Big Sandy could hear tequila calling his name.
As he crooned, a mix of classic rock, swing, blues, boogie and even Latin dance springing from his throat, he conjured an image for a packed house Monday night at New Haven’s Cafe Nine at State and Crown streets.
After the show, he would saunter and sidle up to the bar, still dressed in his crisp suit, brow decorated with beads of sweat from playing for the better part of three hours. Running his fingers through a full head of thick, slicked-back hair, he would flash that wide, unmistakable grin and order a drink. Maybe a round for the band.
Listen. I can hear tequila callin/and it won’t be long before I’m fallin/
Deep into that golden spell/ A feelin I know all too well/I can heeeaaaar tequila call my name
In front of the stage, three couples (and a few wildly swaying singletons) gathered, tapping their toes and shaking their legs into a full-fledged samba as the music deepened and took on hints of bossa nova.
Big Sandy grinned into the microphone, swinging his arms as if conjuring an ancient, magic spell over a thick, boiling cauldron of agave. The couples spun wildly, entranced and enchanted.
Bassist Jeff West leaned in to his instrument, nailing down the beat as he joined on the vocals. The dancers threw their heads upward with a deep, hooting laughter, transported back to high school for the evening.
Lucy Gellman Photo
That is, perhaps, because there is something perceptibly youthful about Big Sandy and His Fly-Rite Boys. Dressed in cowboy boots, suits and slacks, and polka-dotted button-downs that themselves sang of a bygone and much-missed moment in music – if not also fashion – the group joined Cafe Nine’s fall lineup with a bang.
A drawling, bass-heavy, rockabilly kind of bang and boom, that is.
When Big Sandy (a.k.a Robert Williams) plays, something not quite of this era catches in his throat. Pieces like “Tequila Callin’,” “Girl at the Bar” (My Eyes Are Open (But There Ain’t Nobody Home), 2011) and “Spanish Dagger” are classic rock-infused cautionary tales, a story of what happens when Thomas Hart Benton meets Elvis for a scotch and soda in the back of a dive bar.
At the root of his style is a love for Rockabilly, which he calls “the only music I’ve ever played … it’s all I know.” And know it he does: there is a calming, at-home quality to his voice, one that spreads to Ashley Kingman’s seasoned hand on the guitar and Joe Perez’s whooshing brushes on the drum. That’s because Williams and group (although its configuration of members has changed over time) has spent the better part of 25 years taking Rockabilly on the road, touring in and outside of the United States. In an interview in Cafe Nine’s cozy basement before the show, he explained what it was like to see the genre evolve over almost three decades. Take a listen below in the video above.
After touring internationally, he added, there’s something both exhilarating and comforting about being back on home turf.
“We’ve covered quite a few miles … a lot of territory. But most of what we play comes from this country … was born in this country, and it just feels good. The story of how the music developed has been kind of simplified … people have come to accept the Rolling Stone version of how it all happened. Yet there’s so much more to that story. We’re reminded of that wherever we go across the country. That’s a cool thing for me.”
