Customer Reviews

Lion's Share

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

 

 

Although this is a relatively unknown effort it is one of the band's best from the 1970's. Hard rocking songs like the opening "Shot in the Head"and a strong cover of Howlin' Wolf's "Howlin For My Darlin'" set a hard rock tone. Quieter and more reflective bluesy numbers like "Love Me Please" round out another very solid if ignored effort from the band. Kim Simmonds is in fine form and remains one of the great blues guitarists of all times and sadlyalso remains virtually ignored.

My first Savoy Brown album, purchased back in 1973 on good ol' vinyl. I finally got my hands on the cd and it was well worth the wait. The sound is great, escpecially without the clicks & pops. Overall the songs are pretty standard British Blues in the John Mayall tradition. One of the reasons this is my favorite post "defection to Foghat" album is Simmonds electric guitar work. In fact his playing on this album reflects and is inspired by the great trio of guitarists from John Mayall's early days. Simmonds playing is very Clapton-esque on the track "I Hate To See You Go", superlatively "Greenish" on songs like "Second Try" and remarkably "Taylored" on the song "I Can't Find You". Let's not forget to mention the great Chuck Berry/Keith Richards inspired riff-fest "Denim Demon".
Another thing that makes this a great album is the presence of longtime sideman extraordinaire Paul Raymond (UFO). While Raymond's rhythm guitar work is not on par with Lonesome Dave's, his keyboard playing provides an excellent backdrop to Simmonds guitar. Lastly, Dave Walker sounds like he's singing on a bar stool with a bottle in one hand and the microphone in the other; he can sing the blues.
I love this record. I guarantee any fan of "White Boy British Blues" will savor this Savoy release as much as I do. Now all you have to do is find it.

"Shot in the Head," the slide guitar showcase that opens this solid set, became a staple of this veteran English band's live act. In his only full-time stint as singer for demanding bandleader Kim Simmonds, Dave Walker (of Fleetwood Mac's "Penguin" LP) proves a serviceable successor to Chris Youlden. Besides their own tunes, the lads cover Howlin' Wolf's "Howling For My Darling" and Little Walter's "I Hate To See You Go".

This is a great , overlooked Savoy Brown album . Shot in the Head,Denim Demon,I'm Tired and Second Try are top notch Savoy Brown tunes.Its got a nice combination of blues and rock with Kim Simmonds cranking out some excellent slide guitar. . I've seen this album on Amazon going anywhere from 49 - 100 $. I managed to pick up a Russian import for 12.99 $ on ebay. Shop around .If you can find it, pick this one up - its packed with goodies.

Following hot on the heels of the success of Hellbound Train (Savoy Brown's highest charting album ever), Lion's Share unfortunately does not build on the popularity of that album, but merely treads water; a very good album from a band that until recently had been unleashing blues-rock masterpieces. Singer Dave Walker would leave shortly after the album was completed, leaving pub-rock veteran Jackie Lynton to assume lead vocalist duties during the inevitable tour that followed. (Shows from that tour, documented on both Hellbound Train Live and Jack the Toad Live, offer the listener an excellent opportunity to compare Walker's singing style with Lynton's, as SB featured several Lion's Share songs on the tour.) The opening track, "Shot in the Head," is the album's undisputed highlight and remained a concert staple for years to come. (Oddly enough, it isn't included on either of the live discs mentioned above.) "Denim Demon," Dave Walker's one and only attempt at songwriting, is a Chuck Berry-esque rocker, while Paul Raymond's "I Can't Find You" is merely a rewrite of Jimmy Reed's "Baby What You Want Me To Do." Other standouts include Walker's fine take of Howlin' Wolf's "Howling For My Darling" and Kim Simmonds' well written (and, as always, well played) opus "Second Try". In short, a very good effort, if not quite on the level of Getting to the Point or Looking In. Copies are hard to come by as of this writing; please search diligently, or you may miss out on your share of a rather fine album. And I'm not Lion!!!

While it can be safely stated that the band's previous effort Hellbound Train remains the pinnacle of the Dave Walker era and a strong link in the Savoy Brown discography, Lion's Share nonetheless follows up with some solid numbers of its own, many of which fall back comfortably to that fundamentalist blues sensibility which, for the most part, had been sitting on the backburner since the widely adored Chris Youlden set out for a solo career some years earlier.

The songs played on Lion's Share are a nice melting pot of covers and original compositions as usual, with Walker himself even making an admirable attempt at writing what he sings in the fun Chuck Berry style rocker "Denim Demon". The three Simmonds tunes here are also a safe bet as usual, with "Second Try" in particular being a steadfast highlight of the A-side with some fine fretwork thrown over a dreary blues shuffle. The keyboard-heavy "So Tired" busts the second side wide open with a disjointed ramble on the rigors of touring. Later on, the femme fatale ballad "Love Me Please" slithers along at a midnight creeper's pace, but agreeably so. Regarding the multitude of covers in attendance, the album's opener "Shot in the Head" is borrowed from Haffey's Whiskey Sour and is re-adapted nicely for the body of work at hand. There's also an infectious romp through the Chester Burnett/Willie Dixon composition "Howling For My Darling" and Little Walter's "Hate to See You Go" knocks around furiously, closing off the show as impeccably as it began.

Shortly after the album's release, the band lost yet another important member with Dave Walker jumping ship over to Fleetwood Mac for their Penguin album before his dismissal from that project as well. Consequentially, Lion's Share would punctuate the end of yet another phase in the band's timeline. However despite all of the incessant line-up changes and resulting creative rebirths throughout the years, the bottom line to remember here is that since its inception Savoy Brown has been and will essentially always be the Kim Simmonds Show. Even at the expense of critical favor Simmonds has kept the band running unapologetically in the face of changing trends and declining public interest, maintaining such a deathgrip on the blues that most every album following this one can and should only be reserved for the diehards. Although it didn't become a best seller or age terribly well by today's standards, ultimately Lion's Share serves if nothing else as a mile marker for a British blues band coming off a brief flirtation with commercial success, refocusing on what they always did best and to hell with the critics.