Pretty much the same lineup, but the result is a total 180 from the previous album. Now Bronstein and Frank take their reputation as street freaks seriously, cut out the silly humor, and go full-bore radical with a serious mean streak. Tracks like "Power", "Tricky Noses" (which ends abruptly on a gunshot), and "She's Just Naturally Bad" ooze bad attitude, worse omens, and the music has more impact, too, despite its stripped-back nature. The centerpiece is "Mongoose", a tribal-infused piece of political metaphor and future sounds, be it intentional or otherwise. Sometimes it misses - "Piece Now" just riffs along on the same passage and is by far the most tedious track on the record. But by and large, a moderate improvement from the debut, and one of those "proto" albums that deserves more notice that it has received.

The band was in search of a radio hit, with tracks like “Cheer”, “Train”, and “Chattanooga” making prominent piano and gospel-like female background vocals a big selling point. A low point comes on the title track, where the band tries to out-do Mountain’s “Mississippi Queen”, but the bigger issue here is the unfettered workouts of the debut, like the “Riverboat” and “Toallaby” twin bill, are just not to be found on Levee Blues. Overall, I can see why these guys did not make the big time, if we judge it by this album alone. It’s not like they strayed a long ways from their roots, but the key renegade thread of the debut album is sorely missing. Still, there is enough to hold interest, especially if you liked the debut record – or if you like contrasting the two together (like I do).

This bizarre little novelty from the U.K. hit the charts in 1970, and was essentially a songwriter/factory sort of creation based on the one-hit wonder “Gimme Dat Ding!” Because of that success, eventually an album was released. The music collected here is a real throwback – basically, think vaudeville or Tin Pan Alley, played on a rinky-dink piano. The vocalists attempt to be outrageous by 1970 standards – the “singer” has a high-pitched, goofy whine, while the “speaker” has a street-wise grumble that’s a cross between Cockney and New Yorker. The run time is really short – something like 26 and a half minutes – so it won’t kill you to sample this at least once, although I wouldn’t blame if you did, and then thought, “what in the…?” The title track, admittedly, is a stupid novelty item I remember from my childhood, but it is just as dated as everything else on this platter. They try to be humorous, but nothing even comes close to producing a chuckle, unless you count embarrassment that you are actually listening to this thing. Lots of people hate the cover, but I think it’s the most redeeming quality of this LP. Otherwise, avoid.

By now, Simmonds had already swapped out a chunk of Foghat for a fairly good-sized piece of Brit blues warriors Chicken Shack, then lost those guys to general attrition – vocalist Dave Walker having famously decamped for a flop album with Fleetwood Mac – and here we are now with Savoy bubbling over with musicians, including guest ones listed in the credits. Jack the Toad is definitely slicker than earlier efforts, and even has Simmonds on lead vocals on a couple of tracks. But the erstwhile lead is a relative unknown – some dude named Jackie Lynton – whose thick English accent really comes out in the title track finale, about a Western gunslinger, who gets a little too “high” in his final, fatal battle. As per usual, it does not suck, but it’s not great, either – just your typical, workmanlike blues grooves and not-very-adventurous fare to have a whiskey or three to.

Yes, they still exist today, and their debut record came out originally issued in the UK only at the tail end of the “Summer of Love” when they were still being called the Savoy Brown Blues Band. The other general consensus is people seem to dig this without question – possibly because the band’s shtick is a novel item here? The tone is cleaner than just about any other blues-rock group of the day, Simmonds’ leads sear, and lead singer Brice Portius has a soulful set of pipes. And yet – like a whole lot of other Savoy Brown albums – what is collected here is really nothing too special, unless you were a hardcore aficionado of the British “blooze” boom. As it pertains to this record, they were damn near choirboys, in many ways, compared to Canned Heat and Fleetwood Mac – their closest competition. I am not going to spend much more time on this, and neither would Simmonds, who would jettison most of the lineup that recorded this one, and move onto slightly more ambitious material. In retrospect, a fairly representative indicator of what was to come, despite all of the future lineup changes.