Brian Setzer announced he has been diagnosed with an autoimmune disease that prevents him from playing guitar.
The rockabilly electric guitar legend made the news public on February 13 via Facebook:
Hi everybody,
I just wanted to check in with you all. 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. 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
The Stray Cats’ most recent tour was a three-week event that took place in the summer of 2024. It was the group’s first tour in five years.
Although there is no cure for autoimmune diseases, their symptoms can be mitigated with a range of treatments. With any luck, Setzer will be able to play again soon.
Setzer is by the far the best-known and most successful rockabilly guitarist in rock and roll history. He first found success with the Stray Cats in the 1980s, when he helped relaunch the rockabilly genre decades after it has fallen from popularity.
“Rockabilly is so near and dear to my heart,” the guitarist told Guitar Player in 2023. “There’s just something exciting about it, and it never goes out of style. You can always add your own wrinkle to it and take it somewhere else.”
His love of the genre led him to visit the home of rockabilly legend Eddie Cochran, where he played his Gretsch 6120 Chet Atkins hollowbody guitar.
“I did get the chance to play his guitar at his mom’s house,’ he told Guitar Player last year. “I realized when I played it a little that it had what seemed like Slinky strings on there — the G wasn’t a wound string. I asked his mom if they’d ever been changed and she said, ‘Oh no, absolutely not. They are the strings that were on it when he last played it.’ I guess he must have used a banjo string for the E so that he could get a plain G string by moving the high E and B strings down to the B and G slots. The way he strung it — he was way ahead of his time.”
Since finding success with rockabilly, Setzer demonstrated his talent for resuscitating other musical styles from bygone eras when he launched a thriving career in jump blues and swing with the Brian Setzer Orchestra in the 1990s.
Guitar Player sends its best wishes to Setzer for a fast and full recovery.
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