Speed of Sound
Rosie Flores
Eminent Records
2001
10 tracks
Rosie Flores has slipped through a time-warp and settled down in early-Fifties America. This is pure Fifties radio, filled with the music that Alan Freed called Rock and Roll, a loose blend of blues, jazz, swing, and country music with a rebellious edge. The style seems to span a half-dozen years, from the pre-rockabilly style of artists like Bill Haley and his Comets, Bunny Paul, and Kitty Kallen through the very country-influenced rockabilly that came out of Sun Records in the mid-Fifties.
Add a local announcer's homey commentary or perhaps some livelier jibes by Alan Freed pumping up the music he named, and you'd swear this was a radio program from somewhere around 1955. The up-tempo Rock and Roll hits are interspersed with sweet love songs and torch songs, but even these have the edge of Rock and Roll at their heart. Four of these songs were written by Rosie Flores and two more date from closer to the turn of the century, but on this release even they seem to come from a half century ago.
As performed by Flores and her crew, this is not hit material. It's very good, and it captures the era, but the band sounds more like the popular local bands that used to play at sock-hops in high school gyms and at teen dances in small community halls. The performance has the sort of second-hand feel that often comes from learning songs by listening to the records over and over to learn the words and chords by rote.
Flores could have picked up a job in the record library of one of those long-ago radio stations. Based on this release, she's an excellent programmer, knowing how to balance her selections for a solid middle of the road program. Speed of Sound features an energetic mix of up-tempo rockers with songs that are slower but still maintain the unity of the program.
Rather than choose well known Rock and Roll oldies for her release, Flores has found some classic hits that don't get a lot of airplay anymore. She and her band pump out the rock on songs like The Davis Sisters' 1953 hit "Rock-a-Bye Boogie," Buck Owens' rocking "Hot Dog" from 1956, and 1957's "Country Boy" from Johnny Cash. In the tradition of early rockers' updates of of songs from earlier eras, Flores includes Cab Calloway's 1937 hit "Don't Know If I'm Comin' or Goin'" but imbues it with a certain Fifties feel reminiscent of Kallen or perhaps Teresa Brewer.
Marshall Crenshaw always did sound like a reborn Fifties rocker. Flores takes his 1991 song "Somewhere Down the Line" as well as Rick Vito's 2001 composition "Devil Love" and transports them back fifty years to make a perfect fit with the rest of this set.
The lyrics of Flores' songs on this release have a more contemporary feel, less rock and roll than modern pop, but the instrumental style helps to pull them back a few decades so that they too blend into the mix. It's like those old radio programs, where you'd hear the music of several eras and genres intermingled and yet sounding like they belonged together.
If Rosie Flores brought her band to a highschool gym near me, I'd probably head out there on a Saturday night to be transported back to an earlier, simpler time and dance my heart out. Like an old-time radio show, this is not just sock-hop music but also good music to play in the background while doing something else around the house.
Learn everything you ever wanted to know about Rosie Flores at Rosie Flores Connection, including her previous six releases and her latest release Single Rose.
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Review written: March 15, 2005
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