Chris Isaak to Bring Back Old Classics at Scottish RIte

In his decades-long musical career, singer-songwriter Chris Isaak is still probably best known as one of the top male sex symbols of the 1990s.

In a span of eight years, the baby-faced crooner with the rockabilly haircut canoodled in the surf with Helena Christensen to the tune of “Wicked Game” and then leered like a cuckold at a pouty Letitia Casta in “Baby Did a Bad, Bad Thing.” Wikipedia recalls that Isaak’s Gen-Y machismo was further cemented in a short-lived Showtime sitcom The Chris Isaac Show as well as a Super Bowl-themed episode of Friends.

So concertgoers who pony up for his Dec. 16 show at the this Friday might be surprised to learn that Isaak is currently touring on the strength of tunes that predate considerably any fears of Y2K. In fact, his 14-track, October 2011 cover album, Beyond the Sun, is his valentine to the mid-50’s rhythm and blues music that accompanied his formative years.

All the songs chosen for the release were originally recorded at Sun, the famous Tennessee studio (and label) that launched the recording careers of Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley. Under the stewardship of producer Sam Philips, Sun became a bulwark of the country music scene, and the greats that emerged from within its walls went on to become some of the biggest acts of their time.

Isaak’s musicianship, which has always harkened back to the style and tenor of that period, owes a great deal to the output from that studio, and he minces no words in expressing so on the press materials he’s prepared for Beyond the Sun.

“I always loved that music and I wrote songs in that spirit,” Isaak says of the Sun label acts on his website, chrisisaak.com. “I came to a point where I felt like the time was right to do this record. I'd met all my heroes and worked with most of them, and I didn't hear anybody else doing it the way I wanted to do it.”

Tracks on the new album include such standards as “Can't Help Falling in Love,” “Ring of Fire,” “Great Balls of Fire,” and “Pretty Woman,” all of which Isaak and his bandmates have been playing live for years. The choice to commit them to recording, he says, was a labor of love that took some technical skill to pull off as well.

“We really went for the style of recording that was used on those records early on,” Isaak’s website reads. “We were all playing in the room together, nobody had any headphones; we just listened to each other and went for it.”

Chris Isaak will be performing Friday at the Scottish Rite Auditorium. Tickets are still available by calling 856-858-1000 or visiting ticketmaster.com.