Rockin
Daddies: The Greyhounds
by
Peter Aaron
“This
music has so much energy, it’s so much fun. I’ve always
loved it, ever since I first heard it as kid,” says The Greyhounds’
vocalist, Stuart Millman.
“This
music” is rockabilly, the sound of country and rhythm and
blues colliding in the 1950s Deep South at the hands of crazed,
hiccupping hillbillies hopped up on corn liquor and animal lust.
It’s a timeless, manic clatter first popularized not only
by now lionized hitmakers like Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl
Perkins, and Gene Vincent, but also by the literally hundreds of
obscure—and often wilder—wouldbe stars who cut ’45s
for tiny local labels. And the Poughkeepsiebased Greyhounds are
without doubt the Hudson Valley’s leading [only?] purveyors
of this feral and most fundamental strain of rock ’n’
roll.
“Rockabilly,
roots rock, early rhythm and blues, whatever you want to call it,
is pretty much the only kind of music I’ve ever wanted to
play,” says saxophonist Steve Greenfield, a father of three
whose resume not only includes stints with New York garage gods
The Fleshtones and revival-circuit favorites like Sam the Sham and
The Pharaohs and LaVern Baker, but also boasts a bit of local political
dabbling [now a New Paltz fireman, in years past Greenfield ran
for seats in both Congress and the Ulster County Legislature]. “When
punk rock hit in the ’70s it just felt like that was a continuation
of this same early rock ’n’ roll stuff; great, simple
music that anyone could play,” he continues. “So punk
got us all to start bands, and that opened the door to us wanting
to play older rock ’n’ roll.”
The
Greyhounds began as a four-piece in 2001; six months later, Greenfield
joined the other members—Millman, guitarist Mark Hollenbeck,
bassist Jimmy Malthaner, and drummer Johnny Long—after Millman
heard the reedsman say he was moving to New Paltzin an interview
on New Jersey’s WFMU and called the station... CONTINUE...
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