Just like her mama, Annie Marie Lewis is a hard rockin’ woman. From Jerry Lee to sister Linda Gail to niece Annie Marie, the apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree. Lewis has enough attitude and twang to stand shoulder with her flammable family and burn the joint to the ground. Hooked up personally and professionally with guitarist Danny B. Harvey, (Headcat featuring Motorhead’s Lemmy and Stray Cats bassist Slim Jim Phantom, Rockats), Lewis twangs and croons her way through a dozen full tilt takes on country, rockabilly and blues.
Harvey’s performance throughout the disc takes you to school on a plethora of guitar styles. Albert King’s tutorial with Stevie Ray Vaughn as the student performer doing Tampa Red’s “Lie To Me” is the gold standard for that tune, but Harvey’s take on the Chuck Berry version with a fistful of clangy Berry chug goin’ on is impressive as well, while Lewis warns of the consequences of fibbing in a drawl thick enough to rival Lou Ann Barton’s.
Lewis switches to some revved up, reverb-drenched rockabilly for “Get So Excited” while Harvey tears off a wheelbarrow full of Scotty Moore “Mystery Train” style licks.
Percy Mayfield’s “Hit The Road Jack” gets a spaghetti western soundtrack treatment far darker than Ray Charles’ ’61 version, Lewis turning in a sultry Peggy Lee impersonation.
Harvey’s original, “Easy To Love,” is a twangy rocker chock full of Berry riffs.
Although it sounds like it came out of the greasy pomadoured head of a fifties American rockabilly rebel, ’77’s “My Little Sister’s Got a Motorbike” is the creation of a Welchman who performed as Crazy Cavan and the Rhythm Rockers.
“My little sister’s got a motorbike,” Lewis drawls.“It’s a big black BSA/She don’t wanna do the things/That a lady’s supposed to do/My little sister’s got a motorbike/She’s a rocker through an’ through.”
It takes a lot of nerve to take on Little Richard’s signature rant,“Good Golly Miss Molly.” The 1958 rock classic was so far over the top that even he had trouble living up to it in his later years. But Lewis puts so much topspin twang on it, rhyming the word ring with “ting a ling a lang,” that she owns it, Harvey flailing away like Chet Atkins plugged into a 220 socket.
Harvey’s original instrumental, “Barbwire,” sounds like Dick Dale surfing the desert, the guitarist’s dreamy lead washing over a plodding Western cowpoke rhythm.
You can stuff this one in the Lewis family folder, but its gonna keep hopping out and rolling around on its own. Don’t fight it- it’s more fun to just get down and roll around with it.
