Big Bad Voodoo Daddy puts the spring in your step during the winter season
By CHRIS HANSEN ORF
Get Out

Scotty Morris has a recipe for seasonal happiness.

He takes his group Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, whose new disc “Everything You Want for Christmas” was released last month, out on the road for a holiday tour.

“We all have to deal with the holidays,” says the singer/frontman. “So if we can do it with smiles on our faces and have some fun and skip the stress and the commercial end of it, everyone can get together and have a good time. When we’re hanging, we’re in a good mood.”

Those wishing to share in Big Bad Voodoo Daddy’s holiday cheer can see the dapper, neo-swing/ rockabilly/jazz outfit for two frenetic post-Christmas concerts Monday at Harrah’s Ak-Chin Casino.

“Live shows are our bread and butter,” Morris explains. “They’re pretty much for any music fan or for anybody who likes to go out and have a good time. The show is for them — it doesn’t miss anybody who wants to go out and be entertained. It’s a wide spectrum of music and we play for the audience, not ourselves as individuals.”

When a young Scotty Morris saw a 1988 Christmas performance by The Stray Cats, it was a turning point in his musical evolution.

The budding trumpet player had always been a fan of New Orleans jazz but seeing The Stray Cats’ guitarist Brian Setzer’s muscular rockabilly licks live convinced him to blend the jazz he loved with rockabilly and swing sounds.

Morris found like-minded musicians in his hometown of Los Angeles, and the band was born with Morris on vocals because “nobody else could sing.” The group played underground clubs and a scene started to develop around them.

“In the beginning it was a full-on punk rock, underground kind of rockabilly thing, and that was where it really started,” Morris remembers. “Then right before ‘Swingers’ came out, it started to become kind of a hip, underground thing — you started seeing Quentin Tarantino and Robert Duvall — there was a ‘celebrity hip’ thing going on.

“And then when ‘Swingers’ hit it just exploded.”

The 1996 film brought the swing trend national and suddenly 20- somethings started wearing suits and ties, eating their steaks rare, drinking martinis and obsessively watching the original “Ocean’s 11” film that starred Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and the rest of the Rat Pack.
Over the ensuing years the band has seen their audience expand beyond just the young swing set.

“This is the most interesting part of what’s happening right now,” Morris says. “I’ve seen a changeover three or four times as far as what our audience looks like. What’s happening right now is that there are the kids that are into it because of their parents, but then there’s the 20- and 30-year-olds who bring their parents to see this band, and their parents bring their parents.

“Sometimes I see three and four generations and it’s mind-blowing to have four generations of a family come up and say, ‘This is the first time I’ve been out with my entire family and be connected the whole night.’ That’s a powerful feeling.”

Morris says the band has big plans for 2005 that include recording a new CD with a big band.

“I’ve written five tunes for it already and I am making sure that the songs stand on their own with just vocal and a piano, and that’s something I’ve never done before,” the singer says. “I am just really going after a good story and a good melody and then making everything else — all the horns — the gravy.

Monday’s shows might be the last the band will do in the Valley as a smaller unit in a cozy club setting for at least a year. Big Bad Voodoo Daddy plan to hit the road with a big band in larger venues, something the group experimented with at the Hollywood Bowl for a two-show stint with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Morris, who idolizes the big band music of Harry Connick Jr., loved the experience of singing with a big band but says it can get tricky.

“We are a nine-piece as it is, but you add the extra 72 and it's pretty incredible,” Morris laughs. “Big Bad Voodoo Daddy is 11 years old, so playing in that is like driving a well-oiled machine. Playing with a symphony is like driving a ’59 Cadillac — it feels good, it sounds good, but if you try to stop on a dime, man, forget it!”