Obviously, after listening to yesterday's Mannequin it occurred to me that although I heard the first album by Edgar Winter, thanks to the smash monster instrumental "Frankenstein--" which honestly, should be THE anthem of 70s rock in my opinion, I had never listened to their other albums, & it turned out there were 2 in that period.
In fact the second album, called Shock Treatment from 1974, turned out to be quite listenable with at least half the songs worthy of a second run round, the other half being by-the-numbers blues rock with scarcely more than 3 chords per song and usually in the key of A or E (maybe C in the case, presumably, of a song written on the piano). And there was clearly a progressive influence, with the addition of mellotron gracing a couple of tracks. The closer, called Animal, moreover, went all-out progressive with its oddball chromatics and messed up chords:
A shock treatment here indeed, and every day it surprises me there are gems from the 70s like this one lying around that I never knew about or heard before, in a lifetime spent listening to this music.
Then the third album, "With Rick Derringer," closed the book on this band with another instrumental that attempted to copy the supernatural magic of their huge hit Frankenstein, but didn't quite make it. But it too is well worth hearing.
Bio from discogs:
In 1972, American blues rock multi-instrumentalist Edgar Winter brought together Dan Hartman, Ronnie Montrose, and Chuck Ruff to form the Edgar Winter Group, the legendary band that created such classic rock hits as the number one "Frankenstein" and the ever popular "Free Ride". Released in 1973, the band's debut album, 'They Only Come Out at Night', peaked at the #3 position on the Billboard Hot 200 and stayed on the charts for an impressive 80 weeks. It was certified gold in April 1973 and double platinum in November 1986. The album has continued to attract critical acclaim, with the All Music Guide labeling its songs as "red-hot".
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ReplyDeleteThe switch from Ronnie Montrose to Rick Derringer had some influence on the "flavor" of Winter's recorded work between LPs, and I think it wasn't a good change. Montrose was a harder-rocking guitarist than RD, and I think that may had a great deal to do with the results.
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