# Rock This Town guitar solo > Brian Setzer's guitar solo on Rock This Town by Stray Cats (1981) starts at about 1:23. From the album Stray Cats. Played on a Gretsch 6120. Canonical URL: Stray Cats, 1981, from *Stray Cats*. Solo by *Brian Setzer*. Setzer mixes jazz chord ideas with 1950s licks, which helped bring rockabilly back in the early 1980s. Rock This Town brought rockabilly roaring back, and Brian Setzer's Gretsch 6120 is at the centre of it. His playing mixes 1950s licks with jazz-flavoured chords and quick, sophisticated runs that set him apart from simple revivalists. The solo is short but packed, full of fast double stops, slides and bent notes that echo players like Cliff Gallup and Scotty Moore while sounding fresh and energetic. It showed a new generation how exciting that older style could be. Listen for the swinging feel in Setzer's phrasing and the way his hollow-body tone snaps through the mix, especially when he slides into chords rather than playing single notes. Rock This Town by Stray Cats is featured in our Rockabilly (#11) list. The solo is played by Brian Setzer and the song was released in 1981. ## In our lists - [The 25 Greatest Rockabilly Guitar Solos](https://greatestsolos.com/list/rockabilly/) — #11 - [The Best Stray Cats Guitar Solos](https://greatestsolos.com/list/stray-cats-guitar-solos/) — #1 - [Top 20 Guitar Solos of 1981](https://greatestsolos.com/list/best-guitar-solos-1981/) — #13 ## Sources ### Who played the guitar solo on Rock This Town? Brian Setzer played the solo on Stray Cats's Rock This Town (1981). ### What guitar was used on the Rock This Town solo? A gretsch 6120, according to widely reported accounts. --- GreatestSolos ranks the greatest guitar solos by consensus across published lists. Agent guide: [llms.txt](https://greatestsolos.com/llms.txt) · [Sitemap](https://greatestsolos.com/sitemap.xml) · [Dataset (CSV)](https://greatestsolos.com/data/greatest-guitar-solos.csv) · [How we rank](https://greatestsolos.com/method/)