Original Album Series: Blackfoot (2013) [5CD Box Set]

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Original Album Series: Blackfoot (2013) [5CD Box Set]

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The five bestselling albums from Florida rockers Blackfoot, includes Strikes, Marauder, Siogo, Vertical Smiles and Tomcattin'.

~ amazon

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Original Album Series: Blackfoot (2013) [5CD Box Set]

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Blackfoot Biography

Blackfoot were contemporaries of Lynyrd Skynyrd, and tried for years to make it as a Southern rock band, although they finally succeeded as a hard rock outfit, in the manner of AC/DC and the Scorpions. They racked up a hit album (Strikes) and a pair of successful singles ("Train, Train," "Highway Song") in the late 1970s and early 1980s, before they became lost in the post-MTV era of visually oriented bands.

The group started out as a quartet: singer/guitarist Rickey Medlocke, the grandson of bluegrass musician Shorty Medlocke, who wrote "Train, Train"; drummer/singer Jakson Spires, bassist/singer Greg T. Walker, and lead guitarist Charlie Hargrett. They were signed to Island Records in 1975, evidently as that label's resident Southern rockers, but moved to Epic Records the following year. Neither relationship was successful, but in 1979, after moving to Atco, their first album for the new label, Strikes, hit a responsive chord – the group spent the next few years on Atco, racking up impressive sales with the follow-ups Tomcattin' and Marauder.

In the mid-'80s, the group added ex-Uriah Heep keyboardman Ken Hensley in order to bring a new side to their sound. The group's fortunes declined amid the advent of MTV and the growth in importance of rock video promotional clips, as well as the influence of sounds from Europe and Australia, and they never recovered, despite efforts to adapt their sound and image. Hensley was replaced near the end of their history, but Blackfoot (who took their name from the Native American tribe, part of Medlocke's heritage) had broken up by 1984, before the new lineup recorded. Medlocke revived the name in 1990 with a new backing group.

by Bruce Eder

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Original Album Series: Blackfoot (2013) [5CD Box Set]

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After missing the boat with Lynyrd Skynyrd (for whom he played drums early on), guitarist/singer Rick Medlocke formed Blackfoot, arguably the first all-Native American rock group. The band struggled for almost a decade, playing run-of-the-mill Southern rock that they eventually injected with extra volume and attitude before signing with Atco, for whom they recorded their 1979 breakthrough Strikes. Known as a ferocious live unit and probably the heaviest of Southern rock bands (see opener "Road Fever"), Strikes also proved that Blackfoot could write great melodies for the gloomy "Left Turn on a Red Light" and the inspired cover version of Free's "Wishing Well." But the band's biggest hit would come in the form of the seven-minute "Highway Song," a tune that was admittedly very reminiscent of Skynyrd's "Freebird" and that helped drive the album to gold status. Also of note is the harmonica performance of Shorty Medlocke (Rick's grandfather) on his own blues, "Train, Train."

by Eduardo Rivadavia

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Original Album Series: Blackfoot (2013) [5CD Box Set]

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Blackfoot's second major-label effort, 1980s Tomcattin', continued pushing the envelope of Southern rock, and despite the absence of an obvious hit, fans of the band's heavier aspirations weren't disappointed. As usual, the album opens at full throttle with "Warped" before finding a mid-paced groove on songs such as "On the Run" and "Dream On." "Gimme, Gimme, Gimme" is another stomper, and "Every Man Should Know (Queenie)" is probably the record's all-around highlight, thanks to its clever combination of slide guitar, tough riffs, and a catchy chorus. Save for its interesting harmonica, the ballad "In the Night" feels rather forced, but band leader Rickey Medlocke is especially inspired on the bluesy hobo tale "Spendin' Cabbage." For the finale, the band once again calls upon Medlocke's dad Shorty to introduce the barnstorming, double entendre-laden "Fox Chase."

by Eduardo Rivadavia

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Original Album Series: Blackfoot (2013) [5CD Box Set]

