more popular Kapow. But as many of us know, Mie left music behind for largely unexplained reasons – some (not me) say it’s because he already achieved everything he set out to achieve. The last Instagram post they had was “78 weeks” ago.
The Rockabilly outfit.
And so while our neighbours are rocking their Gretsch hollowbodies and pompadours, Rockabilly in Malaysia still remains dormant, waiting for that special someone to take up the challenge. A challenge that yours truly may be interested in taking up myself, but that’s a story for another social media post.