Band Of The Month-Foghat

In my high school years Foghat was my favorite band to listen to.  Back in the early 70's they were early staples of FM radio, with KWWL FM playing a lot of tracks from their first two albums.  But they actually go back to Savoy Brown, when Dave Peverett and Roger Earl joined up on Getting To The Point and stayed up till Looking In which could be considered the first true Foghat album since Tony Stevens was part of Savoy Brown then. A lot of hard blues boogie, by the 8 minute Leaving Again which would resurfaced on the first Foghat album produced by Dave Edmunds.

If anything their first album started out with one of the greatest lead off songs ever, a wah wah treatment of I Just Want To Make Love To You.  Substitute Kim Simmons in favor of Rod Price and you get the original Foghat.  But unlike Savoy Brown a more nod toward boogie rock and roll rather than blues boogie that Simmons enjoyed.  And with more Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters to boot, this would figure to be the way that Foghat would sell albums.  Critics never got into them (Robert Christgau basically threw a B minus on Energized and left them to their own devices) but they were many a fan favorite although nowadays they seem to be a joke to the new generation of auto tuned kiddies.

With the second album Edmunds was replaced by Tom Dawes of The Cyrkle fame the 2nd S/T album (known as rock and roll) was a better album with less reliance on Willie Dixon or Chuck Berry and more on the song writing skills of Peverett and Price.  In fact the highlight remains Rod Price's What A Shame, the only song that Price ever sang lead on.  But Peverett also gave us classic stuff like Road Fever, Long Way To Go and the ballad It's Too Late.   Energized, continued the winning streak with Honey Hush, failed hit single Step Outside and Home In My Hand.  But the biggest complaint had to be the crappy production that Dawes laid on this recording, sounding very fuzzy and compressed, poorly recorded.  Nick Jameson would replace Dawes and worked on the underrated Rock And Roll Outlaws, which had no hits but they tear it up with a version of Howard Tate's Six Days On The Road, Blue Spruce Woman, the title track and Chateau Lafitte 59 Boogie, which closed many a live set before Slow Ride.

But Foghat broke it big with a stomping Slow Ride an 8 minute epic featuring some wild Rod Price guitar work and Peverett's heavy breathing on the sing along Slow Ride, Take It Easy before Jameson leads into a funky R & B bass riff.  Slow Ride remains one of the most overplayed classic rock songs but still sounds good when you play it on the stereo. A great version of The Righteous Brothers's My Babe and Robert Johnson Terriplane Blues is also at hand but the title track did managed to scape the bottom top forty in 1976. To which at that point Jameson left and was replaced by Craig MacGregor which is the best lineup of Foghat and remain intact till Rod Price left in 1980.

Night Shift was a bit more darker than the boogie good times of Fool For The City but that album got me through high school.  Side one with Drivin' Wheel, Don't Let Me Down and Burning The Midnight Oil was played time and time again.  For the cover they chose Take Me To The River but it was regulated to the B side of failed ballad I'll Be Standing By.  Produced by Dan Hartman of Free Ride and later Instant Replay fame.   Foghat Live! is one the ultimate live albums of the 1970's. At only 6 songs, each and every one from Fool For The City to Home In My Hand to I Just Want To Make Love to Road Fever and a wild Honey Hush brings us to the showstopping Slow Ride at the end.  Next to Frampton Comes Alive or Live Bullet or Live At Leeds, Foghat Live was arena rock at its best.

In some ways Dave Peverett was beginning to look at new wave and punk rock for inspiration although the next album Stone Blue was straight away boogie rock and roll lead by the in your face title track and a reworking of Sweet Home Chicago but the fact of the matter was that Peverett was good for about three or four songs per album and sometimes he would write some stinkers.  High On Love is one although Rod Price's guitar riffs saves that song from being goofy.  Love In Motion from Boogie Motel plain sucks and may be the worst thing Lonesome Dave ever wrote.  Stone Blue was noisy and Foghat didn't care much for Eddie Kramer (to which they misspelled his name for producer on that album).  Kramer does add a bit of noisy guitar noise to update the sound and I think it works fine.  Boogie Motel gave Foghat another top ten hit with Third Time Lucky and Alto Reed brings his sax work to Somebody Been Sleeping In My Bed and the title track.  Nevertheless this ends Foghat the boogie band and the 80s would bring in a more pop sounding Foghat that fell out of favor with fans.

