The Stray Cats, the band that put Rockabilly music back on the record charts in the early ’80s, scored several big hits on both sides of the Atlantic. All thanks to genuine musical chops that evoke the best players of rockabilly’s original heyday and a striking visual 1950s style made contemporary with exaggerated pompadours and colorful tattoos.

The Stray Cats was formed on Long Island in 1979 by guitarist/vocalist Brian Setzer, upright bass player Lee Rocker, and drummer Slim Jim Phantom, all who shared a love for Rockabilly music. After banging around New York for a few months in the summer of 1980, they saw a kid in a pompadour on the cover of UK magazine NME and hopped a plane to London, where a rockabilly revival movement was just beginning to emerge. Their massive hits and videos include “Runaway Boys,” “Rock This Town,” “Stray Cat Strut” “(She’s) Sexy + 17,” and “I Won’t Stand in Your Way.”