Former San Diegan Rosie Flores spreads the gospel of rockabilly

Last weekend was a busy one for Rosie Flores. Saturday, the singer, songwriter and lead guitarist was in Tempe, Ariz., participating in one of a series of shows celebrating the 15th anniversary of “insurgent country” label Bloodshot Records.

The night before, in her Texas hometown of Austin, Flores shared the stage with Wanda Jackson, the ’50s rockabilly queen whose career Flores helped revive by including her on the ‘97 album “Rockabilly Filly” (the nickname stuck).

“It was an honor to play with her, because she was completely beautiful and it was her birthday,” Flores said by phone Thursday from an Austin coffeehouse. “I got to walk up on the stage and give her her birthday cake. I got to open the show, too, and actually Danny B. Harvey played with me, so that was really fun.”

Harvey, who also plays guitar with Motorhead’s Lemmy Kilmister in The Head Cat, happens to be Flores’ next-door neighbor, occupying the duplex formerly rented by fellow ex-San Diegan Mark Stuart (Bastard Sons of Johnny Cash). And on Chicago’s Bloodshot Records, which this week released Flores’ roots-rockin’ new album, the Jon Langford-produced “Girl of the Century,” her musical neighbors include Langford (Mekons, Waco Brothers and now Pine Valley Cosmonauts), Exene Cervenka (X, Knitters) and upstart Justin Townes Earle (son of Steve).

“Even before I was on their label, I would always stay at Rob’s house in his extra room; he would put my band up. And Nan was always designing cowboy pajamas and cowboy boots and giving them to me, and we were always like girlfriends,” Flores said of Bloodshot co-owners Rob Miller and Nan Warshaw. “Now we’re working on more of a professional business level together, and it still feels like family.”

More stories from Mikel Toombs | More from SDNN’s Music page | Eight Great Women of San Diego Music

Bloodshot “is a good fit, so I’ve been loving that aspect of it,” she added. “And Joe Swank, who’s doing radio promotion, really likes the record and is a really cool guy. I think back to when I was on Warner Brothers, back in 1987 when that record came out, that radio guy didn’t even like me or get me.”

“That record” is “Rosie Flores,” her solo debut after playing in Penelope’s Children (her Clairemont garage band), Rosie & the Screamers and scene-making Los Angelenas The Screaming Sirens. The gorgeous album, reissued and expanded in 1996 as “A Honky Tonk Reprise” (Rounder), seemed to promise, but didn’t deliver, a career along the lines of Lucinda Williams’. (Flores was a guest at Williams’ recent on-stage wedding in Minneapolis.)

“It’s possible, if only because when you have that kind of support and you’re totally in it, and you have your team, then all you have to worry about is being creative. And it was wonderful when I was in that cloud, before it burst,” Flores said.

“I’ve just been kind of off on my own since then. But as I tell a lot of people, I don’t regret any of that, because it gave me my kickoff. And lots of people don’t even get that. It gave me some flyin’ shoes, to quote Townes Van Zandt.”

This week, Flores is helping make ends meet by assisting a friend in the back office of her Austin Halloween shop, Lucy in Disguise With Diamonds. “I get to make some extra money and and I’m going to buy the new iPhone,” Flores said with a laugh, before quoting “Turn, Turn, Turn,” the Pete Seeger song covered in the ’60s by The Byrds. “Like, “To everything, turn, turn, turn, there is a purpose, turn, turn turn.” I’ve always lived by those words since I was a teenager in San Diego playing Byrds songs.

“I’m really glad just to give kudos to San Diego,” continued Flores, whose family moved here from San Antonio when she was young. “I was really lucky, I think, that I grew up there. Back in 1966, when I started my first band in Clairemont, it was an amazing time for kids and rock ‘n’ roll. I remember reading the newspaper and there was an article that we had already been written up in. We had a band called Penelope’s Children and we were written up as one of the 80 bands in Clairemont. There were 80 bands.”

Of course, Flores now lives in music-rich Austin, which boasts far more than 80 bands. She moved there about four years ago from Nashville, after struggling with the music industry and then with the death of her mother.

“It’s really fun now, because I feel that I’ve come through this trying time and that I have a newfound energy. It’s almost like a rebirth,” Flores said. “I actually feel younger, and it surprises me and delights me every time I run into somebody I haven’t seen for a long time and they tell me, “You look so young. What are you doing?” And I proudly say, “I haven’t had a facelift, I’m just happy.” I’m just happy.”

Think Pink: With its classical underpinnings and eclectic influences, Pink Martini has been a favorite of discerning music lovers, notably NPR listeners. Sure enough, NPR justice correspondent Ari Shapiro makes his solo singing debut on the Portland mini-orchestra’s new album, “Splendor in the Grass,” out this week on Heinz Records; Shapiro acquits himself nicely on “But Now I’m Back.” Often flirting with camp _ the “I’m Back” prequel, “And Then You’re Gone,” strongly recalls master satirist Tom Lehrer’s “The Masochism Tango” _ band leader Thomas Lauderdale and lead singer China Forbes also invited Emilio Delgado (Luis from “Sesame Street”) and, for the Agustin Lara classic “Piensa en mi,” 90-year-old ranchera singer Chavela Vargas, a favorite of Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar.

When it’s over and they’ve had all their fun, they’ll wish that Halloween had just begun: Halloween lasts a little longer this year, as on Monday (Nov. 2) the Casbah hosts veteran Russian band Mumiy Troll, featuring the ominous-sounding vocals of frontman Ilya Lagutenko. (And what Russian kid wouldn’t want to dress up as a Mumiy Troll?) The band’s online-only English-language debut, the five-song “Paradise Ahead,” favors an art-disco approach reminiscent of Café Tacuba (Mumiy Troll just played a couple dates in Mexico), complemented on “Me Eskimo (Polar Bear)” (the group is originally from Siberia) with touches of the B-52’s, or perhaps their Russian equivalent (the Tu-95’s?). Meanwhile, the Troll’s droll “Mothers & Daughters” hints at Leonard Cohen, with “Nuclear Stations” quoting David Bowie (”Station to Station,” logically).

Tags: Bloodshot Records, Exene Cervenka, Justin Townes Earle, Lemmy Kilmister, Lucinda Williams, Mikel Toombs, Mumiy Troll, Pink Martini, rockabilly, Rosie & the Screamers, Rosie Flores, SDNN, The Casbah, The Screaming Sirens, Wanda Jackson

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