Tight Shoes was Lonesome Dave's attempt to reinvent the band as new wave and it would lead to Price leaving the band in favor of Erik Cartwright.  They had a minor hit with Stranger In My Own Town but the problem was that all the songs sounded the same, straight four four beat.  For myself I like most of the album but can't recommend it to you unless you want to complete your Foghat collection.  Girls To Chat Boys To Bounce, a strange title name shows more of a new wave sound and outside of the boogie sonic classic Love Zone and Live Now Pay Later,  it was more miss than hit despite Nick Jameson returning to produce.  However I will defend In The Mood For Something Rude to which Peverett puts down the pen and does cover album of songs done by Rodney Crowell (Ain't Living Long Like This), Delbert McClinton (Love Rustler) James Brown (And I Do Just What I Want). The hit was Slipped, Tripped And Fell In Love but the record bombed and by then Craig MacGregor was replaced by Jameson again (under the alias Eli Jenkins).  By 1983, Zig Zag Walk sold worse, the fans, put off by Peverett's new wave adventures gave up and Bearsville gave Foghat their walking papers.  In some ways, this album actually goes back to Louis Jordan style jump blues with the cover of Choo Choo Cha Boogie and That's What Love Can Do is dance Kraut rock if you can believe that.  But for pure  boogie, it wasn't Foghat as we knew and love.

Foghat in the 80's pretty much came to be two different bands; one with Dave Peverett and Erik Cartwright leading one band and Roger Earl lead another band (with Bryan Bassett on guitar).  In fact I saw Foghat play at 1989 Oklahoma City rock fest  and thought that both Dave and Roger was playing together.  Rhino Record managed to get the record rights and put out the first 8 albums out and Best Of Foghat that gave us butchered edits of their hits (Slow Ride, Fool For The City come to mind)  A Best of Volume 2 continue to mine what was left off the first (including more 45 edits of What A Shame, Live Now Pay Later and even Take Me To The River got butchered) but it's worth getting of the Ubangi Stomp that was produced by Dave Edmunds but left off the first album and a Peverett penned All I Want For Christmas Is You.

The surprise of 1993 was that the original lineup (Meaning Price, Peverett, Earl and Tony Stevens) got back together with Rick Rubin to produce a brand new album but Rubin baled out due to other commitments and Nick Jameson came back to produce The Return Of The Boogie Men for Modern/Atlantic records which was their highest charting album since Boogie Motel, hell they even reunited with Tom Dawes on the acoustic version of that album which we really didn't need.  John Popper from Blues Traveler plays harmonica on Louisiana Blues which originally goes back to Blue Matter  in the Savoy Brown years.  Sadly that turned out to be the last original album from the Boogie Men, although they did record a live album Road Cases for K Tel in the late 90's.

In 2000, Dave Peverett died from cancer and Rod Price would be dead five years later.  Road Cases was a so so live album with two studio tracks produced by Ron Nevison which was more ballads than boogie.  Sanctuary would issue a live 2 CD Stages set but I'm guessing the first CD may have been Road Cases repackaged.  King Biscuit put out a rocking 1976 Philadelphia set but it's a bit rougher than the 1977 Live Foghat set.   Nevertheless, Roger Earl, kept the band going replacing Price with Bryan Bassett again and former Ted Nugent/Humble Pie vocalist Charlie Huhn replaced the late great Lonesome Dave.  MacGregor returned to replace Stevens on the Foghat Live 2 CD.  Family Joules came out in 2003 and more rock than blues.  Last year Foghat returned to the blues on Last Train Home a album that they had help with Eddie Kirkland playing on a couple numbers.  For a blues album it's okay but borrows way too much on the blues songs that Peverett sang and done better on the older albums.  But they're still promoting it on their own so I'll give them credit on that.  The major labels would have moved on to something else a week later.

Perhaps the myth of Lonesome Dave and Rod The Bottle Price will fade into memory but in my recollections of seeing them playing at the 5 Seasons Center 30 years ago, he was a excellent showman who got into the crowd interaction which took him to the higher level.  As long as there's classic rock radio Slow Ride and I Just Want To Make Love To You will continue to keep the checks coming in.  Even though Roger Earl remains the sole original member left performing, Craig Mac Gregor's back in the fold and Foghat still remains a great band to see and Bryan Bassett is a underrated guitarist.   Sure, they're a running joke to the uncool modern rock fools but back in the 70's Foghat was as good as it got when it came to see great live boogie.  And still is today.