Customer Reviews

Bang Bang

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I picked this record up in 1969 based solely on a quote I had read from Aretha Franklin saying Terry Reid was the best white soul singer she had ever heard.That was good enough for me, and while I can suggest other possible nominees for the "best" title,it would be splitting hairs cause Terry Reid is Really Terrific. I'll never know why he was'nt hugely popular at the time but I'll console myself listening to his CDs now.This was his first release and it showcases Terry's talent, not only as a great vocalist but as a formidable guitar player and songwriter as well. His song "Without Expression" is the best thing on a CD of good originals and great cover versions. Sonny Bono's "Bang Bang" defies description, "Summertime Blues"..um..defies description. You get the idea I think. He's soulful and bluesy, and can handle a ballad too.He sounds like no one else (Steve Marriott comes closest, but not really)and you need to hear him.Why only four stars then? Because Terry's self titled second album is even better!

If you don't buy any more c.d.s this year buy this one. The vocals and music range from the softest to the hardest. This music was 1968 in a nutshell. Of all the versions of "Summertime Blues", Terry Reid's is perhaps the best. "Without Expression" alone is worth the price of this disc, and you get so much more.

I bought the original LP of this album in 1969 after hearing Terry Teir open for the Rolling Stones. The fact that it contained Tinker Taylor was enough to sell the album as far as I was concerned. As it turned out, the entire album is fantastic, with no weak tracks to be found. It has lost none of its touch over the years. Give it a listen. You will not be dissappointed. that's a promise.

I first heard Terry Reid watching the Rob Zomie Movie The Devil's Rejects in early 2005. One scene that featured the opening lines of, To be treated Right from the album Seed of memory - "Oh we are what we are when in danger" was so striking and moved me so much that I ran out and bought the album right after the movie and started tracking down everything I could get my hands of Terry Reid. In my opinion Bang, Bang & Seed of Memory are definately his best albums. His cover of Bang, Bang is an awsome take on the original and a great showcase of his powerful vocal ability. Terry Reid Is truely a rare unknown talent and the person who said "unknowns are unknows for a reason - because they suck" clearly likes ordinary music, or has no idea what he's talking about. If he's unknown now because he sucked, he wouldn never have been asked to be the lead singer of two of the greatest bands of all time - Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple. No, terry Reid is definately a very unlucky and hard done by musical genius. Though I do agree that the quality of his recordings is alittle dodgy by today's standards - but hey like someone else mentioned blame Micky Most.

I have not listened to Bang Bang You're Terry Reid since 1971-72. I rediscovered it again and bought the CD and it still rocks better than any new music out there today. I fell in love with his voice all over again. So different. It makes you feel. My favorite song is Loving Time. But Season of the Witch is Awesome and so is Bang Bang. I do admit there are a few songs that I don't care for and don't fit in but on the whole I love it. It's a shame people like him don't make it while other mediocre people do. Who wants to listen to the same thing that everyone listens to. I want to hear something different and if I have to go back to 1968 well then.........He is supposed to have a blues band together with Brian Auger and Mick Taylor. I would look forward to hearing that. Terry Reid is a well kept secret that I am glad I know about.

'Bang Bang','Summertime Blues', & 'Season Of The Witch' are rivettingly delivered by Reid on this disc. Though I agree that the production sound has dated (Micky Most) it doesn't detract from the main event. Personally, I was never as taken by 'Seeds' & 'River' despite the critical raves they attracted at the time of their release. Further, on balance, I believe his re-working of other writer's songs, (and these songs really do come into their own with his readings) is far superior to his own lyric power.

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This is one of my favorite records of the late 60's, and I'm pleased to find that it's still in print, and still has admirers. Terry Reid was a singular talent, and I have no idea why he never made the big time.

Looking over the playlist, I can mentally play at least half the tracks, and I haven't listened to the record in a year or more. The loping guitar run that opens "Bang Bang" is unforgettable, and Terry's singing on this great track, as David Kinney remarks nearby, defies description. "Bang bang, she shot me down... bang bang, that awful sound."

