T-Model Ford - Ladies Man

	€		22
	$		26

Allgemein

Trackliste LP - 1

Beschreibung

Beschreibung

This is the much later, post-Roy Loney Sire-era Groovies, caught at London's Roundhouse club in June of 1976 around the late-dawn of punk, the Shake Some Action Groovies whose signing to Sire meant they bizarrely got lumped in with such punks and young art-rockers as the Ramones (with whom they headlined over at the same venue month after this, the Ramones' debut U.K. gig), Talking Heads, Tuff Darts, Saints, Rezillos, Dead Boys, Richard Hell, etc. One listen to Shake Some Action -- both the LP and the acknowledged classic of the same name -- will tell you: Years before R.E.M., and more than a decade before Ride, this was the band that wanted to be the Byrds (with smatterings of the Beatles) the most. You don't need the cover of the former's "Lady Friend" (along with "Everybody's Been Burned," DAVID CROSBY's greatest Byrds moment) and the latter's "Please Please Me" and "From Me to You" to know it, it's in all the originals too. Add heaping helpings of U.S. vintage '50s rock and R&B (note the two Chuck Berry covers and the Buddy Holly and Little Richard songs as well) and the rest of the British Invasion scene that that inspired (the Rolling Stones' "Miss Amanda Jones" appears), and you have a formative band whose rockin' greatness transcended their super-retro music/attitude. Sadly, like the '79 L.A. gig released in France in '85, Live at the Whiskey A-Go-Go, this recording is only sufficient to document, not red hot and special. But it's still history in the grooves. Pick up the 1989 retrospective Groovies Greatest Grooves for the ultimate document of their Sire era (three LPs, '76-'79) -- it also contains the far-tougher, less-retro Loney-era treasures "Slow Death" and "Tallahassee Lassie" -- and then get this. ~ Jack Rabid

Jack Rabid

Beschreibung

On The Ladies Man, T-Model Ford comes off more than ever as a living testament to the sustaining power of the blues. Pushing 90 (though his exact age is a bone of contention), Ford had just experienced severe heart problems and had a pacemaker installed when he recorded the album, but to say he sounds full of life here would be an understatement. It doesn't hurt that Ford was recorded in the optimum manner to capture his real, raw Mississippi sound -- he laid down these tracks live in the studio, accompanied with just the right amount of looseness by members of his frequent backup band GravelRoad and others, in one session, with no overdubs or second takes. Snatches of his conversations with the musicians are interspersed between some of the tracks, filling in the picture with even more vivid colors; he reminisces about being inspired to play by the music of Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf, enthusiastically shouts "It's Jack Daniels time!" (an album photo shows him happily hoisting a bottle of Jack), and instructs the band to "Let it all hang in, don't let it hang out." Playing tunes associated with Muddy Waters ("Two Trains") and Muddy's right-hand man Little Walter ("My Babe"), and revisiting quirky original tunes he has recorded in the past like opening cut "Chicken Head Man," Ford brings to bear his rough-and-ready vocal style and forceful acoustic fingerpicking with an intensity that suggests a performer a good few decades younger. Ford first came to fame during the ‘90s heyday of Fat Possum Records, alongside Mississippi hill country contemporaries like R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough, but at a time when many of his peers have died off and even Fat Possum has embraced rock over blues, Ford's first studio album for a new label shows him to be not just a survivor, but a solid rock supplying a living, breathing foundation for his brand of blues. ~ J. Allen

James Allen

Mitwirkende

• Artist: T-Model Ford
• Record Label: Alive Records
• Record Label: Bomp
• Artist: Flamin Groovies