In May of 1970,
the Blues Image went Top Five and gold with the exquisite "Ride Captain Ride," besting the Top 25-showing of
Grand Funk Railroad's sort-of sequel from September of that same year, the equally divine "Closer to Home."
Three Dog Night/
Steppenwolf producer
Richard Podolor returns with his redoubtable engineer,
Bill Cooper, for the third album by the group,
Red White & Blues Image. But guitarist
Mike Pinera has vanished for
Iron Butterfly's
Metamorphosis, replaced by Kent Henry -- who would later join
Steppenwolf for 1971s
For Ladies Only, produced and engineered, of course, by
Richard Podolor and
Bill Cooper -- the same team who worked on
Iron Butterfly, as well as
Three Dog Nights mega selling
Naturally. Between these comings and goings
Red White & Blues Image fell through the cracks. Sought after in collectors' circles, singer
Dennis Correll seems to be reaching for that "All Right Now" vocal
Free brought to the airwaves in September of 1970.
Paul Rodgers he is not. And though
the Blues Project and
Electric Flag may not have enjoyed the profile a "Ride Captain Ride" gave to the group's previous outing, they did what this band was attempting to do: they made albums that could pull you in. Atlantic Records suggested "Rise Up," "Good Life," "Ain't No Rules in California," and "Behind Every Man" as the radio cuts, and "Rise Up" has its charm, maybe as an unholy marriage between
Diana Ross' "Reach Out and Touch (Somebody's Hand)" from May 1970 and
Moby Grape. One wants to like this disc, but it feels as much in transition as the guitar players roaming from
Iron Butterfly to
Steppenwolf. Interesting on the surface, but there's no smash single to propel the project -- leaving it to a small group of record collectors to keep the image more in focus than the 73 men who sailed out. . . Drummer
Skip Konte and vocalist
Correll try to make "Gass Lamps and Clay" happen with its two-minutes-and-thirty-nine seconds and endless "la la la la" vocals (maybe a dig at percussionist
Joe Lala, and giving the disc some variety, but no Grammy. New guitarist Kent Henry does compose a gem with bassist
Malcolm Jones, a four-minute-plus cut, "It Happens All the Time," which has a ragged
Rolling Stones' feel in a
Robbie Robertson form. A pity the rest of the album isn't dressed up in this flavor, because it is a wonderful direction and far and away the best track. ~ Joe Viglione