VELVET THUNDER

There Goes Another Love Song… An almost perfect piece of songwriting, vocal harmony and ebullient playing which, in a fairer world, would trip off the tongue along with Sweet Home Alabama or Take It Easy.

A double helping of Southern Rock goodness reissued here by the Floating World label, in the form of a compilation (Green Grass And High Tides: Best Of The Outlaws) by, naturally, The Outlaws, and also two albums on the one disc from Molly Hatchet, in the shape of Take No Prisoners and No Guts…No Glory. These all have their merits for sure, but let’s take a look at the Outlaws collection first, as it is to these ears the pick of these offerings.

The trouble with The Outlaws is that, while they came in and burned extremely brightly, their peak period was over all too soon. In fact, they had been together since the late ’60s by the time their debut album appeared in 1975, but it still seemed to the world at large that they had come from nowhere, rather than actually predating Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Eagles, Poco or whoever else from the loose ‘southern rock/country rock’ scene that you care to name. Perhaps this helped the band, because that very first album showed immediately that they had the breadth and confidence to cover all of the bases from heavy Southern Rock & Roll right through to almost pure country, with even the catch-all label of Country Rock not going close to telling the story. They followed up that self-titled debut with Lady In Waiting in 1976 and Hurry Sundown in 1977, before releasing the brilliant live double album Bring It Back Alive the following year, recorded on the Hurry Sundown tour in 1977. At that point, nobody would realise it, but the magic, at least on a studio level, was waning fast, with line-up changes not helping. Playing To Win, in 1978, had some merit, but flopped, as did the following In The Eye Of The Storm. There was a brief resurgence of interest with 1980’s Ghost Riders, but from that point on it became more and more about celebrating past glories.

This compilation very much reflects that career path, being front-loaded with earlier material. Of the 16 tracks here, eleven come from the first two albums, with just two apiece from Hurry Sundown and Playing To Win, with only their spirited stab at Ghost Riders In The Sky as the outlier from the Ghost Riders album. Nothing else gets a look in, which is highly indicative of the band’s trajectory. And that’s a real shame, because at their (relatively brief) peak, The Outlaws could go toe to toe with Skynyrd, The Allman Brothers or anyone else you cared to name, and they would never hit the canvas. Just for a while, they really were that good. However, rather than lament what might have been, let’s celebrate what we do get on this album, which is very nearly all prime, 100% beefsteak.

The first five tracks all come from the debut, and it’s probably fair to say they include the band’s two most enduring classics. The opener, as it was on the original album, is the country-rock classic There Goes Another Love Song, melding those two genres perfectly, with the hard edge of Southern Rock making sure it possesses the drive and punch it needs. A real earworm, the song was a bit of a hit for the band in the USA, but it is a shame that it isn’t more widely known. An almost perfect piece of songwriting, vocal harmony and ebullient playing which, in a fairer world, would trip off the tongue along with Sweet Home Alabama or Take It Easy. The other of those classics is the epic which gives this set its title, Green Grass And High Tides – in all of its ten minute glory. Now, there is no point in denying the Freebird, elephant in the room – this track was written as a deliberate tribute to that famous track, and it doesn’t so much remind you of it as much as walk in, announce ‘Hi, I’m Freebird’ before putting on a false nose and glasses and starting to play. But that couldn’t matter less – and whisper it, but there are times when I even think this might be the better piece. The lengthy duelling guitar coda is thrilling every time you hear it, while the ‘song’ itself if you like, is a bigger and heavier one than Freebird, although still with marvellous melodic content. The only odd thing here is it not closing the album, which is rather unsettling! Also from that first album we get the hard rock of Song For You, the countrified Knoxville Girl, and the almost pure country instrumental Waterhole. All fine pieces.

A great five song opening, but the selections from Lady In Waiting are also high quality, from the hard rocking Stick Around For Rock & Roll through to the exquisite country strains of Girl From Ohio. This is versatility beyond any other Southern band you could name, in my book. Breaker Breaker hits the country rock target again, while the cover of Freeborn Man puts a brilliantly contrasting rock mid section into the song. Only the lacklustre Prisoner, which edges towards plastic pop/soul unwisely, is a mis-step here. Hurry Sundown gives ius the classic title track and the atmospheric Gunsmoke, which again contrast the country and the rock, while eve the maligned Playing To Win itself offers the excellent You Are The Show. Ghost Riders In The Sky closes things nicely – everyone knows that one, but this emphasises the familiar melody on guitar as much as the vocals.

The Molly Hatchet release here is also notable, though for different reasons. A much harder rocking proposition throughout, Molly Hatchet were also a band who arrived in a blaze of glory with their first two albums, Molly Hatchet and Flirting With Disaster, along with the fantasy-themed paintings by Frank Frazetta which suggested something more akin to Manowar, but still gave the band a real visual identity. However, you must put aside your expectations here, as the two albums included on this ‘two on one’ are in fact their third and fourth respectively, Take No Prisoners and No Guts…No Glory. Take No Prisoners is in fact the second of two albums recorded with singer Jimmy Farrar, who had replaced original frontman Danny Joe Brown, and also saw the cover artist change to Boris Vallejo, though very much in that Frazetta ‘heroic fantasy’ vein still.. It wasn’t very well received critically, and in truth it is not one of the band’s strongest efforts – it all rocks along nicely enough, with no really bad songs, but there is little which remains in the memory afterward. One highly notable fact about the album is that it included a pre-fame appearance on backing vocals by actress Katey Sagal (Married With Children, Futurama, Sons Of Anarchy), who had also previously sung on Gene Simmons’ 1978 solo album!

The accusation of not having memorable material is something which could certainly not be levelled at No Guts…No Glory, which featured the return of original frontman Brown to the band. A much-lauded retuirn to form, the clear highlight here is the eight minute epic Fall Of The Peacemakers, which has gone on to be regarded as one of the band’s finest songs. There are a couple of weaker moments indicating a slightly more commercial edge (the cover of Bobby Allison’s Kinda Like Love doesn’t really belong), but overall this is a good, meaty Southern Rock album with a highlight you could hang your stetson on. The cover is also interesting as being the only one of their albums not to featutre the fantasy art, but the photo of the band in cowboy guise approaching the camera in a Western town is rather strikingly effective in itself.

All in all, two albums worth getting your ears around, but if you haven’t checked out The Outlaws, this is really the time to do it. One can only hope that there will be a reissue of the Bring It Back Alive live album at some point – the twenty minute blast through Green Grass And High Tides on that one (dedicated to Skynyrd, following the plane crash which had recently happened) really is something that everyone should hear!