McPherson and musical partner Jimmy Sutton clearly have the talent to create rockabilly, R&B and other types of music as they were. That isn’t the goal, however. The sense of the piece — though it isn’t said so overtly — is that so much music has been made since those days and so many genres developed that a real piece of art — one made by young artists who are paying attention — can’t be a pure rehashing of the old.
Instead, they consciously and carefully melded their influences. The group – and, presumably, the album being released on February 10 — is a mix of many styles of music and cultures, including rhythm and blues, rockabilly, punk, hip hop, rocksteady, rock, and most likely a couple of others. The profile stresses that McPherson and Sutton go about it in a systematic and organized manner.
McPherson, who is from Broken Arrow, OK, has worked as an art teacher and artist. The point is that a good deal of forethought and planning go into making the mesh work. In such a scenario, the challenge is making it all work together without losing the spontaneity and excitement that first attracted the music makers to the music.
Above is “North Side Gal” and below is “Abigail Blue.”
McPherson’s site and Wikipedia were used to write this post.
