Cobra Cowboy
Cobra Cowboy covers 80s music with a country twist. All the greatest pop music of the decade reimagined in a rustic and rocking Country, Bluegrass, and Americana style. Picture synth-pop classics transformed by banjos and fiddles, power ballads reimagined with pedal steel and twang, and dance floor anthems that'll have you two-stepping instead of moonwalking. They take the songs you grew up loving and give them a honky-tonk heartbeat and bring the nostalgia with a boot-stomping country soul that's equal parts tribute and revival.
They arrive as mysteries, like high plains drifters, guilty until proven innocent. Cobra Cowboy faces the crowd. One has pulled out a guitar, another a fiddle and the singer sings,
“I made it through the wilderness, somehow I made it through. I didn’t know how lost I was. Until I found you.”
Confused looks of recognition begin to dawn, like someone seeing an old friend from decades ago they never expected to see again, but not quite sure it’s the same person. “Like a virgin, touched for the very first time…”
The fiddler is sawing, the guitar player is picking, and the drummer is sticking. Now the whole place is dancing as recognition wears into a broad communal smile. Cobra Cowboy is playing Madonna.
As the night unfolds, the songs the band plays include “Billie Jean”, by Michael Jackson, Rick Springfield's “Jessie’s Girl”, Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance with Somebody”, “Sweet Child O’ Mine” by Guns N’ Roses, “Kiss” by Prince, “Footloose” by Kenny Loggins, and “Karma Chameleon” by that great country singer, Cow-Boy George. They do medleys and mashups of songs that likely have never been connected before, such as the Violent Femmes “Blister in the Sun” into the Bangles “Walk Like an Egyptian”, or Dwight Yoakam’s “Guitars and Cadillacs” into Wham’s “Wake Me Up Before You Go.” Cobra Cowboy also does some actual country songs, tending towards the old school outlaw — Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard and Charlie Daniels and they also lead line dancing to all the standards.
Cobra Cowboy has become something more than a band, it's an exuberant movement. Wherever and whenever they play, a party breaks out. They have essentially created their own genre -80s pop hits done Country, Bluegrass, and Americana, but it’s something more than the sum of its parts. It has to be heard and felt, not explained. Audiences get it immediately, and they're singing along, effortlessly engaged. Cobra Cowboy somehow combine the familiarity of form with the unexpectedness that is the mark of all good art. By stripping away the excesses, the songs somehow ring more clearly while retaining their original spirit. The music of the 80s has already stood the test of time and is embedded in our collective consciousness, yet their power is aided and abetted by their unexpected placement within a Country and Western setting. — Mark McDermott Easy Reader News