Reverend Horton Heat by Thom Jackson
If you’re under 60 and familiar with the music genre of rockabilly, you probably have a holy man to thank for that, a certain Reverend Horton Heat. Rockabilly with its fusion of bluegrass and rhythm and blues is one of the foundations of early rock ’n’ roll. Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash were all early practitioners of its dark magic in the 1950s. But rockabilly lay mostly dormant in the 1980s when a young Texan named Jim Heath fell under the spell of a punk band called The Cramps and vowed to one day lead a band that specialized in original rockabilly compositions.
Heath began performing as Reverend Horton Heat in 1985, his mission to spread the gospel of rockabilly. Audiences were smitten but also shocked. “Music fans and music writers in the ’80s didn’t know what rockabilly was,” Heath told this writer in 2017. “There were no upright-bass players. Sound guys at clubs would ask, ‘Is that a cello?’”
Decades along, Heath, longtime bassist Jimbo Wallace and a rotating crew of touring musical aces put on a reliably high-energy live show that leaves crowds sweating and then enrolling in swing dance classes. The tight performances come from years of practice and a devotion to the touring life. “A lot of what motivates me is fear,” Heath told me in that same interview. “I had ten years straight where we played 250 shows a year. It was because I didn’t ever want to have to go back to moving furniture or temping at insurance companies.”
Reverend Horton Heat put out a fun new covers record in 2023, Roots of the Rev. (Vol
ume One), of favorite songs by musical heroes including Willie Nelson and Carl Perkins. Whatever they do next, Heath back in 2017 figured that Reverend Horton Heat had already repaid their debt a thousandfold to the music’s holy ghosts: “When we started, only major cities had a rockabilly band. Now just about every town has one band with an upright bass.”
Reverend Horton Heat and the Surfrajettes play 7pm Sunday, May 19 at Respectable Street in West Palm Beach. reverendhortonheat.com ~ David Rolland
