Brian Setzer - video clips, songs, albums online

Brian Robert Setzer (born April 10, 1959) is an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. He first found widespread success in the early 1980s with the 1950s-style rockabilly revival group Stray Cats, and revitalized his career in the late 1990s with his Swing revival band, The Brian Setzer Orchestra. Setzer was born in Massapequa, New York. Beginning in January 1979, he fronted the rockabilly band The Tomcats before transforming them into the later successful Stray Cats. After only four years, the Stray Cats separated in 1984, but reunited briefly to record albums and mount tours several times all the way through the early 1990s. From 1985 to early 1986, Setzer was the lead guitarist for the touring version of Robert Plant's ensemble band, The Honeydrippers. In the summer of 1986, Setzer released his first solo album, The Knife Feels Like Justice, which marked a huge move away from his trademark sound and towards a more mainstream 'rock-roots' sound, which was popularized at the time by such other artists such as John Cougar Mellencamp and Bruce Springsteen. The album was given little promotion by his label and as a result it only found minor success, peaking at only number 45 on the Billboard US album charts. The album has become a cult favorite among those who understood the message Setzer was trying to attempt, such as the world's nuclear proliferation, the immigration issue, the understanding of religion and the 'working man's blues', such as unemployment, loneliness, etc. In the mid-1990s Setzer once again resurrected an older form of youth-oriented music, swing and jump blues music, when he formed The Brian Setzer Orchestra, an ambitious 17-piece ensemble project, which released four studio albums, a Christmas disc and several live releases between 1994 and 2002. His group's biggest success (and Setzer's outside the Stray Cats) came in 1998 with the release of the album The Dirty Boogie which cracked the top ten on the US album charts and featured a hit single, a cover of Louis Prima's "Jump, Jive an' Wail". Setzer continued to release solo-billed albums sporadically, including a solo live disc Rockin' By Myself in 1998. In 2001 he released an album titled Ignition with his new trio billed as the '68 Comeback Special. In 2003 he released Nitro Burnin' Funny Daddy. A tribute album titled Rockabilly Riot Vol. 1: A Tribute To Sun Records was released on July 26, 2005, in the United States. An album simply titled 13 was released in October 2006.