Stray Cats bassist Lee Rocker performed his solo material to a packed house at the Observatory in Santa Ana Saturday night alongside Big Sandy and His Fly-Rite Boys.
Click here for a photo slideshow of Lee Rocker and Big Sandy’s performances at the Observatory.
Photos by Jenavieve Belair, for OrangeCounty.com.
Follow the Encore Blog on Facebook at Facebook.com/encoreOC and on Twitter @encore_oc.
Pechanga held it’s 4th Annual Wine Festival and Chocolate Decadence on March 2-3 in Temecula.
In addition to once again offering nearly one hundred of the best California and international wines at Southern California Wine Country’s largest wine festival, rock legends were on hand to enjoy the weekends events. Bobby Blotzer of Ratt was there with his signature wine. Rock legend Lee Rocker of the Stray Cats as well as Erik Turner of Warrant‘s acoustic band, Sunset Stripped, played acoustic sets.
Click here for photos of the 4th Annual Wine Festival and Chocolate Decadence.
The two-day extravaganza began with the dessert, wine and music celebration Chocolate Decadence on Friday night, March 2nd inside the Pechanga Ballroom. On Saturday, March 3rd the Pechanga Wine Festival kicked into gear, with hundreds of varietals poured, along with great food pairings and rock stars playing acoustic sets.
Lee Rocker’s career has come full circle. On the just-issued Night Train to Memphis, the 50-year-old cat who got his start in the late ’70s has reworked some favorite songs into a self-produced tribute to his musical heroes and friends, as well as a celebration of the enduring power of rock ’n’ roll.
“I feel like this record is me doing what I do best — it’s songs and music that I’ve played for a lifetime,” says the longtime Laguna Beach resident, who changed his name from Leon Drucker to Lee Rocker when he and pals Brian Setzer and James McDonnell (better known as Slim Jim Phantom) formed Stray Cats in 1979.
Night Train serves up versions of classics made famous by Carl Perkins, Eddie Cochran and Elvis Presley, among others, plus a blistering original and even a reworked Stray Cats cut.
“It’s my take on some classic stuff,” Rocker says. “Some of these songs I did myself or with the (Stray) Cats. I worked with Carl Perkins a lot, and I did ‘Honey Don’t’ and played ‘Night Train to Memphis’ with him, actually.”
In addition to his role as fast-fingered double-bassist in Stray Cats, one of Rocker’s more notable turns came in October 1985 at the Carl Perkins and Friends concert, where he joined George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, Rosanne Cash and several others in saluting the rockabilly legend.
Copyright© 2010 OrangeCounty.com
