Looking In 1970 Album

Savoy Brown

The band became far more streamlined, losing Youlden and keyboard player Bob Hall, and now were essentially Simmonds and three-fourths of Foghat. Longtime fans of might say this is a recipe for a bad record, but I say the opposite happened. Basically, Simmonds and my man Lonesome Dave Peverett got rid of the faux-soul and psychedelia and brought the back to its’ blues-guitar senses. The end result is fairly reminiscent of a Ten Years’ After album from the same period, but with heavier jazz overtones and quirkier material, since Lonesome Dave wrote the lyrics, I am guessing. Fronted by a slightly scandalous, faux-horror-style, comic book-inspired album cover, tracks like “Poor Girl”, the fully instrumental “Sunday Night”, “Sitting an’ Thinking”, and “Leavin’ Again” weave a dank, moody aura around the listener, much like Simmonds and Peverett with their guitar lines. None of this is exceptional – c’mon, this is Savoy Brown we are talking about – but hard to not to debate that Simmonds and crew found their niche with this stuff. This is a late-night, relaxed, cruise-to-the-blooze record if there ever was one in this world.