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Rockabilly fans get a new album from Pīts Andersons

Andris Straumanis

March 09, 2008

Fans of American rockabilly music, especially if it’s rockabilly with a touch of Latvian, have Pīts Andersons to thank for a new album, Brass-a-Billy. Andersons announced release of the album March 1 on his Web site, www.pitsandersons.lv.

The newest compact disc is the latest of 13 of his own recordings or compiliations on which Andersons’ music is heard. Released on Razzle Dazzle Records, Brass-a-Billy features a number of familiar rockabilly and swing tracks, as well as two original songs by Andersons: “Brassabilly Boogie” and “Red Corvette.” Added to the rockabilly sound is a full brass section. Also included on the CD is a 1991 video clip of Andersons’ version of Louie Prima’s “Jump, Jive An’ Wail.”

Andersons, known as Pete Anderson to anglophone fans, is a long-timer on Latvia’s music scene. He was playing rock music back when Soviet authorities looked dubiously upon the Western genre. Unlike other musicians’ Web sites that provide just a brief sketch of the artist’s life, Andersons goes into a decade-by-decade detail of his life, in the process offering his perspective on culture and society under an authoritarian regime.

The Web site includes plenty of photographs from Andersons’ archives, plus some other interesting images. Among them is a picture of a bootleg recording made on X-ray film, which is a way that Western music was illegally distributed in the Soviet Union during the 1950s and 1960s.

Andris Straumanis is editor of Latvians Online.