In today’s musical climate, where anything goes and the melting pot is regularly stirred, it’s easy to forget just how radical an effect Jason and the Scorchers had on the Nashville scene when they formed in the early ’80s. Country rock might have been a well-established concept, but never before had the two musical styles blended with such force. The Scorchers fused country twang with white-hot rock ‘n’ roll, scaring the hell out of country purists. Hank Williams was reborn in an era that had lived through punk.
Commercial success might have eluded them but their cult status was, and is, assured; their pioneering spirit acknowledged with an exhibit in the museum in Nashville’s Country Music Hall of Fame, where Jason’s shirt and hat from the cover of the Fervor EP are on display, along with press cuttings detailing the band’s early trailblazing.