This month in September the top ten will focus on ten songs from my favorite bands of the rock n roll era. This is a attempt to provide some of the hits and misses of the featured bands and in no way you should see this as a 10 best. Because if I do a Ten Best, that defeats the sense of purpose and just makes another classic rock blog about the overplayed. I'm sure I'll add an overplayed song just for fun's sakes, and that I probably played the forty five so much the grooves got worn off.
Since I've did a band of the month feature on Foghat it was decided to keep the continuation process going and add ten songs of note from the late Lonesome Dave, the late Rod the bottle Price and the still going Roger Earl and Tony Stevens and of course the recent members of Bryan Bassett, who's been a part of Foghat for over 20 years between the original members reuniting and returning when they left to seek other pleasures or exited the stage one last time.
In terms of theory, Foghat remains a problematic band. Oh yes, I enjoyed all of their albums when I was younger but since I have gotten more music in my collection have come to find that not all their albums and singles have stood the test of time. Even the reformed Foghat has nothing to do with any album after Boogie Motel, which is somewhat of a shame if you have a different ear for what Lonesome Dave was trying to do. Take for example Love Zone from Girls To Chat, Boys To Bounce, their 1981 bomb. It was probably the only close thing to boogie that they were doing but Dave's lyrics are laughingly grade schoolish. Into the Love Zone, Baby here I come, With you baby by my side, love's a open door. Or how bout the second verse: Inside Outside, Can You Feel The Flow? It's getting closer and closer, baby never let me go.
Not exactly Bob Dylan. But I enjoyed Erik Cartwright's slide guitarwork and Craig MacGregor's high bass notes at the end. But then again their biggest hit Slow Ride isn't Lennon/McCartney either. Slow Ride, Take It Easy, Slow Ride, sleezy. So perhaps the snoots at Pitchfork might have issues with that or anything else that Foghat did in their history. But then again, I'll defend the boogie boys till the end on the rocking songs but when they did drop a turd such as Love In Motion (maybe the worst thing they ever done) or Take It Or Leave It off Fool For The City, I lambast them myself.
Perhaps I was the only one that actually waited for the next Foghat up till their 1983 lambasted Zig Zag Walk. And then rejoiced when the original guys came back 11 long years later with Return Of The Boogie Men. Even with Rod and Dave up in the great gig in the sky, Foghat continues to put out new material and live documents although the live documents may not measure up to Foghat Live! per say. But at least they're still out there putting on a great show.
Nevertheless, don't consider this to be the all time 10 best songs of Foghat, but rather the 10 songs that sounded good enough for me to put on the top ten.
1. Fool For The City (Foghat Live! 1977) The studio version did very well considering it followed Slow Ride but nothing beats the live version to which it comes roaring out of the gates, as if Dave and the boys had something to prove. Bryan Bassett almost copies Rod Price note for note on Foghat Live 2 but even he can't top the piledriving lead of Rod and the boogie beat of Roger and Craig.
2. What A Shame (Foghat aka Rock n Roll 1973) The first and only song that features Rod Price at the vocal and I suppose the chorus line Lonesome Dave liked enough to reword it as Fool For The City. This got ample airplay on the FM side in 1973 and this even made it on the Warner Special Products version of Heavy Metal, to which somebody there remixed it. If you had the 8 track, you got a extra verse thrown in for good measure.
3. Eight Days On The Road (Rock And Roll Outlaws 1974) They were on such a roll that they released two albums in that year, Energized and RARO, the latter which my aunt had a 8 track version of this album. This song might be the best way to call this Boogie Sonics to which Rod and Dave trade off some leads in the middle and then playing together at the fade out.
4. Live Now-Pay Later (Girls To Chat & Boys To Bounce 1981) Imagine my surprise when I saw this 45 at the jukebox in the Kirkwood Game Area, Imagine my disgust when they faded it out before the great heavy boogie second part. To which Lonesome Dave lives the high life but has to boogie out before the bills come in. It's been said that Roger Earl didn't care much for this, nor Zig Zag Walk since Lonesome Dave told him to play less drums. However they did a rocking version at the Five Seasons Center in 1981 when they opened for Blue Oyster Cult. Side note: Roger Earl would actually warm up by playing some drums to tune up before the show, which was fairly cool.
