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Elvis Presley receives
royal kisses from the Queen and her Maid of
the annual Cotton Carnival in Memphis, Tennessee.
Elvis was backstage before a packed Ellis
Auditorium audience on May 15, 1956. (Robert
Williams / The Commercial Appeal) |
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HOST ROSIE FLORES
Alternative country meets the rockabilly revival meets
California guitar virtuosity in the music of Rosie Flores.
Since the late '70s, guitarist, singer, and songwriter
Rosie Flores has been an important figure on the alternative
country scene in both Austin, TX, and Los Angeles. She's
a hard-working, independently minded artist who's well-respected
for her gritty, energetic vocals and fiery guitar solos.
A native of San Antonio, Flores moved
to San Diego with her family when she was 12. Her family
encouraged her singing and guitar playing, and as a
girl she soaked up the sounds of southern California
-- surf guitar, country and country-rock, blues, and
rockabilly-flavored garage rock. By the time she was
in her teens, Flores was playing in a band called Penelope's
Children. During the first explosion of punk rock
in the late '70s Flores formed Rosie & the Screamers,
an otherwise all-male band that played hard country
and rockabilly material, much of it written by Flores
herself. She worked as a solo acoustic artist for a
time but then formed an all-female punk band, The
Screaming Sirens, who recorded the album Fiesta
in 1984.
In 1987 Flores recorded her first
solo album, Rosie Flores, produced by Pete
Anderson (Dwight Yoakam's producer and guitarist) and
released by Warner Brothers. The album gained critical
acclaim, and among music-industry folk a Flores concert
remains a strong draw to this day. But it was only modestly
successful commercially, and Flores was dropped by Warner
Brothers. She signed with the California independent
label Hightone and in 1992 she released her second solo
album, After the Farm, followed by Once
More With Feeling a year later. These albums featured
original songs by Flores, her own sharp guitar leads,
and crackerjack session work from a variety of Los Angeles
veterans. Flores then spent the better part of 1994
playing lead guitar in Butch Hancock's band.
In 1995 Flores recorded Rockabilly
Filly, a spirited tribute to the music she grew
up with. The album featured duets with her longtime
idols Wanda Jackson and Janis Martin, both of whom Flores
brought out of retirement for the project. The album
led to a cross-country tour with Jackson, who hadn't
played in nightclubs in over 20 years.
In 1997, Rounder re-released her Warner
Bros. debut along with six new bonus tracks under the
title Honky Tonk Reprise, helping to sustain
the momentum of her career. That same year, the Austin
label Watermelon released her duet project with Ray
Campi, entitled A Little Bit of Heartache.
In the late '90s, Flores moved to the folk-oriented
Massachusetts label Rounder, pushing the stylistic mix
of her music slightly in the direction of rockabilly
but not really changing course. The 1999 live album
Dance Hall Dreams was recorded at a San Antonio
country club and featured several of the top session
players Flores has always been able to attract, among
them Texas steel guitar stalwart Cyndi Cashdollar. Flores
released Speed of Sound on the Eminent label
two years later, offering yet more original songs as
well as a scorching cover of Buck Owens' rockabilly
classic Hot Dog. Flores offered her fans an
intimate perspective on her music with the solo acoustic
live set Single Rose in 2004, and an album of country
and rockabilly styled holiday favorites, Christmasville,
followed in 2005. Her most recent project is producing
an album featuring one of her idols, the rockabilly
pioneer Janis Martin. Prolifically creative, Rosie Flores
deserves to be numbered among the creators of the alternative
country movement. Her career, never really flagging,
has outlasted those of a host of other acts in that
fast-moving genre.
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PRODUCER LEX
GILLESPIE is an independent radio and television
producer in Washington, D.C., with an emphasis on music,
culture, travel, and history. His topics range from
the music of the Andes, to the disappearing American
cowboy, to a profile of four Latina students competing
in Chicago’s high school science fair. Before
Whole Lotta Shakin,’ he produced the
series Let the Good Times Roll, a 26-hour documentary
series on rhythm and blues music that won a Peabody
Award in 2005. He also served as a producer with Smithsonian
Productions at the Smithsonian’s National Museum
of American History on the series Jazz Singers
and Black Radio: Telling It Like It Was.
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DIGITAL
EDITOR SURAYA MOHAMED has worked in public radio
for nearly twenty years. She started her career as a
sound engineer for NPR then left in 2000 to start her
own production company, specializing in documentary
production, sound design, mixing, editing, and mastering.
She has produced and engineered numerous documentary
series including Jazz Singers (a Smithsonian
Production), NPR's Billy Taylor's Jazz at the
Kennedy Center, PRI's Let the Good Times Roll,
and Experiencing War (presented by The American
Folklife Center at the Library of Congress.) She recently
produced 14 new Jazz Profiles episodes and won an NEA
Chairman's Award for distinguished service. Other accolades
include two Peabody Awards and two Gracie Allen Awards.
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