Music lovers inside South Orange NJ’s SOPAC auditorium this Thursday, March 6, 2025 evening prepare to rock this town with a live concert by Stray Cats’ bassist and vocalist Lee Rocker.
The lights dim and a pre-show video plays featuring images of Lee Rocker with his Stray Cats’ bandmates — guitarist Brian Setzer and drummer Slim Jim Phantom — in clips stretching from the 1980s up until today.
As the video rolls, audience members learn that as a member of Stray Cats, Rocker helped to sell over 10 million albums, appeared on television on shows like American Bandstand, Top of the Pops and Saturday Night Live, and starred on Broadway in the musical Million Dollar Quartet.
Guitarist Buzz Campbell, drummer Larry Mitchell, and pianist/guitarist Phil Parlapiano take their places on stage before Rocker — a native of Massapequa, Long Island — enters, slapping his trademark stand-up bass on Stray Cats’ Top 10 UK hit, “Runaway Boys.”
Drums roll a rockabilly beat as Rocker energetically sings in his strong, full voice, “Your hair’s all greasy and you feel like a slob/You’re only fifteen and you can’t get a job,” and Buzz Campbell plays a melodic and then chordal guitar solo.
The crowd applauds as Rocker and Co. shift into Stray Cats’ 1982 album title cut, “Built for Speed.” As the tune’s rockabilly rhythm takes hold, it’s impossible for music lovers to keep still as their feet tap and heads bop to the percussive slapping of Rocker’s bass.
Rocker greets the crowd, exclaiming, “It’s great to be in New Jersey!” before introducing Stray Cats’ 1981 Top 20 hit, “Stray Cat Strut.” Backed by his colleagues, Rocker sings in his cool, bluesy voice, “Stray cat strut/(I’m a ladies cat)/I’m a feline Casanova/(Hey man, that’s that),” and follows up with a swinging bass solo before Phil Parlapiano is featured on a honky tonk piano solo.
Rocker announces, “We’re gonna turn the clock back to about 1956!” as he and the band wind up a medley of rockabilly tunes. Parlapiano switches from keyboard to acoustic guitar as he, Campbell, and Rocker take center stage for a mainly unplugged rendition of Elvis Presley’s “That’s Alright (Mama).”
Percussionist Larry Mitchell joins in on snare drum to drive the rhythm like a locomotive on Bill Monroe’s “Blue Moon of Kentucky” where Rocker croons, “Blue moon of Kentucky/Keep on shining,” and Campbell echoes with a sliding guitar solo.
The medley ends with a bluesy rendition of Roy Acuff and his Smoky Mountain Boys’ “Night Train to Memphis” and its joyous “Hallelujah (Hallelujah)/Hallelujah (Hallelujah)/I’ll be shoutin’ hallelujah, all the day” refrain.
Rocker talks about touring in the ’80s with “the architect of rock and roll,” Carl Perkins, in a band which included Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, and George Harrison. Dedicating his next song to Perkins, he launches into “Your True Love” but soon realizes the musicians are playing in two different keys and calls things to a halt. After asking Campbell, “Key of C?” Campbell sheepishly apologizes explaining, “This is live music, folks!” and the entire ensemble restarts the toe-tapper with a rockabilly swing beat.
Campbell asserts, “That sounded a lot better in the same key!” before Rocker announces, “Let’s do one more song for Carl.” Here, he and the band ease into “Honey Don’t,” where Rocker’s soulful voice sounds picture perfect on this Perkins rockabilly classic which was covered by The Beatles.
Campbell pretends to pull an imaginary lawnmower cord to start Rocker’s rumbling bass before Parlapiano picks up a guitar and Rocker and the guys strum, pick, and bounce on the strings of their instruments on Rocker’s upbeat and bluesy original, “Miracle in Memphis.”
After introducing his bandmates, Rocker announces, “Here’s a song from my most recent record, Gather Round, which I wrote in an AirStream trailer driving across the country with my wife of 37 years.” Picking up a guitar, he cruises into the minor-key folk-rocker, “The Last of the Offline Lovers,” backed by Larry Mitchell performing a train-like rhythm on the drums.
Continuing on acoustic guitar, Rocker dances around and sings with feeling on another original — the Springsteen-inspired “Memphis Freeze” — which features a swirly guitar solo from Buzz Campbell.
Rocker recalls, “A couple of years ago now, I got a phone call from a guy in Woodstock, NY — The Band’s late, great Levon Helm. He couldn’t tour any longer, but he got this idea to do a concert in his barn every Saturday which he called ‘The Midnight Ramble,’ and when he said, ‘Lee, you wanna ramble?’ I said, ‘I sure do!’” Here, Rocker and Co. perform a tribute to Helm with their rendition of The Band’s “Ophelia” featuring Rocker on bass, Mitchell on drums, and Campbell on guitar.
Before the number is through, Phil Parlapiano plays a cascading piano solo which not only elicits enthusiastic cheers from the crowd but also gets Buzz Campbell’s undivided attention.
Following the swinging rockabilly number, “Love Me Good,” Rocker and friends throttle into the ‘50s-style rocker, “Bye Bye Johnny,” where Parlapiano hammers out straight eighth and sixteenth notes on the piano on this Chuck Berry follow-up to his rock and roll classic, “Johnny B. Goode.”
Rocker channels the spirit of Elvis Presley as he sings with sincerity on Stray Cats’ doo-wop inspired up-tempo rocker, “Bring it Back Again.” He follows up with Stray Cats’ 12/8 R&B number, “When Nothing’s Going Right,” where he impresses playing his bass like a guitar.
Next up is “Bulletproof,” an exuberant Jerry Lee Lewis-like early rocker which features Parlapiano on boogie-woogie keyboard and Rocker on lead vocal and bass. Hands clap and heads bop to the infectious beat as drums and vocals ring out like bullets as Rocker smiles and croons, “B-b-b-b-b-baby I’m bulletproof!”
Rocker asks, “You ready to rumble?” as he and the band dive into Stray Cats’ minor-key rocker, “Rumble in Brighton.” As Rocker cries, “There’s a rumble in Brighton tonight/Ringside seats for the neighborhood fight,” Campbell accompanies with an ascending guitar part and Mitchell fires off precision drum fills.
Music lovers clap to the beat as Rocker and the band end tonight’s show with an over-the-top rendition of a song honored by The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as one of the most influential songs to ever shape rock music — Stray Cats’ 1981 Top Ten hit, “Rock This Town.”
Music lovers happily sing along on the tune’s well-known “We’re gonna rock this town/Rock it inside out,” lyric before leaping to their feet to cheer as Rocker exclaims, “Thank you so much, New Jersey!”
Rocker and Co. exit the stage but soon return and Rocker asks, “You wanna boogie?” As a cool animated video version of Rocker plays on the screen behind him, he ends his show with a knock-your-socks-off rendition of “Rockabilly Boogie.”
As concertgoers stand and cheer, Rocker concludes the evening by exclaiming, “Thank you so much! This has been a blast — we loved it!”
For more information about Lee Rocker, please go to leerocker.com. For information on future performances at SOPAC — including Kurt Elling Celebrates Weather Report on April 3, Jane Monheit on April 11, and The Glenn Miller Orchestra on May 25 — please go to sopacnow.org.
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