See Kinney's fine spotlight review for more details, to which I can only add, "me too". I will comment on the amazing cover photo, which I admire every time I play the record. Perhaps the greatest loss of the passing of LP's was the loss of that foot-square canvas for every record. Of course, most were squandered, but some became small masterpieces. The sweaty speed-desperate intensity of the guy on the left is just astonishing. Terry Reid (center) looks like a slightly-dissolute pre-Raphaelite angel, and the odd man out is the callow blond with a cold-sore. (The sidemen aren't identified here, and my copy is 500 miles away.). The 4" CD square doesn't, and *can't*, have the impact of the LP jacket, so you'll have to take my word for it, this photo is *killer*.... [1]

As is the record. Pity Ammie has no samples. Hunt around. Worth the effort. If "Bang Bang" doesn't blow you away.... well, I'm sorry for you.

[1] See the customer images file -- I uploaded a better-quality cover scan.

Happy listening--
Peter D. Tillman

My first exposure to Terry Reid actually came back on 1988 when I taped the film Glastonbury Fayre (a documentary on the 1971 Glastonbury Festival) on video. I had no idea who he was at the time but he *dominated* the whole film, and putting him on first actually made the rest of the concert something of an anti climax. Doing a somewhat changed version of the song Dean, his performance on that is one my most memorable experiences in exploring rock & roll.

Twenty years later I still really like Terry Reid. His voice is powerful, rocky and soulful yet doesn't annoy in the way that some singers with powerful lungs can. It's easy to understand why this guy was so highly praised by his contemporaries.

Having only discovered Terry Reid through Nick Lowe's website in the last few weeks makes this a very early reaction to Bang Bang. The track which stands out for me after only a couple of listens is Without Expression. I've only been able to make out a couple of the words in the lyrics. It doesn't matter - the delivery is pure feeling layered with added abandon after an appropriate build up. It just hits the spot! The unadorned guitar, keyboards, 'baroque' bass lines and great drumming underpin an amazing vocal. A new dimension will open up when the lyrics are deciphered but for now, forget the words and go with the flow! Apart from the period production and the slightly obvious intention to produce an arty album, every track is more than worth listening to as described in the first review in this list but for me, Without Expression on its own justifies the purchase.

Terry Reid should have been a late 1960s-early 1970s star. He had a unique and expressive singing voice---there were reasons why Jimmy Page was impressed enough with him to offer him the lead vocal slot in what would become Led Zeppelin. He was also a solid guitarist in his own right. Perhaps understandably, he turned down the Page offer (while recommending acquaintance Robert Plant, whose group had opened for a couple of Reid performances in England, for the job) to concentrate on his solo career.

Only in hindsight was he seen to have made the biggest mistake of his life turning Page down, considering what Led Zeppelin became. It made sort-of sense at the time: he was at the beginning of what looked to be a promising career under his own name. But this debut ends up exposing the dilemna of Reid's career: when he's been good, he's been well above average, but when he's been not so good he's been a journeyman with an exceptional, even highly promising voice. (Aretha Franklin wasn't just being kind when she declared he was one of the best white soul singers she'd heard yet, and he was a dynamic if occasionally misfiring live performer.)

"Bang Bang" has a few moments of inspiration (mostly in his choices of cover material; Reid isn't much of a songwriter at this early stage, and he's maybe a little too heavily influenced by Donovan to find a consistent songwriting voice), a few other moments of modest achievement, and an overall sense that somebody didn't know how to coax his best from him. On the other hand, he unhorses perhaps the most clever of the gazillion covers of Donovan's "Season of the Witch" crowding the recording scene of the time, and you've probably heard worse covers than his cheerily dense reimagining of "Summertime Blues. Clearly enough, he had something, and the sound of his somewhat unusual power trio (not too many of the breed featured an organ with bass pedals in the lineup) remains unique enough even today in its balance between crunchy rock and soul and folk influences.

If there's a place in your heart for the great might-have-beens of rock and roll, Terry Reid probably deserves a spot in the top fifteen of them. He'd make a second solo album ("Terry Reid" in England; "Move Over for Terry Reid" in the U.S.) that delivered a few more goods---and showed much improved songwriting---in 1969, but that was the year he ducked one disaster to run into another. He managed to avoid the Altamont tragedy (he toured with the Rolling Stones most of the year otherwise), but he clashed with manager/producer Mickie Most over his musical direction the same month as Altamont, sat out his contract's remainder in the U.S., then cut a few more albums of scattered brilliance and equally scattered inconsistency ("River" was probably the best of the lot), the disruption to his development only too evident. Which is a shame, because he had a talent (he's long since made a career as a respected session player and periodic performer in his own right) and it deserved to be given better.