Who remembers Los Angeles rockabilly band The Red Devils? Certainly not me. I didn’t even know there was a thriving cowpunk scene, fusing rockabilly and country, in early-Eighties LA.

One person who does remember them is Maria McKee, who found inspiration from their singer – “a gorgeous Puerto Rican girl dressed in perfect 1950s clothes” – when forming her own band Lone Justice.

“I was a huge fan of the band’s and the lead singer Emy Lee was a tremendous influence on me,” she recalls. “She had a great, strong voice, a cinematic presence and fashion sense and she was very beautiful. I idolized her. This band should be remembered in all the annals of LA post punk/Americana histories.”

It’s hard to find much out about The Red Devils, who featured brothers Dave Lee and Johnny Ray Bartel on guitar and double bass, backed up by drummer Scottie Campbell.

They supported bands including X, The Blasters, The Cramps, Lone Justice and Los Lobos but fell foul of record company politics when labels wanted to sign Emmy Lee and the bass playing Bartel – but not the others – and the duo remained loyal to their bandmates by refusing to sign.

though there’s a poor-quality live clip on YouTube in addition to this song, which featured on Rhino Records’ compilation The Best Of L.A. Rockabilly, also featuring Los Lobos and X guitarist Billy Zoom before he became a punk.

In the early Nineties they changed personnel and changed direction to become a blues band, introducing Lester Butler as their new lead singer, alongside Dave Lee Bartel and a new lead guitarist, Paul “The Kid” Size, with a new rhythm section of The Blasters’ Bill Bateman on drums and the returning Johnny Ray Bartel on rhythm guitar.

There’s a decent selection of live clips from a 1982 concert in Santa Barbara on the Facebook fan page for Cramps bass guitarist Poison Ivy, giving an idea of why Emy Lee was once described as “Ava Gardner in cowboy boots.”