Status Quo - Ma Kelly's Greasy Spoon (1970)
No longer maintaining the status quo
Tracklist
1. Spinning Wheel Blues (Rossi/Young) 3:21 (listed as Spinning Wheel on the original LP)
2. Daughter (Lancaster) 3:01
3. Everything (Rossi/Parfitt) 2:36
4. Shy Fly (Rossi/Young) 3:49
5. April, Spring, Summer and Wednesdays (Rossi/Young) 4:12
6. Junior's Wailing (White/Pugh) 3:33
7. Lakky Lady (Rossi/Parfitt) 3:14
8. Need Your Love (Rossi/Young) 4:46
9. Lazy Poker Blues (Green/Adams) 3:37
10. Is it Really Me/Gotta Go Home (Lancaster) 9:34
2000 Castle Music Remaster Bonus Tracks
11. In My Chair (Alternate Mix) (Rossi/Parfitt) 3:34
12. Gerdundula (Alternate Mix) (Manston/James, a pseudonym for Rossi/Young) 4:10
13. Down The Dustpipe (Alternate Mix) (Grossmann) 2:08
14. Junior's Wailing (Alternate Mix) (White/Pugh) 3:35
2003 Reissue Bonus Tracks
11. Is it Really Me/Gotta Go Home (Early Mix) (Lancaster)
12. Daughter (Early Mix) (Lancaster)
13. Down the Dustpipe (Grossmann)
14. In My Chair (Rossi/Parfitt)
15. Gerdundula (Manston/James, a pseudonym for Rossi/Young)
16. Down the Dustpipe (BBC Session) (Grossmann)
17. Junior's Wailing (BBC Session) (White/Pugh)
18. Spinning Wheel Blues (BBC Session) (Rossi/Young)
19. Need Your Love (BBC Session) (Rossi/Young)
20. In My Chair (1975 Promo Flexi) (Rossi/Parfitt)
Every now and again a comercially successful band changes their style to become an even more auspicious band: following the drug-induced illness of Syd Barrett, Pink Floyd graduated from psychedelic cult to progressive giants; after a breakup, progressive mainstays Yes regrouped as a crossover of rock and dance music; tired of a lack of control, Sweet switched from bubblegum to intelligent rock with the Level Headed album; and so it was for hitmakers Status Quo, when their first two albums failed to capitalise on the success of the singles. Ma Kelly's Greasy Spoon is their third album and the first to leave behind their early psychedelic approach in order to introduce the blues rock/ boogie style which remains their signature.
Spinning Wheel Blues is the prototype for most of the material to come, a chugging blues which is unpretentious and without any histrionics. The guitar solos are excellent as always and there is a harmonica solo for good measure. Spinning Wheel Blues is, to my knowledge, the first Francis Rossi collaboration with former roadie Bob Young. Daughter hits the ground running with a great riff, which could have been used on any of their future classic albums, but the vocals are a disconcerting throwback to the psychedelia past with off-key whining and echo. Roy Lynne adds a keyboard solo to increase the oldtime feel. Everything continues the psychedelia, being a quiet introspective track, with acoustic guitar and cello. It is carefully sung and reminds of the Sgt Pepper-era Beatles or Robin Gibb-led Bee Gees. Shy Fly has a silly lyric and a throwaway melody, although it proves that original drummer John Coghlan was their best, with perhaps the exception of Jeff Rich from Stretch. However, April, Spring, Summer and Wednesdays, another Rossi/ Young song, reintroduces the heavy rock riffs. Keiran White and Martin Pugh's Junior's Wailing is full on blues rock (a Steamhammer cover).
Lakky Lady with acoustic guitar, bongos, maracas and weird lyrics would be an oddity at any stage in the band's career, with, 'When she wakes in the morning and her figure tells no lies/ My eyesight is broken when the light shines on her thighs.' The subject matter is perhaps more fully developed in the brilliant Big Fat Momma on their best album, Piledriver. Need Your Love (Rossi/Young) with its distorted bass, guitar riffs and changes of pace reminds me of Someone's Learning on the next album, Dog of Two Head, and demonstrates how Alan Lancaster was the backbone of Quo at this stage in their development. Status Quo always had a good ear for a song and Peter Green and Clifford Evans' Lazy Poker Blues (a Fleetwood Mac cover), with its shambolic introduction, is no exception. Ma Kelly's Greasy Spoon closes on Alan Lancaster's nine-and-a-half minute epic, Is It Really Me/Gotta Go Home, with more heavy riffs, harmonies and guitar solos. The latter are an often underrated aspect of the band. While Rossi and Parfitt went on to self-parody, primetime celebrity and OBEs, Lancaster never received the credit and acclaim he deserved for making Status Quo into mainstream blues rock pioneers.
My copy of the album is the Castle Music remaster from 2000, offering four bonuses, beginning with the non-album single, In My Chair, and its jaunty b-side, Gerdundula (which was re-recorded for Dog of Two Head). Down the Dustpipe was written for Status Quo by Australian singer-songwriter Carl Groszman and, released as a non-album single in March 1970, became their first trademark twelve-bar boogie. An alternate mix of Junior's Wailing concludes this configuration of the album and I for one cannot have too many versions of Junior's Wailing. If you can track down the 2003 remaster, there are even more goodies, including a BBC session.
Ma Kelly's Greasy Spoon Lineup
Francis Rossi: Guitar, vocals
Rick Parfitt: Guitar, vocals
Alan Lancaster: Bass, vocals
John Coghlan: Drums
Roy Lynes: Organ
Bob Young: Harmonica
Status Quo Discography 1968-1977
Psychedelia
1968 Picturesque Matchstickable Messages from the Status Quo (PYE Records)
1969 Spare Parts (PYE Records)
Transitional
1970 Ma Kelly's Greasy Spoon (PYE Records)
1971 Dog of Two Head (PYE Records)
Classic era of blues rock/ boogie
1972 Piledriver (Vertigo)
1973 Hello! (Vertigo)
1974 Quo (Vertigo)
1975 On the Level (Vertigo)
1976 Blue for You (Vertigo)
1977 Rockin' All Over the World (Vertigo)
1977 Live! (Vertigo)
Written in September 2012