First real post in a year and a half!
uymq...@sneakemail.com
post for a year and a half! And that wasn't much of one either.
Hey, there must be *some* Savoy Brown fans out there!
As for myself, I vaguely remembered them from way back in the early
seventies, so I recently decided to pick up their best hits CD.
Wow, what a pleasant surprise! At least four or five of those old songs
are absolute gems, including
Train to Nowhere
Louisiana Blues
I'm Tired
Tell Mama
Hellbound Train
Do they have any other great songs that are not on this best hits album?
Bruce Laughbaum
news:1166941991.7...@79g2000cws.googlegroups.com...
sorry...been almost another year...but just started reading newsgroups and
ran into this one.
this is one of those totally astounding uk groups nobody knows about these
days 'cept for us ol' timers, even with 20+ excellent albums in their
discography. they only had one radio hit i think, tell mama, as they were
more of a live concert band even back then. they were/are led by kim
simmonds, who is still playing. sadly, when i saw them a few years back it
was in a tiny smoke-filled bar with only a few folks watching...such a far
cry from their heyday when they actually were headliners drawing thousands
of fans even stateside, extremely popular among those who knew more about
music than just top 40.
a blues/boogie band from (almost) the start, they began the turning point of
their career with lead singer chris youlden who, despite his most unusual
stuffy-nosed somewhat raspy drawl, did some very mind-blowing stuff, like
"flood in houston", "mr. downchild", and "someday people" on their '68
getting to the point offering (their second release - the debut was shake
down, which didn't resemble their later style at all), and just about every
song on blue matter (especially the dark and foreboding "vicksburg blues" -
you'd swear he was black!!, "tolling bells" in which kim does some jangle
piano, and "it hurts me too" where kim shows he can play the blues right
along with the likes of clapton and bb), and a step further, a more
heavy-rock slanted effort. the latter featured "i'm tired" (i didn't make
the world i'm living in and i ain't gonna toe the line...i'm tired of trying
to be something i know ain't me...i'm tired of living up to what people
expect me to be...you know that some people are different now ain't that a
cryin' shame...now wouldn't it be a real drag if we were all the same...i
ain't gonna try to please...if i get myself together YOU have the blues not
me), as well as "made up my mind", the poignant "life's one act play" where
he admits 'i need a little something just to mellow my day', and a 22 minute
boogie similar to canned heat's that helped define them early on, and
included excerpts of feel so good/whole lotta shakin'/little queenie/purple
haze). the former title is also where "train to nowhere" and "louisiana
blues" first make their appearance. all three of these are truly must-haves
for savoy fans),
for whatever reason youlden then left, and in 1970, their rhythm/slide
player also began to do the vocals. his name, lonesome dave peverett, may
be familiar to some...he left savoy soon after, along with drummer roger
earle, to form foghat (another boogie band) where he also sang vocals and
played slide. but not before they released a couple more awesome albums -
looking in and raw sienna (both most highly recommended). the slide and
vocals on these is phenomenal and the overall feel turns more boogie than
blues (no surprise considering the pre-foghat influence).
a totally new lineup did street corner talking in '71, which spawned the hit
"tell mama", along with a superb version of "i can't get next to you" and
"wang dang doodle". a more commercial sound overall, but not overly so. if
you like slinky sounding rock more than raw blues, you may favor this period
over the earlier, but in this case (not so with many bands where i usually
prefer their first few efforts) i enjoy 'em both equally.
back to blues/boogie basics, the next three didn't let up any in terms
totally awesome tunes, but were more polished sounding than their early
stuff. hellbound train includes "doin' fine", "lost and lonely child",
"troubled by these days and times", and the title track. lion's share and
jack the toad were very significant releases as well, with "shot in the
head" being another slide-based poppy sounding potential hit highlighting
the former, while the latter contains the exquisite "just cos' you got the
blues don't mean you gotta sing".
i haven't had a chance to listen to '74s boogie brothers so much, but am
totally biased toward the following skin'n'bone album because, aside from a
step further, my first, it was one of my earliest savoy albums. many a
party with those two, especially a step further!!
with the loss of interest in the '80s with blues/boogie groups, savoy
unfortunately joined the crowd in attempting to change their sound and
maintain popularity. can't tell you much about these releases as i only
more relatively recently acquired them and don't play them so much as the
good old stuff. anything kim does is worth checking out though, but would
be more inclined to follow the albums discussed above with his late '90s and
turn-of-the-century material.
fuzzyfreak
FuzzyFreak
any rate, along with looking in, it has a totally different flavor from
previous stuff...MUCH more polished with more piano and added horns. well
manicured, with precisely timed riffs and often a smoother guitar - though
not always, but overall certainly not the same raw gutsy sound of before.
usually that's when i stop listening to a group - but not THIS one!! both
phases of this group were perfection in terms of defining this type of
music.
and looking in is again much different in texture, if for no other reason
than the familiar pre-foghat vocalist.
speaking of which...my mistake...rod price did slide with foghat.
"FuzzyFreak" <bla...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
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