The Hepcats”Christmas With the Hepcats” Hepcat* Times...

The Hepcats

“Christmas With the Hepcats”

Hepcat

* Times Link: 808-8463

To hear an excerpt from “Christmas With the Hepcats,” call TimesLink and press * 5530

While voice-driven rap music in many instances has taken the music out of music in recent years, surf guitar progenitor Paul Johnson has been waging a one-man battle to preserve a form that tilts in the opposite direction: the rock instrumental.

Since the early ‘60s (see Classic Pick of the Week, below) the South-Bay-turned-San-Diego musician has been making engaging records with nary a larynx to be heard on them, and in the past several years he has published a newsletter devoted to instrumental music. Johnson’s newest effort is an all-acoustic Christmas album by his trio of mythical guitar-playing felines, the Hepcats (actually just Johnson with a multitrack tape recorder). As is usually the case with Johnson’s work, the playing here sparkles with invention, and the arrangements nearly always reveal a beguiling musical architecture. His overdubbed guitars support each other in such a solid manner that when he shifts mood in mid-song, it’s like entering a different room.

The tunes are all holiday favorites, and his renditions never trounce on the character of the originals, but they are often creative enough to tickle you into hearing the songs afresh. Among the gems are a stately, lovely take on “Do You Hear What I Hear?,” a bluesy “O, Little Town of Bethlehem” and a delicate, high-lofting version of “Carol of the Bells.”

His “Silent Night” may be a mite too busy, and the musical interplay can be a little stiff at times (a pitfall of multitracking that plagues even a record-making master such as John Fogerty), but on the whole, this is a delightful album.

It is available locally at CD Listening Bar locations in Irvine and San Juan Capistrano, Shade Tree Stringed Instruments in Laguna Niguel and Soest Guitar Repair in Orange, or by mail for $16.50 postpaid ($12 for cassette) from Hepcat, P.O. Box 188129, Carlsbad, Calif. 92008.