Dig Wayne

Buzz and the Flyers

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Buzz and the Flyers – Little Pig

Buzz and the flyers

Sing Sing Records ‎– S1002 [1980]
Little Pig – You Crazy Gal You – Let’s Bop

Buzz and the Flyers were one of the leading bands of the Rockabilly revival of the late seventies. Like the Rockats and Robert Gordon, they helped to pave the way for the Stray Cats‘ international success.
This EP features the group’s early line-up with the fantastic Dig Wayne on vocals, Michael Gene on guitar, Pete Morgan on bass, and Rock Roll (if you have to choose a nickname to play this music, you might as well pick this one) on drums.
Syl Sylvain, of the New York Dolls, produced it and released it on his own Sing Sing label. It’s interesting to see that at the same time, Jerry Nolan, drummer of the New York Dolls, played with the Rockats.
The A-side is a cover of Dale Hawkins’ Little Pig. Its bare-bone and sparse sound captures the Rockabilly spirit like very few managed to do since the fifties.
Even better is You Crazy Gal You. This one has a strong Charlie Feathers feel without sounding like a carbon copy. Listening to this today, you realize that the fantastic Michael Gene is one of the Rockabilly scene’s unsung heroes. His style incorporates the best of Cliff Gallup and Scotty Moore to mix it with more moderns elements.
This essential EP end with a frantic cover of Jack Earl’s Let’s Bop.

Fred “Virgil” Turgis

Dig Wayne

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dig_wayneDig Wayne – ShackRouser

RBR 5658 Rhythm Bomb Records
Shack Rouser – Just A Flirt – The Hell You Say – Four Mill Hill Blues – Black Widow – Dont Mean No Never Mind – Lucky Number 13 – Devil Red – She Walked Away – I’ll Wind – Blue Is The Color Of Love – Wagon Wheel.
Dig Wayne is back…Who is that guy? Remember, you know him well. Dig was one of the first american rockabilly revivalist from the beginning of the eighties with his band Buzz and the Flyers before forming The JoBoxers, scoring international hits (Boxer Beat, Just Got Lucky, Johnny Friendly…) and becoming a successful actor with movies, TV and theatre.
In 2005, he appears at the second Greenbay Rockin’ Festival and one year later he was invited at the Rockabilly Rave in England. That cool guy was always different: a black guy in a white rockabilly world, a kinda pop and new-wave lover, one of the founder of the neo-rockabilly style against the fifties fundamentalists. He hasn’t really changed in spite of the more than 25 years past since his first and last rockabilly album. This “little” album (only 12 tracks) called “Shack Rouser” is recorded for the Rhythm Bomb Records with the help of the Chisellers, a band made of Jeffrey P.Ross, Russell Scott, Philippe Aubuchon, Carl Sonny Leyland with the engineering of Deke Dickerson, the master of the Ecco-Fonic Studios in L.A. Be prepared to hear some modern rockabilly, only self-penned songs, a mixture of smooth and cool mid-tempos songs with bongos, harmonica and piano that remind me of the eighties jazzy “Matt Bianco-Carmel-Mink DeVille” style (“Black Widow”, “She Walked Away”) with some drivin’modern rockabillies (“Shack Rouser”, “Don’t Mean No Never Mind”, “Devil Red”). Wayne ends his album with a gospel “Wagon Wheel”. I’ve particularly appreciated the “Lucky Number 13” song with his atmospheric guitar. But there is something missing in this album, nothing to do with the soul but rather with the flesh. Even if the band is made of first class musicians, the sound is a little too weak to make this album more than very pleasant to listen to. But Dig is a great live performer and I’m sure he can overcome this mildness on stage.
Long Tall David