They call him the human jukebox. But Sleepy Labeef is more than just a guy whose buttons you push to reproduce somebody else’s sounds. When Sleepy wraps his tonsils around a tune, he owns it, blasting out at you with a window-rattling baritone that sounds like its been drug through Texas behind a team of hosses. Although his recordings never topped the charts, his distinctive sound and explosive live show have kept him in demand. Even now, at 77, LaBeef still retains the fire and power that transforms anything he touches into Sleepy property.
Last year, former LaBeef band bassist Dave Pomeroy decided to preserve LaBeef’s legacy on film with the documentary Sleepy La Beef Rides Again, booking LaBeef into RCA’s historic Studio B in Nashville and recording him live at Douglas Corner Cafe the night before the session. The studio produced hits by artists including Elvis’ “Are You Lonesome Tonight” to Waylon’s “Only Daddy That’ll Walk The Line” to Dolly’s “Coat of Many Colors” and “Jolene.”
LaBeef sounds right at home in this hall of giants, his personality and sound filling the room just as they had the night before in his live show. The live show is captured on DVD, the studio sessions on an accompanying CD, the studio cuts mixed in with live audio from the show. The set list is the same on both offerings, but the DVD contains clips and interviews chronicling LaBeef’s career with stops at Sun, Columbia, and Rounder before landing on the Earwave label, who put this release out in May.
Whether the original was rock, country, r&b, pop or gospel, LaBeef’ tears into it with a rockabilly fervor that shakes it from the roots to the top of the stalk. “Standing In the Need Of Prayer” is a traditional gospel tune covered by a diverse groups of artists from the Harlem Gospel Singers to The Oak Ridge Boys to the Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia, as the Wildwood Boys with Robert Hunter in ’68. But when LaBeef gets hold of it, it thunders along a rockabilly track, smoking and clattering like a steam locomotive bound for Glory.
He also proves he’s a master of the medley assemblage, stringing together the unlikely combo of Hank Ballard’s “Tore Up” with Clarence Frogman Henry’s “I Ain’t Got No Home” before gliding into Johnny Cash’s “Ring Of Fire,” shifting gears smoothly from doing Henry’s froggy croaks to a fiery, pounding, country honk version of “Fire” that’s more Jerry Lee than Johnny.
He’s aided on guitar by Kenny Vaughan, a member of Marty Stuart’s backing band, The Fabulous Superlatives since it’s inception and an in-demand Nashville studio session man for decades. Vaughan adds the tasteful fills, keeping the barbed wire strung tight behind Sleepy, snapping off a twanging strand every now and then to let you know he’s still on fence duty, but LaBeef has no problem holding his own on guitar.
LaBeef plows through Fats Domino’s “Hello Josephine” at breakneck speed, chunks of rockabilly clanging from his guitar, beefed up by some zippy barbs from Vaughan. Despite LaBeef’s dominating presence, this is a tight ensemble with Pomeroy ‘s swampy, funky bass, Gene Dunlap’s Jerry Lee piano and Rick Lonow’s in the pocket percussion bracing the walls of a groove deep enough for LaBeef’s 6 foot seven frame to wallow in comfortably.
He takes Johnny Otis’ “Willie and the Hand Jive” to a new level with Lonow’s toms pounding out funky Bo Diddley in the backseat, Vaughan slithering over the top with some electrifying country licks and Dunlap throwing in a few shots of the melody of the Champs’ “Tequila” with LaBeef blasting this way to a throat burning finish.
It’s the real thing from a master of the genre at the top of his form, a great tribute and a must-have for rockabilly fans of all ages.
Grant Britt
