STEPPENWOLF (S/T) - 1968 You know you are old if you remember this as an UNDERGROUND album. And if you have to ask what an UNDERGROUND album was, then you are too young. LOL!! AMG Review by Bruce Eder [-] Steppenwolf entered the studio for their recording debut with a lot of confidence -- based on a heavy rehearsal schedule before they ever got signed -- and it shows on this album, a surprisingly strong debut album from a tight hard rock outfit who was obviously searching for a hook to hang their sound on. The playing is about as loud and powerful as anything being put out by a major record label in 1968, though John Kays songwriting needed some development before their in-house repertory would catch up with their sound and musicianship. On this album, the best material came from outside the ranks of the active bandmembers: Born to Be Wild by ex-member Mars Bonfire, which became not only a chart-topping high-energy anthem for the counterculture (a status solidified by its use in Dennis Hoppers movie Easy Rider the following year), but coined the phrase heavy metal, thus giving a genre-specific name to the brand of music that the band played (and which was already manifesting itself in the work of bands like Vanilla Fudge and the just-emerging Led Zeppelin); the Don Covay soul cover Sookie, Sookie, which, as a single by the new group, actually got played on some soul stations until they found out that Steppenwolf was white; two superb homages to Chess Records, in the guise of Berry Rides Again, written (though adapted might be a better word) by Kay based on the work of Chuck Berry, and the Willie Dixon cover Hoochie Coochie Man; and Hoyt Axtons The Pusher, an anti-drug song turned into a pounding six-minute tour de force by the band. The rest, apart from the surprisingly lyrical rock ballad A Girl I Knew, is by-the-numbers hard rock that lacked much except a framework for their playing; only The Ostrich ever comes fully to life among the other originals, but the songs would catch up with the musicianship the next time out.
Posted on: Sun, 14 Sep 2014 15:04:49 +0000
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