Marauder --- Blackfoot --- 1981 (Atco)
Hey, maybe all these years I was wrong! I was told/assumed that these guys were all Indians --- excuse me,
Native Americans! --- but their writeup on Wiki doesn't mention any such heritage. Perhaps they weren't, and maybe I just got suckered in by the name Blackfoot, which is obviously the name of a real Indian tribe, but if they aren't, then they certainly seemed to play up to that image, with songs like “Rattlesnake rock'n'roller” and “Indian world”, not to mention their debut album being called (ahem!) “No reservations”!
Well, whether or which, nothing takes away from the fact that these guys ROCKED with a capital R (and the rest of the letters capitalised too!) --- you'll find no AOR-fodder here, few songs about love and loss, and nary a ballad to be found. “Marauder”, their fifth album, can only be described as a powerhouse. It's southern rock verging on full-on heavy metal --- move over Lynyrd Skynyrd! Kicking you right in the gut from the off, “Good morning” rattles in like a runaway steam train, the churning guitar of Charlie Hagrett backing the powerful, gravelly, almost Lemmy-like vocals of Rickey Medlocke, sticksman Jakson “Thunderfoot” Spires, pounding away so hard you can almost smell the sweat (eeewww!). Spires also co-writes every song on this album with Medlocke. Now admittedly they're not going to win any prizes for original lyrics, but hey, that's not what Blackfoot are about. Let other delve deeply into the human psych, put the world to rights or give their opinions on this and that: these boys are here for one reason and one reason only: to rock!
And how they do! Slowing down a little for “Payin' for it”, the second track comes across as the very best of Sammy Hagar, with great bass from Mister Greg T. Walker (heavy, as he says himself in the liner notes, on the “Mister”!), and some vocal harmonies that stray just over the border into AOR territory, before they're roped and pulled back into the dry, dusty plains and Hagret gives his guitar a fine work out to show this band is all about rock, and to Blackfoot there is only one type, or one type that matters anyway: Southern!
“Diary of a workingman” is a great little acoustic ballad, a real song for the ordinary guy.
”Been a poor man all his life/ And just when everything was going right/ Some stranger takes his woman away/ Don't know if he'll see another day.” It's the second-longest song on the album, just beaten out by seconds by the closer, and one of only two that are over five minutes long. Blackfoot are not about rock epics, no sir! But they can turn it on when they feel the need to, and here they fashion a truly great southern ballad which smoulders and smokes with indignation and rage at the injustices of the world. Yeah, I know I said earlier they don't write songs about putting the world to rights, but this is an intensely personal song. It's about one man (okay, indicative of ALL workingmen, and women), but doesn't seek to change the world, just point out how ****ty it can be for those who aren't lucky enough to be born into privilege. Witness the end lines:
”With a tear in his eye/ And a gun in his hand/ So ends the diary/ Of a workingman.” Says it all.
After this brief introspective pause they're off and running again, rockin' hard with “Too hard to handle” before we're into “Fly away”, the shortest and most commercial song on the album and indeed their only hit single. Maybe if they had written more songs of this calibre they might have been a lot more successful, but then I feel that chart success was never really on Blackfoot's radar. All they wanted to do was get out there and rock. If people bought their records, great, if not, then **** them. A real no-nonsense, no-frills band in very much the mould of the late, legendary Rory Gallagher.
In addition to the guitars, bass and drums on the album, Blackfoot also draft in some other musicians to play the likes of trumpet, harmonica, banjo and horns, most notably Medlocke's grandfather Shorty, who gives it a blast on banjo, racking off a truly astonishing solo as well as speaking the intro to “Rattlesnake rock'n'roller”, which he also co-wrote with his grandson and Spires. It's a great boogie rocker/blues/country jamboree hybrid, with some truly inspired gee-tar and some honky-tony pianner from Mister Greg T. Walker, not to mention some
mean horns! Yee-haaaww!
That would have been a good enough closer, but then we get the five-minute-plus “Searchin'”, which, cliché as it may seem, gives “Free bird” one hell of a run for its money. A slow-burning start on guitar and keyboard yields to Rickey Medlock's impassioned vocal, then the drums kick in as he sings
”They tell me that a man must crawl/ Before he can walk/ Yeah they told me/ You gotta cry before you can talk.” Some more great vocal harmonies, before the inevitable guitar solo as the song charges to its end on a perfect southern-rock arrangement. A great way to end the album, rockin' all the way.
If you like deep lyrics, thoughtful messages and complicated, four-part songs, look elsewhere. If you like lots of ballads, AOR tracks and synthesisers, jest ride on by. But if you like the smell of cordite and horse****, the taste of neat whiskey and the feel of the hot desert wind in your face as you ride, the aroma of motor oil and the acrid smell of burning fretboard, then come on in, partner, for you have found your long-lost brothers.
TRACKLISTING
1. Good morning
2. Payin' for it
3. Diary of a workingman
4. Too hard to handle
5. Fly away
6. Dry county
7. Fire of the dragon
8. Rattlesnake rock'n'roller
9. Searchin'
Suggested further listening: “Tomcattin'”, “Strikes” and the live album “Highway song”