Get Petty!!

 

I'm not naming names, but this skinny young singer with lanky blond hair was a native of Gainesville, Florida. In the mid 70's his band came roaring up Highway 441, like waves crashing on the beach. Their music was influenced by power pop (and its primary antecedent, the British Invasion), but played with a Southern accent. 

The songs rang brightly with the sterling sound of Roger McGuinn's 12-string electric guitar, with a lyrical persona drawn from Del Shannon: a heartbroken loser who got lucky sometimes.

As another talented singer named Tom (brother Smothers) once said, he was a man with many faucets. Stinky focuses on two of them in today's Homemade Records: the psychedelic side, and the rockabilly side.

If you were raised on The Beatles and Elvis Presley, your ears would be well-attuned to these influences; but it's the sign of a true songwriting talent to transform and transcend those influences, and create a sound that is uniquely identifiable as your own. That he did, over a four decade career.

Stinky selects both original compositions and cover songs. A couple on the rockabilly side are performed with Carl Perkins, and the psychedelic side also ventures into garage rock and soul. Dig in!