5. Jump That Train (Return Of The Boogie Men 1994) Rick Rubin got the ball rolling but it was the return of Nick Jameson to record the whole thing and he's adds more a bass borne mix to make it sound like garage rock. It did help a lot that Rod Price was back although Lonesome Dave was still writing his usual love porn junk but at least on this song he was singing about trains. And probably should have done more train songs than Love In Motion goobers.
6. I Just Want To Make Love To You (Foghat 1972) And the wah wah petal changed rock history with this old time classic, which doesn't get overplayed at much as Slow Ride or Third Time Lucky.
7. Ain't Living Long Like This (In The Mood For Something Rude 1982) This is one song that you cannot mess up. I have many versions of this from Waylon to Dream Syndicate to countless others. After the dismal showings and efforts like Tight Shoes or Girls To Chat, Lonesome Dave decided to do a whole album of covers. And it was actually fairly good but it didn't sell.
8. Stone Blue (Stone Blue 1978) I'm surprised that they stuck the whole 5 and half minute version on a 45 and it might be their most straight ahead heavy boogie song ever made. And Price goes into the stratosphere with some over the top lead guitar at the end, like he's running out of frets. Lonesome Dave may have written his best lyrics with When I was stone blue, rock and roll sure helped me through. Which he was speaking for me back then. Maybe now too.
9. Drivin' Wheel (Night Shift 1976) Another of Lonesome Dave's patented fucking songs this got a bit of airplay on the FM side of things in 77 but I rarely hear it now on the radio. Bearsville butchered it on a 45 edit and Rhino then did a much worse job on the Best Of Foghat since it wasn't the original 45 version.
10. Nervous Release (Boogie Motel 1979) If you get past the crap that is Love In Motion, you get a nice boogie free for all that ends Boogie Motel on a positive note but it would be the last true boogie song before Tight Shoes and beyond. Features Alton Reed from Bob Segar's Silver Bullet Band honking away or maybe he did that on the title track or Somebody. Either way this song rocks.
Grades on the albums are considered B+ to B- although I do give Foghat Live an A minus (hell consider it an A if I dare). The studio albums don't vary much although I think the 2nd album through Stone Blue are worthy for your collection. Girls To Chat has fallen from a B plus back in 81 to a C plus, and despite it all, I still enjoy Zig Zag Walk and give Lonesome Dave props for at least trying something different, even though it fell flat on its face and they wouldn't record another album for 11 years.
For the comeback years, Return Of The Boogie Men ranks a B plus but the acoustic part is boring to these ears. Road Cases really didn't do much for me either. The Charlie Huhn led band has made one studio album (Family Joules-2002 reissued via Varese Fontana 2010) and one blues based album (Long Train Home-Fontana 2010 which featured the late Eddie Kirkland on two tracks) Family Joules is silly and Long Train Home so so although the guys think it's their best album in years. I haven't heard Live At The Blues House nor Decades Live and don't plan to. Foghat 2 is okay but you can probably live without it. As for the best of out there, Buyer beware, a lotta songs are edited versions.
And so it goes.
And in case you missed the actual top ten of the week. These are the ones that I was listening to the past week.
1. Come On-Whitesnake 1977
2. What's Good-Lou Reed 1992
3. Theme From Exodus-Ferrante & Teicher 1960
4. Thank You Mr. Churchhill-Peter Frampton 2010
5. Up Or Down-Peter Kaukonen 1972
6. Heartbreak Hotel-Viva Elvis The Album 2010
7. Sweet Lu-Louise-Ironhorse 1971
8. Rock Around The Clock-Bill Haley & The Comets 1954
9. Round And Down-Steppenwolf 1969
10. Goodbye-Night Ranger 1985
We'll try to do better next week.
Link of the week: KYEN 103.9 Classic album rock like you remember it back then. If anybody can play Nick Lowe Maureen, has got to be worth checking out eh? We can forgive them for Aqualung. http://www.rocktherockies.com/
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