Ever wonder what records Buddy Holly listened to before he started making his own music? Here’s one of them! If these guys weren’t the first Rockabilly act, they were certainly one of the first. They were hailed by Billboard Magazine as the Top Ranked Show Band in 1956. These five cats from Dallas did shows with Pat Boone, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and even Elvis Presley. If I had a time machine, I’d hop in and take a trip first to the 1950’s to catch some Western Swing at the WFAA Shindig, then to one of the Big D Jamboree rockabilly shows at the Sportatorium in Dallas. These days I have to get my Western Swing fix at the Station Inn on Monday Nights in Nashville. But where can you go for some good old fashioned Rockabilly? Somebody tell me, please!

Sidney Erwin was born in Denton, Texas in 1936. He had already formed a Western Swing group called the Western Melody Makers by the time he was 16. He got a record deal with Starday and cut a record called Who Put The Turtle In Myrtle’s Girdle on Starday 146 in 1953. in 1956, Sid changed the name of his band to Sid King And The Five Strings and began cutting Rockabilly sides for Columbia Records.

This is one of my favorite Sid King records. Get your dancing shoes ready! Here’s Purr Kitty Purr by Sid King And The Five Strings on Columbia 21489 from 1956.

From Western Swing to Rockabilly to Country and Western, you’ll hear it all on MusicMaster Oldies! Y’all come back now.