![]() ![]() This is most apparent on songs Iike Alexis which frankly start out a bit limp but which kicks into gear half way through and ends with an excellent guitar solo. The mood is mellow (as Ted Nugent used to say) and overall the album is a fairly lightweight affair but it is lifted from Bread-like MOR territory by the excellent fretwork of Tommy Bolin. Slightly funky, slightly country but most definitely early 70s American guitar rock. The album starts off reasonably strong with Standing In The Rain and the Devil Is Singing Our Song. ![]() I certainly prefer Roy Kenner's vocals to Walsh's and the guitar playing from Bolin is at least on a par. John Davidson: I'd always associated James Gang with Joe Walsh so it was a bit of a surprise to find that this album featured Tommy Bolin in pre-Deep Purple mode rather than Walsh and that they had produced two albums with Roy Kenner on vocals and with a different guitarist post Walsh before this one. ![]() Bolin's guitar work is in the next stratosphere offering solos as tasty as a barrel of KFC." ( RateYourMusic) Tracks like Ride The Wind, Got No Time For Trouble and the Bolin-lead Alexis never garnered much FM fanfare but as are as relevant and as genuine as it gets. "Roy Kenner serves up arena rock vocals and the steady and under-rated rhythm section of Peters and Fox make this an absolute must-have. "There’s no doubt that Tommy was still refining the art of songwriting, which would receive the full glare of the spotlight on his two solo releases, Teaser and Private Eyes, but the songs that he contributed to James Gang are pieces of priceless rock freshly drawn from the earth of rhythm and rhyme." ( The Ripple Effect) Bang feels less like a band album and more like talented studio musicians on the loose, but die-hard fans of either the Gang or the late Bolin will enjoy it, if only in fits and starts. "Even if Bolin's wistful Alexis doesn't fit with the other tracks it's a highlight, as is the opening rocker Standing in the Rain where conmen (" Your note said you went to Charleston/But I know you went to New Mexico") and cretins (" You left behind a dead father/A sick mother and 4 younger kids") are forced to face up to love. But when he wasn’t he was just miserable."ĭespite Bolin’s growing chemical dependency, there’s no denying that the two albums The James Gang recorded with him, 1973’s Bang and 1974’s Miami, are among the group’s finest, and are arguably among the most underrated rock releases of the 70s.Įvery week, Album of the Week Club listens to and discusses the album in question, votes on how good it is, and publishes our findings, with the aim of giving people reliable reviews and the wider rock community the chance to contribute. He’d get up in the morning and take, like, 20 aspirins just to get going. Tommy was actually relatively quiet, but the drug thing was hideous. He just seemed like the right guy, played the right way – a spectacular guitar player. Peters recalls Bolin relocating to their home base of Cleveland, Ohio: “He was great. At the suggestion of their old pal Walsh, Tommy Bolin was invited to saddle up and ride with The James Gang. After a pair of disappointing releases, Troiano left. ![]()
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