Rockabilly Redux : * Janis Martin retired in the ‘60s. Like many fans, the ‘Female Elvis’ is rediscovering the roots of rock.

Janis Martin retired from a brief but eventful rockabilly career in the early ‘60s, when she was just 21. She had been dubbed “the Female Elvis,” no less, before bowing out for marriage and family.

These days, Martin is a rock star only when she can work it into her schedule.

That would include Saturday’s performance at the Palomino in North Hollywood, marking her first visit to California. She will be traveling here from her day job at a golf club in Danville, Va., ready to wail on “My Boy Elvis,” “Drug Store Rock ‘n’ Roll” and other vintage rockers.

“There’s a lot of us still around,” Martin said of her pioneering generation of rock musicians. “And we can step back in time and be a star again for a week or two out of the year, and it really makes you feel good.”

In the late 1970s, some of 30 songs she recorded during her career for RCA and elsewhere began appearing on European album anthologies. And in 1982, the lingering overseas popularity of the rockabilly sound (as demonstrated by the chart-topping success of the Stray Cats abroad as well as here) prompted her to agree to perform at a British music festival.

She celebrated her 42nd birthday on stage there. “It was just amazing to walk out there and see the kids dressed like we did in the ‘50s, driving cars we did in the ‘50s. They paid good money to get hold of any model ‘50s car,” Martin said. “They wore the ducktails, poodle skirts, the saddle oxfords, the off-the-shoulder blouses, everything. It was like stepping back in time.”

But, she says, it’s not just fashion or nostalgia that binds these new fans. “It’s the raw sound,” she said. “It’s not all the synthesizers and electronic instruments and whatever. It’s just basically the guitar, drums and stand-up bass. It’s not polished.”

The edgy power of that early rockabilly sound--whether performed by Presley, Carl Perkins, Martin or others--continues to inspire a later generation of players. Elements of rockabilly have reached the country music of singer Rosie Flores, the passionate roots rock of the Blasters and the intense neo-rockabilly of Reverend Horton Heat.

“There’s some of these older rockabilly people who don’t realize how much people love their music and listen to it every day,” said Jim Heath, leader of Reverend Horton Heat. “Me and my girlfriend of three years listened to Janis Martin every day. She probably doesn’t even realize there are people who do that every day.”

Martin’s own inspiration had come while listening to blues. When Ruth Brown’s voice came roaring from the radio one day, she understood what sort of music she wanted to play, and phased out the traditional country she had performed since she was 8 years old. “It was a combination of hillbilly music and black rhythm and blues,” she said. “So they called it rockabilly.”

She enjoyed some popular success. But when she returned from a USO tour married and pregnant at 17, that phase of her career soon ended. “That kind of blew the RCA career,” she said, with little obvious regret. “They had spent so much money and time on publicity promoting the fresh-faced teen-age rocker, you know.”

Her fans tell her that the young voice that recorded all those old singles has only improved with the years. “There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t sing,” Martin said. “Your voice is like a muscle; if you don’t use it, it gets weak.”

Where and When What: Janis Martin, with the Dave and Deke Combo, and Ronnie Mack.

Location: The Palomino, 6907 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood.

Hours: 9 p.m. Saturday.

Price: $12.50.

Call: (818) 764-4010.