Rockabilly Displays Many Forms of "Purity"

The rockabilly scene, just like pretty much any other scene I can think of, has its purists. And just as with all purists, rockabilly's version can be a little hard to take sometimes. After all, what does it mean to be a rockabilly purist? How can anyone identify what is pure rockabilly and what is not? In my view, you can't. Rockabilly has too many forms of purity to narrow it down quite that easily!
What do I mean? Surely it must be possible to point to one act, one recording, one show and say, "That's pure rockabilly!" Well, yes, it is entirely possible to do exactly that. Elvis recording "That's All Right" with Scotty Moore and Bill Black is certainly pure rockabilly. No doubt about it. But then, Johnny Cash recording "I Walk the Line" is just as pure. And you don't get any more pure than Carl Perkins belting out "Blue Suede Shoes" and "Honey Don't." So Purity seems to stretch further than one particular act and even style since each of these three had very different styles.
"Ok," the purist might say, "I'll buy that. But it's easy to see that the instrumentation is what made each of these recordings pure rockabilly." Well, not so fast. "That's All Right" and "I Walk the Line" are similar in that they do indeed have the same instrumentation: acoustic guitar, electric guitar, upright slap bass, and vocals. But "Blue Suede Shoes" doesn't fit that mold. Perkins added drums and often piano to his recordings. And as long as we're talking about piano, if you throw Jerry Lee Lewis into the mix then it really destroys the theory of instrumentational purity. And let's not even consider what the trumpet that Sony Burgess featured in his band means for rockabilly purity! And yet, each of these is without a doubt "pure" rockabilly.
"Aha, I've got it! Every artist you've named so far recorded for Sam Phillips' Sun Records out of Memphis! Clearly that's what makes a recording pure rockabilly."
Yeah? Not so fast! True, so far I've listed only Sun Records artists in my examples. And there's no doubt that Sun Records was responsible for a huge body of pure rockabilly work. But Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent, The Burnette Brothers Rock and Roll Trio, along with a host of lesser-known rockabilly acts never stepped foot into Phillips' Memphis Recording Services studios where all of that great rockabilly was recorded. And that didn't stop them from making and releasing fantastic rockabilly music. Great, pure rockabilly records were released on Starday, Rhythm, Columbia, Star, King, RCA Victor, Jaxon, and on and on. Too many labels to name here.
So what's the point I'm trying to make? Well, I love pure rockabilly. And I love rockabilly purists insofar as they're passionate about the music and keeping it alive. But I'm bothered by purists who try to make rockabilly an exclusive club.
"Play rockabilly our way, or it's not real rockabilly. Dress the way we do or you're not one of us. Play the right kind of guitar or we won't take you seriously."
That not only hurts the rockabilly community, but it's also a completely unnatural and fabricated means for creating an exclusive club. After all, "pure" rockabilly was anything but pure! It was an amalgamation of many different musical styles, forms, and influences. What made the music exciting--and still adds to the excitement today--is that no one can possibly pinpoint exactly what the music is. It came from too many sources. It's made up of too many pieces that don't seem like they should fit together at all and yet they fit beautifully.
Modern rockabilly musicians continue to stir the musical stew and they continually add in new ingredients. Look at how the Stray Cats changed things. Does that mean the Stray Cats weren't "pure" rockabilly? Well if it does, then I suggest that there never was purity in the music. As an art form in that respect, it has always been a mess. A beautiful, wonderful, totally impure mess. And that's just exactly the way real rockabilly fans like it!