This album is prime Foghat, and one of the unknown great rock albums of the mid-1970's. Something clicked with these guys - they got rid of dumb things they never needed, like backing vocals and horn arrangements, and went with their bread and butter - loud boogie rockers, slide guitar, and butt-loads of quirky personality in every nook and cranny of the material. The end result, in my mind, is a masterpiece of brains and guile disguised as brawn. Most people like to pooh-pooh it as any other Foghat record, but that is a big mistake. You can tell Lonesome Dave, Price, and the rest of the crew slung their heart, soul, and everything else into this one. Yes, the opening cover of "Eight Days on the Road" is yet another song about life on the road, but this time the band oozes hunger and desperation like never before. And it's the perfect setup for "Hate to See You Go", Dave's upbeat yet eternally forlorn goodbye to a lover he knows he can never truly be with, because of his lifestyle. "Dreamer" follows suit and ups the ante further, becoming possibly the band's most heart-wrenching tune, being played and sung from the perspective of a person whose dreams have all but shattered for one reason or another. Not even the gentle, sunny-feeling, acoustic ballad "Trouble My Way" shines much actual positive light on the situation, and one begins to think that what we have here is a full LP of Lonesome Dave and Price getting shit off their chest. But then, here comes the second half of the album, which is a reversal from the somber mood of the first half.
The title track kicks things off here in more of a party mode, albeit with a slightly mystical vibe, as Dave hilariously presents himself as sort of a gypsy, guitar-playing character out to make love to as many women as possible. Apparently, the track was actually written by Felix Cavaliere of the Rascals. This leads directly into "Shirley Jean", an even more hilarious 50's-style tribute to a 17-year-old drugged-out groupie met in a bar. But wait, there's more - "Blue Spruce Woman" is a laugh-out-loud banger about a Neanderthal-style woman who comes out of the woods, into the city, to live with Dave and make love to him. What, and who writes this outrageous stuff? Foghat, that's who. But whereas other blooze-rock and arena-rock acts would have no qualms in victimizing such conquests, Lonesome Dave acts more like an aloof, observant bystander. In the case of "Shirley Jean", he's more interested in his wine from the bar, and in "Blue Spruce Woman", it's as if she comes and goes when she pleases and it is out of his control. "Chateau Lafitte '59 Boogie" finishes off the album appropriately by blasting away on a boogie-style rhythm for six-plus minutes, along with paying tribute to what I assume is Dave, or someone in the band's favorite vintage of wine. As you can imagine, I enjoy this album immensely, because it takes nothing seriously, but at the same time has enough wits about itself to take life as it comes. This is the attitude which attracted me to Foghat in the first place, and which keeps me listening to them after all of these years.
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