Outlaws put a bomb under country rock

Press, 29 July 1976, Page 15

Outlaws put a bomb under country rock

By

JUDE FAHEY

Outlaws "Lady in Waiting" (Arista AL 4070): Oh I get so tired of these mournful country rock bands droning on about every state in America and the fife on the road and all sounding like each other. But before you get off your high horse with me I’ll say that this lot have a lot more dynamo than most of them, and I really can enjoy it. Mixed with the country' formula in the Outlaws is a small but effective measure of southern raunch that gives them more weight and more identity than most. Good guitarists are really all they have going for them, but they do the trick. The vocals are mediocre. The songs come in all standards, but the network of three guitarists is always light, clear and attractive. The solos in “Aint So Bad” and “Freeborn Man” are especially nice. Those are also the standout tracks and they’re vastly different, the first unexpectedly pretty' and the other weighty. forceful song of the road. The opener, “BreakerBreaker,” is also catchy and there is some nice fast picking in “South Carolina,” which follows. After “Ain’t So Bad” and “Freeborn Man" the material is quite inferior in slow. plodding country songs, until “Prisoner” forms a new sensitive atmosphere and the closer.

“Stick Around for Rock’n'roll” explodes in a finale of high energy. A country band for those who don’t want to fall asleep.

Steelv Dan "The Roval Scam” (ABCD-93I): “Rikki Don’t Lose that .Number”! will stay in my memory• forever with the smell of Queensland sugar cane country. (What an extraordinary thing to say). 1 drove through it with my companions for what now seems like days and days with late-afternoon sun on our cheeks and “Rikki” blasted across the countryside perpetually. What’s it to you? Nothing, I suppose, but it’s I what the Steely Dan sound is to me, warm and placid. Then last year I just had 1 to have a Steely Dan album. I went out several’ times to buy it but eachi time came home with' something else — I could) never sort out which one! was best. “The Royal Scam” wouldn’t be it though. This, one's fine for their old fans; to be carrying on with, but | there are no greats like I "My Old School” and “Do it Again" leaping out of the speakers. It is clean, sophisticated! music, of course, as we; have come to expect from lt is intelligent and

witty on the one hand, very listenable on the other. There is only one other band that shares those qualities — lOcc — and Steely Dan could perhaps be their American counterparts, especially in little snatches of phrasing in the lyrics. Their fifth is an album I can put on and trust to provide pleasant semi-back-ground waves for reading and pottering to, but oh I wish something like “Rikki" would stop me in. my tracks. The one that almost does it is “Don’t Take Me Alive,”- a gangster storytold with low-key sophistication, certainly the most commercial offering. “The Fez” is a light and j comical song with lovely I jazz backing and “Caves of ] Altamira” features a! superb mature horn en-1 semble. The sax passage is: a special bonus, teasingly short too. The other notable tracks are the opener and the: title-track, which is kept till last. The strength of “Kid Charlemagne” is in the thick line of back-up vocals and sharp guitar riff of its chorus. The story of “The Royal I Scam” unfolds drama-1 tically, phrase by phrase, a i lonely horn here and an at- ' tractive jazz guitar the Fe.! It is stark, bare and com- i pelling.

There is little to say of the other four tracks. Theyi are ordinary Steely Dan! songs, obeying all the | rules, but ’ the almost-1 raggae foundation becomes; a bit mundane with them. •; Still, if you get bored here! and there you might amuse yourself by' guessing whati a steelv dan is . . .