Hellbound Train Live: 1969-1972 is one retrospective set that's way overdue:
Savoy Brown live during their glory years. Here are two CDs worth of the mightiest, sludgiest blues-rock band on the planet during those years -- well, the possible exception of
Cream -- featuring, on a decent -- and best -- portion of it, the greatest white blues singer in history:
Chris Youlden.
Youlden was everything to
Savoy Brown because not only could he sing, but he was an outrageous frontman and wrote much of the band's best material. He is featured here on "I'm Tired," "Hard Way to Go," "A Littler More Wine," and a truncated but earthshaking "Savoy Brown Boogie."
Youlden's tenure with
Savoy Brown saw him record three albums with the band: Blue Matter,
Raw Sienna, and
Getting to the Point, arguably along with
Looking In, the band's first album without him, four of the best British records of the era by one band. The majority of these sides were recorded in 1970 with Lonesome Dave Peverett fronting the band as both co-lead guitarist and vocalist. Peverett, while not as snaky and potent as
Youlden, was still a fine singer. He modeled himself after
Youlden and knew how to punch his lines with stinging guitar lines that underscored his vocals. He sings seven cuts, including "Louisiana Blues," "Leaving Again" (that
Foghat later recut), "Looking From the Outside," and the amazing "Memory Pain." The remainder of disc two features singers
Dave Walker (formerly of
Idle Race -- and who was the frontman on
Street Corner Talking,
Hellbound Train, and Lion's Share) and
Jackie Lynton, who replaced
Walker and is featured on the last few cuts here such as "Jack the Toad" and "The Saddest Feeling." The sound on these two discs varies as they were recorded at different places and in different years -- all of them before live recording had really arrived. That said, these are truly live recordings. Nothing was fixed or EQed in the studio, and these performances feel immediate, full of incendiary fire, verve, raw burning blues energy, and the kind of recklessness that is so absent from rock & roll music in general and the blues in particular these days. The sounds here are of a band trying to prove itself not only to an audience, but to itself as well. Only
Youlden's version sounds self-assured, and he exploits that assurance to go deeper into these songs than anyone ever dared think. Peverett made the band louder, looser, but less greasy, and
Walker and
Lynton took the blues-band notion and turned all of the songs on the audiences, reflecting the band in their eyes and ears. Live records don't really sound like this, but they should, without polish or gloss or even careful editing. The ten-plus-minute version of "Hellbound Train" is so unruly, so utterly unglued with atmospherics going to war against volume, dynamic, and crowd energy that it's a miracle it was captured at all. For anyone who ever wondered what the (relatively minor) fuss was about and wanted to check out something, or for the hardcore fan, this double-disc set -- with typical
Neil Slaven historical notes -- is indispensable. Rock & roll like this should never die; it's as primal and in your face as an out-of-control ambulance. ~ Thom Jurek