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By the time of 1981's Marauder album, Blackfoot's career had effectively stalled in America, as the band's hard rock sound evolved further and further from the Skynyrd-derived Southern rock sound of their successful 1979 opus, Strikes. Still, while continuing to rely on hard-driving numbers such as "Good Morning" and "Dry County," Marauder also saw Blackfoot attempting a compromise with the dramatic "Diary of a Workingman." Though it showcased the band at their melodic Southern rock best, the track failed to chart in America and Blackfoot decided to concentrate their touring efforts in Britain and Europe, where their popularity continued to skyrocket. As for the album, Shorty Medlocke makes his by-now-expected contribution to the intro of "Rattlesnake Rock 'N' Roller," which goes on to feature some upbeat piano tinkling and a horn section. Likewise, the unexpected breakdown (with Mexican horns and tango guitar rhythms) in the middle of "Too Hard to Handle" makes it one of the band's best hard rockers to date, and "Searchin'" is another Southern rock hit that might have been. Unfortunately, mounting inner-band tensions and record company indifference marked this as the last great Blackfoot album.

by Eduardo Rivadavia

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Original Album Series: Blackfoot (2013) [5CD Box Set]

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Blackfoot was always the heaviest of the great Southern rock movement, and on Siogo(reputedly either a Native American word for "closeness" or a crude groupie acronym, probably the latter) the boys try to break into the metal market and regain their brief hold on American audiences. Staunch metallists will recognize the touch of producer Al Nalli (from Axe's similarly excellent Nemesis) and a new bit of European muscle from Uriah Heep's Ken Hensley on the keyboards. Although cliched throughout, powerful performances send openers "Send Me an Angel," "Run for Cover," and "Drivin' Fool" to lofty hard rock heights. "We're Goin' Down" nips the riff from "Double Vision," while "Goin' in Circles" and the micro-hit "Teenage Idol" thunder like late Rainbow. "Heart's Grown Cold" treats the Nazareth dirge like a lost classic, and virtually transforms it into one as a result (The next and basically last Blackfoot burner, Vertical Smiles, houses another Nazareth standard in "Morning Dew," as well as the lost Peter Cetera nugget "Livin' in the Limelight," but that's another album.). Siogo would be founding guitarist Charlie Hargrett's finale; he was disgruntled at the band's bandwagon-jumping; but the record remains a great blast of hard-working heaviness, which definitely deserves restoration on CD.

by Whitney Z. Gomes

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Original Album Series: Blackfoot (2013) [5CD Box Set]

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Although they'd managed to become bona fide second division stars in England, where their incomparably heavy brand of Southern rock and devastating live performances had thrilled orphaned Lynyrd Skynyrd disciples and open-minded metal heads alike, Blackfoot had made dispiritedly little commercial headway in their own backyard: the American market. So as pressure mounted to deliver a hit for their label, Atco, Rickey Medlocke decided to invite former Uriah Heep keyboard player Ken Hensley to join the band, a calculated move intended to modernize the group's sound for the synth-happy '80s. But 1983's Siogo, though seemingly a passable compromise, still failed to yield any hits, so Blackfoot was literally put on notice prior to getting to work on their next effort, which was rejected upon initial delivery under the working title of "Cry of the Banshee." The band was ordered back into the studio to try again, only without founding second guitarist Charlie Hargrett, who had quit under duress after being fingered as the scapegoat for all of the band's problems (including "looking old" and playing "old-fashioned"-like). The resulting Vertical Smiles was finally released in the summer 1984 and represented not only Blackfoot's creative fall from grace, but also delivered one of the most misogynistic title/cover tandems (see multiple up-skirt Polaroids) since Montrose's equally tasteless and musically inadequate Jump on It eight years earlier. For starters, the first two songs on Vertical Smiles were covers (never a good sign), and although the perennial folk rock favorite "Morning Dew" was remade into a pretty classy power ballad, the ensuing "Living in the Limelight" was doomed from the get-go for being composed by Chicago schmaltz king Peter Cetera, of all people; need we say more? Of the seven originals that followed, few fared any better, being that most had what little lingering guitar grit they could muster summarily buried beneath a wash of unnecessary, glossy ‘80s synth lines, particularly offensive on such titles as "Ride with You," the electronic-drum horror of "Heartbeat and Heels," and the intolerably insipid "Summer Days." Die-hard Blackfoot fans may be able to tolerate partially convincing hard rockers like "Get It On" and "Young Girl" (even though the first one rips off ZZ Top's Eliminator sound; the second, antipodean new wavers Split Enz!), but the surrounding embarrassments are simply too painful to warrant anyone else being exposed to the torment and disappointment that is Vertical Smiles. At least Charlie Hargrett, wherever he was, might have had a good laugh about the whole ordeal.

by Eduardo Rivadavia

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Original Album Series: Blackfoot (2013) [5CD Box Set]

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