Music

Rosie Flores

Rosie Flores

About Rosie Flores


"In a better world, Rosie Flores would be a major star, given her estimable skills as a guitarist, songwriter, and vocalist, and the truth is there are plenty of roots rockers who have enjoyed more lucrative careers with far less to offer musically." -Allmusic.com

Award-winning Girl of the Century, Working Girl with Guitar Rosie Flores has gone surfing, knifing her turquoise axe through some new uncharted musical waters.

These past few years have found her nabbing two fan voted Ameripolitan Awards in 2014 – taking one for Best Female Honky Tonk and the other for Best Female Rockabilly; a Peabody Award that she accepted onstage at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City for her narration of the documentary “Whole Lotta Shakin”; producing Janis Martin’s 2012 CD “The Blanco Sessions” which tied at number one with Rosie’s “Working Girls Guitar” on the FAR chart; and a multimedia Janis Martin Tribute that she created and performed at the Rock n Roll Hall Of Fame in 2012.

All these accolades propelled her into performing at the Chuck Berry Tribute at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame along with other great musicians including Vernon Reid and David Johansen, which led Rolling Stone Magazine to proclaim that she was “one of the most impressive acts of the evening…and the only performer brave enough to playfully attempt a duck walk.”

Her current records are Girl Of The Century (2010 Bloodshot Records) , and Working Girls Guitar (2012 Bloodshot Records). The latest record marks a first for Rosie as she is not only the producer but is the only guitar player, which garnered feature stories in Guitar World, Premiere Guitar and Guitar Player. She penned some new tunes that ride some new waves. Twanging between a rock and a surf place, Rosie fires up the big chord guns on songs that tell some hard earned tales.

The title track is a chiming stomper that resonates with miles of grit, grace and determination; while “Yeah, Yeah”, a tribute to her late great fellow twang master Duane Jarvis, shines with a light that glows through the tears. Look for the “Yeah, Yeah” video on YouTube.

Rosie hit the road with the new record, playing The Minneapolis State Fair In 2013, a couple of big Rockabilly Festivals including Viva Las Vegas in 2013 and The Screamin’ Festival in Barcelona 2014. The record is in heavy rotation on Sirius Radio Outlaw Country.

Flores took flight in Southern California, and is a major figure in the Austin music scene along with Los Angeles – as well as in Europe and Japan. She added new pins to her world map when she played several big festivals in 2012 in Australia (Port Ferry, Apollo Bay, Brunswick Festival) and tore it up the year before in New Zealand.

Critical raves from prestigious publications such as the Los Angeles Times, a 2007 cover story in the Austin Chronicle, and the proclamation of Rosie Flores Day in August 2006 by Austin Mayor Will Wynn was topped off by an induction into the Austin Music Hall of Fame in 2007.

She was voted as one of the “Top 75 Greatest Female Guitarists of All Time” by Venuszine.

After a stint with the LA cult cowpunk band Screaming Sirens, who recorded an album Fiesta, with Enigma and appeared as themselves in the films The Runnin’ Kind, she had cameo roles in The Vendetta and Reform School Girls. Signing with Warner’s Reprise subsidiary in 1987 as a solo artist was her first major break. The self-titled release spotlighted Flores as a stylish, fiery neo-traditional singer who played explosive guitar solos to match. The album yielded three singles, and “Crying Over You,” earned Flores her first Billboard chart appearance. She was also the first female Latina country artist to ever enter the Billboard country charts.

Early in her career while recording for Warner Bros. Records she was nominated for best “Horizon Artist” by the Academy of Country Music in California. She had a cameo role in River Phoenix’s final film, A Thing Called Love in 1993.

Yet it was 1995’s Rockabilly Filly that received major attention, because it reintroduced rockabilly pioneers Wanda Jackson and Janis Martin to audiences worldwide through their duets with Rosie and a successful 1995 tour with Jackson. Moreover, Flores’s self-penned “You Tear Me Up” is arguably the best performance by a contemporary female rockabilly artist. She recorded more records including After the Farm, Once More With Feeling, Bandera Highway (HighTone), A Honky Tonk Reprise, Dance Hall Dreams (Rounder), Speed of Sound (Eminent), A Little Bit of Heartache (with Ray Campi, Watermelon), and Single Rose and Christmasville (Durango Rose Records).

Rosie’s solos recordings have found homes on both the Billboard and Gavin charts and are featured in seven motion pictures. Her revved-up performances from California to New York have won legions of fans and earned appearances on such nationally broadcast television programs as “Austin City Limits” and “Late Night with Conan O’Brien.” She is currently appearing in the documentaries Every Night is Saturday Night: The Story of Wanda Jackson and Sweet Lady with the Nasty Voice.

Rosie toured Japan for the first time in 2007, and followed that with her 21st tour of Europe through Switzerland, Germany, Austria, France, and Spain. She headlined at The Americana Festival UK 2008, held in Nottinghamshire Newark England.

Endorsed by Fender at the 2008 NAMM in Anaheim, CA, Rosie was chosen to open a special show celebrating 65 Years of Fender along with Dick Dale, Billy Gibbons, Jimmy Vaughn and Cindy Cashdollar.

With non-stop touring, a new CD, a new book of her memoirs told in a series of short stories under way, and trails of shiny accolades around her, Rosie Flores is taking on the future one swell wave at a time.

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