Led by singer Fred LeBlanc and guitarist Bill Davis, Dash Rip Rock hailed from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and were strongly influenced by the folk music of their region.
After a first album, Dash Rip Rock (688, 1986), in which their ferocity still bore the marks of the cowboys, their explosive mix of rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and country found the right balance on the raw and virile Ace Of Clubs (Mammoth, 1989), featuring a blazing rockabilly tribute to Johnny Ace, and even more so on Not Of This World (1990), driven by a breathtaking sequence of breakneck proclamations such as Bum For Egypt and Don't Wanna Stop.
Brash and libidinous, Dash Rip Rock embody the authentic spirit of Southern rock. In the meantime, the singer had left and Davis had become the absolute leader of the group.

Tiger Town (Doctor Dream, 1993) is a compromise album that still includes rave-ups like Little Rita and True Drunk Love (catchy mid-tempo rock'n'roll) but diluted among more mainstream songs.

On Get You Some Of Me (Sector 2, 1995) the compromise becomes embarrassing (Life Flash is one of the few signs of life).

Pay Dirt (PC Music, 1998) is another solid collection of southern songs, with a stronger melodic emphasis: the catchy and sprightly She's Got a Lot of Nerve, Call Me When You Find My Number, which is basically bubblegum pop, and especially King Death.

Dash Rip Rock's drummer Fred LeBlanc formed Cowboy Mouth with three veteran musicians and veered towards an adult kind of roots-rock that often sounds like 1970's country-rock. Despite the change of course, the standout track on Word of Mouth (Domino, 1992) is Jenny Says, a Dash Rip Rock classic. Everyone Is Waiting is the faster, louder and stronger song on It Means Escape (Monkey Hill, 1994). Are You With Me (MCA, 1996) is a disappointing sell-out of these two albums' good ideas.

Recyclone (Alternative Tentacles, 2005) is a career retrospective that includes all the classics, and some top-notch rare tracks: their early Ramones-ian anthem Let's Go Smoke Some Pot (that paraphrases a 1950s hit), the old-fashioned rockabilly Shake That Girl, a` la Stray Cats, the breathtaking thrashing psychobilly DMZ, the speedy country & western Silver Moonlit Rail, the martial country-pop BFE, some garage-rock tinged of Mersey-sound such as You Were On My Mind, the REM-ish ballads Falling Apart and Marsupial, the power-pop singalong Locked Inside A Liquor Store, the punkish honky-ronk False Prophet. Numbers such as Shootin' Up Signs and Rattletrap show them at their best, impersonating a marriage of Lynyrd Skynyrd and Aerosmith.