The Reverend Horton Heat is the stage name of American musician Jim Heath (born 1959 in Corpus Christi, Texas) as well as the name of his Dallas, Texas-based psychobilly trio. Heath is a singer, songwriter and guitarist.
The group originally formed in 1985, playing its first gigs in Dallas's Deep Ellum neighborhood. Its current members are Jim "Reverend Horton" Heath on guitar and lead vocals, Jimbo Wallace on the upright bass, and Paul Simmons on drums.
Their sound is self-described as "country-fed punkabilly". Some of their songs could also be described as psychobilly. Their music is a mixture of country, surf, punk, big band, swing, and rockabilly, all played loud and energetically with lyrics that are often very humorous. The band has achieved success within the genre and even in mainstream America with many of their songs being featured in video games and commercials. Jim Heath played in a cover band called Southern Comfort with friends from W.B. Ray High School, his high school, before attending the University of Texas at Austin in the fall of 1977. At UT, he often entertained friends and dormmates and was often found playing in the stairwells at Moore-Hill Dormitory late into the night. Heath left school in the spring to join up with a touring cover band by the name of Sweetbriar. Three years later, former dormmate David Livingston, now in his senior year of school and at home visiting family, saw a familiar face on stage and reunited with Heath. David told Jim stories of the punk music scene in Austin and the acts playing at venues like Raul's and Club Foot. Once, while home on another visit, Livingston took Heath to a Dallas rock and roll venue, The Bijou, to see an act called The Cramps. After the show, a brawl between punks and rockers broke out in the parking lot. While Heath and Livingston escaped any involvement in the scuffle, Heath later claimed to have had an epiphany on that evening. Always a fan of blues and honky tonk, Heath returned the favor by taking Livingston and his wife to see The Blasters in Dallas at the Hot Klub, starting his love for roots rock.
Heath had married a former bandmate from Sweetbriar, and together they had a child; they decided that the rock-and-roll lifestyle was over and that it was time to have real jobs. Around 1985, Heath was known as "Jim the Sound Guy" by those who frequented two warehouses that by night became music venues, Theater Gallery and The Prophet Bar. Heath used the old Sweetbriar PA system to earn extra money, running sound for bands such as the New Bohemians, End Over End, Shallow Reign and Three On A Hill. One night during a lull, Russell Hobbs, one of the original Deep Ellum visionaries and proprietors of these venues goaded him into getting up to play. He played alone, tearing through a version of "Folsom Prison Blues"; throughout the song, Hobbs hooted and shouted out, "Go Reverend."
Heath decided then and there to form a band and came up with the name Reverend Horton Heat, as an ode to Johnny Horton, using the shortened version of his last name, Heath. Soon, life on the road took its toll on the marriage, and his wife left with their child and dog. Jim's feelings upon the loss of his family are well documented in the song "Where In The Hell Did You go With My Toothbrush?" The Jimi Hendrix poster mentioned in the song was on the back of a door that Jim used for a practice room in the house he shared with his wife and child. The dog's name really was Smokey.