I was fourteen years old when this record came out. A couple of years earlier someone had turned me onto They Only Come Out at Night and I was hooked. Someone else had Roadwork and I finally got around to White Trash as well. By then I was buying them all; Jasmine Nightdreams and everything else I could get my hands on. I played the living bleep out of this record in my parents living room. I remember being into Rock and Roll Hoochie Koo and Teenage Love Affair via Rick Derringer, but for some reason this record got no radio love at all.
What this is is an amazing collection of catchy, mid 70's pop tunes, played by a whip-smart band that plays and sings it's collective butt off. If you've followed Edgar Winter's career at all, you know that he achieved his first peak playing incredible down n' dirty R&B with White Trash.
Many of the White Trash fans were disappointed, then, when he formed the Edgar Winter Group with now-deceased, underrated pop-genius Dan Hartman, drummer Chuck Ruff and guitar chopmeister Ronnie Montrose. "They Only Come Out at Night," their first release, is a great album of hook-heavy pop songs (remember "Free Ride"?) as well as my vote for greatest pop instrumental of all time, "Frankenstein." Thus began phase two of EW's career: as a pop craftsman, creating wonderful 3 minute gems rather than extended R&B jams.
This album represents, I think, the peak of that period. Ronnie Montrose left and was replaced by Rick Derringer, a guitarist even more well-suited to the band's mission of crafting "stick-in-your-head" hooks. As on the mid-period Beatles' albums, each song is different from the one before and the one after, and each song, listened to individually, will leave you humming for days. Unfortunately, "Shock Treatment" didn't spawn a hit, though literally any song on the album could've (and should've) been a hit single. Years later, David Lee Roth had a minor hit with a version of "Easy Street," but he certainly didn't improve on the original.
Though the band's self-titled third album had some great moments ("Diamond Eyes" is one of the coolest soul ballads ever written), the group never again approached the consistency and punch of this record. If you're at all interested in 70's pop music (fans of Todd Rundgren, Stevie Wonder, Wings, Elton John and the Doobie Bros. take note), this album is a must-have.
Tracklist:
01 Some Kinda Animal (Dan Hartman)
02 Easy Street (Hartman)
03 Sundown (Hartman)
04 Miracle Of Love (Edgar Winter, Hartman)
05 Do Like Me (Winter)
06 Rock & Roll Woman (Hartman)
07 Someone Take My Heart Away (Winter)
08 Queen of My Dreams (Hartman)
09 Maybe Someday You'll Call My Name (Hartman)
10 River's Risin' (Hartman)
11 Animal (Winter)
Personnel:
Rick Derringer - producer, bass, guitar, electric sitar, vocals
Dan Hartman - guitar, bass, percussion, autoharp, vocals
Bill King - photography
Chuck Ruff - drums
Edgar Winter - bass, Clavinet, Mellotron, organ, piano, synthesizer, vibraphone, saxophone, vocals
Produced by Rick Derringer
320 kbps + artwork.
Play loud.
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