Back in 1987, I interviewed the young up and coming and not particularly well-known Warner Brothers recording artist Chris Isaak. Thanks to a reasonably successful recording career, an effective and consistent live show, and an unusual “reality”-type comedy series on Showtime, Isaak divides his celebrity between being a respected recording artist, and a campy “celebrity,” known in some quarters simply for being known.

With his swept-back ‘50’s hair and Eddie Cochrane-like haberdashery, Chet Baker-ish schnozz, hollow body electric guitar and especially his shiver-inducing, close-to-the-microphone intimate wail, Isaak was heralded as both a musical throwback and a “new” Roy Orbison at a time when “New Wave,” synth-based “hair bands” still dominated radio airplay.

Unfortunately, while the sound of Isaak’s first two LPs (both issues on vinyl) was not bad by late 1980’s standards, it couldn’t match the sound Bill Porter managed, recording both Roy Orbison and Elvis Presley—an apt comparison since Isaak’s voice hinted at both of them. Ironically, compared to much of today’s Pro-Tools polluted sonic swill, those 1980’s records sound mighty inviting!

However, at the time, I decided to use the interview opportunity to lobby Isaak to pay more attention to sound quality on his next record.

Isaak had recently sold out New York City’s late, lamented Bottom Line, in May and July of 1987, while opening for The Thompson Twins (!) at a much larger venue. Demand swelled for yet another Bottom Line appearance, and when that was scheduled, in August of 1987, so was the interview.

I met with Isaak at Warner Brothers Rockefeller Center headquarters the afternoon of his Bottom Line show (which I was fortunate to attend).The interview and show made clear that while Isaak struck some retro-poses in his looks, dress and music, he was no poseur. He has drawn from the masters, but he hasn’t sucked their musical blood.

Isaak is no musical vampire. On the other hand, he can sometimes be so glib and off-hand, both on stage and in the interviewee’s hot seat, that he takes on a David Letterman-like quality; you aren’t sure whether he’s being serious or doing a well-orchestrated parody.

Other times, you think you’re just experiencing a well-restored, customized version of an old product—like a mint ’57 Chevy that’s been turbocharged. You get the sense that, as an adolescent, Isak sat in his Stockton (California) home listening to early rock and roll on the radio when it was fresh and new, telling himself, “I can do that, and when I grow up, I will.” And he’s still stuck in that musical realm, proving his childhood fantasy.

On stage with his band, Isaak is clearly the group leader. There’s no partnership a la Jagger/Richard between him and guitarist James Calvin Wilsey. There’s no haberdashery democracy either, as there was with the dress-alike early Beatles. Instead, the stage picture consists of bassist Rowland Salley stage-right, Wilsey stage-left, and drummer Kenny Dale Johnson behind on a riser, all dressed in cool grey suits. But Isaak, stage center, wears electric blue lamé.

He could be Conrad Birdie in a summer stock production of Bye Bye Birdie. Or he could come across as even more pathetic. But he doesn’t. And that is part of the fascination. It takes guts to get on stage looking like a parody. It would be so much easier for Isaak to dress in something unique and contemporary. But you get the idea that he feels he must earn his way to the top by retracing the great steps of rock and roll, carrying the white man’s musical burden.

Not that Isaak is on some sort of serious historical quest. His stage persona suggests quite the opposite. He is the most skilled musician-monologist I’ve seen on stage since Springsteen, and a hell of a lot funnier, exhibiting an incisor-like wit, dripping with nasty sarcasm. Isaak isn’t against being the butt of his own humor, but he really shovels it out at the other band members.

Not because of their playing, certainly. Bassist Salley plays fast, clean, muscular, and very deep. Drummer Johnson looks pained throughout the set but delivers hard, though seemingly unsophisticated support a la Ringo Starr, while Wilsey’s guitar rings and shimmers and fills in the sound with grace and taste.

Hearing Chris Isaak and band live only emphasizes the technical inadequacies of his recordings. Will our chat influence his next record? You’ll have to judge that for yourself. But just to be sure, at the end of the interview, I gave Isaak a 90 minute cassette or Presley, Orbison and The Everly Brothers dubbed off my Oracle turntable onto a Nakamichi BX-300. Of course, Isaak was familiar with all of these records. I just didn’t know if he’d heard them properly decoded.