SAN FRANCISCO – Bill's Place is Chris Isaak's kind of place. Great burgers, sinful fries and saucy waitresses. There's something decidedly retro about the joint. Ditto the guy digging into his lunch out on the patio, given his, well, let's just say it, Elvis voice and looks. "The '50s was a pretty wonderful time for people, it was hopeful," says Isaak, 55. "But I didn't record this new album out of nostalgia." Isaak's new disc, Beyond the Sun , out Oct. 18, was recorded with his longtime band at Memphis' fabled Sun Studios , and includes both rock staples (from Great Balls of Fire to Ring of Fire) and uptempo originals such as the album's first single, Live It Up. But in tackling this material, Isaak wasn't interested in lionizing an era ("The '50s had polio and racism, too," he says bluntly) but rather paying tribute to his modest childhood in scrappy Stockton, Calif. A memorable serenade Chris Isaak kne...