On Brian Setzer’s Health Concerns, Inability to Play Guitar

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It’s never easy getting old. It can be even harder to witness your favorite performers get old, and lose touch with some of the gifts that made them legends in their time.

We had another one of those moments recently. With no warning, and with little follow up information, rockabilly legend, big band leader, and bona fide guitar god Brian Setzer let it be known that he is no longer able to play the instrument that made him famous, at least for now. Citing an unnamed auto-immune disease, he made the announcement on February 13th, seeming to give an explanation why his show calendar for 2025 currently sits empty.

“Hi everybody, I just wanted to check in with you all,” Setzer said. “Towards the end of the last Stray Cats tour I noticed that my hands were cramping up. I’ve since discovered that I have an auto-immune disease. I cannot play guitar. There is no pain, but it feels like I am wearing a pair of gloves when I try to play.”

Setzer went on to say, “I have seen some progress in that I can hold a pen and tie my shoes. I know this sounds ridiculous, but I was at a point where I couldn’t even do that. Luckily, I have the best hospital in the world down the block from me. It’s called the Mayo Clinic. I know I will beat this, it will just take some time. I love you all, Brian.”

Brian Setzer wasn’t just vital to the major revitalization of one important form of classic American music. He was responsible for two of them. Setzer became an American original by championing the sounds and styles that the rest of popular music was so quick to toss aside. He knew all the way back in the ’80s that the early sounds of American post-war music would be eternally in style like a good pair of blue jeans.

When Brian Setzer formed The Stray Cats in 1979 with Lee Rocker and Slim Jim Phantom, they took the outmoded sounds of the Sun Records era and made them the very definition of cool once again. They weren’t a version of punk. They were straight rockabilly in a way that made the punk rockers envious, and were able to get hits on the radio and influence modern music.

Then in the late ’90s with his 17-piece Brian Setzer Orchestra, he was seminal to the era’s swing revolution. The band’s 1998 album The Dirty Boogie went Double Platinum, and won multiple Grammy Awards. There’s perhaps nobody who has done more to keep the classic sounds of American music alive than Brian Setzer.

His work also regularly veered into the country realm as you can imagine. Stray Cat tracks such as “Lookin’ Better Every Beer” or “18 Miles From Memphis” show off Brian Setzer’s country side for sure. In 2023 when he released his latest record The Devil Always Collects, Setzer included a cover of the classic Del Reeves country song “Girl On The Billboard.”

But Brian Setzer doesn’t belong to country. He belongs to all of American music, fearlessly refusing to believe anything is irrelevant and out-of-style, and then setting off to prove it. Setzer is the living embodiment of how good music never grows old, and will always withstand the test of time.

The news about Setzer feels especially painful from what you know he’s contributed as a guitar player, and what you hope he can contribute in the future. Irrespective of the style or genre he decided to work with in a given era, Setzer was revered worldwide as a player. He even once performed as a side player for Robert Plant in the Honeydrippers. Brian Setzer seems to be perennially 24, with a unwavering and endless enthusiasm for the music, even as he entered his 60s. (He’s 65 now).

Hopefully, whatever is affecting Brian Setzer’s hands and body has a solution. It sounds from his statement that there is promise, and he’ll hopefully be playing his signature hollow body Gretsch guitar once again. But either way, what a man, what a life, and what we owe to Brian Setzer for refusing to give up or toss aside the timeless music that has made the American experience so enjoyable.

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