Customer Reviews

Long Hard Ride

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

 

 

"Long Hard Ride" is one of the underappreciated MTB albums, coming between "Searchin' For A Rainbow" (with it's Top 40 hit "Fire On The Mountain") and the platinum "Carolina Dreams" (with the band's biggest hit "Heard It In A Love Song"). The album gets off to a rousing start with "Long Hard Ride." With it's bullwhip, fiddle and memorable guitar lead it's a killer opening salvo. Toy Caldwell was simply one of the most distinctive, creative, and powerful guitarists ever. His work on the first 10 MTB albums withstands the test of time. My favorite track on the album has to be "Am I The Kind Of Man." A downtempo number, lyrically and musically it touches your heart and soul.

If you're looking to start your MTB collection begin with "Where We All Belong" and "A New Life" but if you're looking for a killer addition to your existing MTB collection this would be a great one to pick up. Oh, yeah! The CD reissue has not only much-improved sound, but also a killer bonus live track: "(If I Could) See You One More Time."

I'm writing this review some 20+ years after I first heard LHR at Grand Targhee ski resort in Wyoming. This CD has three great songs that make it worth the price - Long Hard Ride, Windy City Blues, and You Don't Live Forever. I only wish these guys could have kept making that kind of music - a great mix of country rock and country blues.

Nominated for a grammy this classic album sums up what MTB are all about.

They may have missed out on the grammy but they certainly did not miss out on delivering probably their finest piece of work.

With an album cover any Spaghettti Western movie mogul in Hollywood would be envious of when the first track starts, Long Hard Ride, you would honestly think you were in that stagecoach on the cover.

A mighty fine album of yeah hah whip cracking country rockers and soulful unlucky in love ballads.

A must in any country boys(and girls) CD collection

As stated before, the album has a more country twang than other Marshall Tucker Band albums, but is not to be looked over. As part of the Southern Rock, MTB is more country than the Allman Brothers or Lynyrd Skynyrd, and more blues than Charlie Daniels. This album brings out the country side in the band, especially with the title track "Long Hard Ride". The album is not a starting point for new MTB fans, but a definite for fans already enjoying other albums.

Now the Marshall Tucker Band became even *more* of a country/rock band! The transformation is officially complete! Alright that's not completely true- they always had country/rock tendencies from the get go, but now it's more obvious than ever.

Before I say anything else, who exactly IS responsible for their brilliantly beautiful album covers? They have like, three covers (including this one) that I'd put right up there with the best album covers of the 70's. I can't think of any other band that blows me away with three album covers. Two, but not three (like Black Sabbath for example). Whoever's drawing them has a perfect understanding of the great outdoors and especially horses. Brilliant illustrations.

"Long Hard Ride" is a guitar instrumental with a distinctive cowboy theme. It's not quite like, for example, Neil Young's "The Emperor of Wyoming" and it's certainly nothing like Dave Edmunds' "Sabre Dance". It's a fairly standard guitar jam with a banjo solo that comes and goes at will. This song allows me to see how the band was able to write their smash hit "Heard It In A Love Song". You're probably thinking "What? The two songs are nothing alike!" That is true, but... they are both very standard and predictably written tunes. The similarities end there obviously. By the way, I still enjoy "Heard It In A Love Song" but it HAS been played way too often over the years.

"Property Line" sounds like a Poco imitation. That's not really the Marshall Tucker Band's forte in my opinion, but hey, Poco is a quality band so I won't complain. It has a good enough melody, with funny lyrics about having a good time walkin' the property line, haha. The guitar solo is pretty intense though. "Am I the Kind of Man" is probably my least favorite song on the entire album because it's a generic love song with no interesting melody or arrangements to carry it through. Oh sure, it *tries* to sound pretty with the brief piano, flute and guitar solo, but the thing is there's no interesting notes to speak of, so it's unacceptable to me.

"Walkin' the Streets Alone" is a straight forward country song with an alright verse melody and sappy chorus. The guitar and saxophone both make another generic appearance, tricking people into thinking the notes are good just because they're *there*. Doesn't work in my world. As you can probably guess I'm not a fan, plus it's overlong. 5 minutes it too much for me to tolerate. At least the sax jam at the end is worthwhile. "Windy City Blues" has an appealingly upbeat vocal melody with tasty guitar licks, especially at the very end. WOW!! I wish the entire was like this!

"Holding on to You" isn't exactly why I fell in love with the Marshall Tucker Band's first four albums, but the vocal melody is pretty good, though sort of depressing. At least it has a solid guitar solo making it a tad more enjoyable than the other generic songs I mention above. "You Say You Love Me" reminds me of a jazzier and more guitar heavy "Still the One", the Orleans classic. The guitar work is simply superb on this track. Not quite as good as on "Windy City Blues" though. "You Don't Live Forever" is a fact of life- you *won't* live forever. As much as you'd probably like to, it won't happen. Anyway, I mostly like this song for the lyrics as you can probably guess, though the vocal melody is decent too. A nice way to conclude an album that only has one negative ("Am I the Kind of Man").

The Marshall Tucker Band seems to have been largely forgotten today but in the mid-1970s this band was one of the best Southern rock, country-rock outfits around.

Marshall Tucker had a very unique sound; they combined what was essentially a country and country-rock sound with elements of blues and jazz to create one of the most distinctive musical styles among the many successful bands that, at the time, were coming out of the south eastern U.S.

Bands that come out of the South at the same time as Marshall Tucker included Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Charlie Daniels Band.

If you're not familiar with the Marshall Tucker Band, there are three of their albums you should check out: Searchin' For A Rainbow, Long Hard Ride and Carolina Dreams. All three are excellent.

Listening to the title track takes me back to the 80s when rock bands were first crossing over to country. It rocks my rock & roll soul. This song is four minutes long which is maybe why it's not played on the radio. I purchased the CD for my daughter and grandsons so they could hear part of the underground music we were exposed to in the last century.
The sale was seamless. No hassles and I received the CD quickly. I would rate the seller five-star.
Thanks. Janet

Long Hard Ride

The Marshall Tucker Band have recorded a lot of great albums, and this one are among the best. I think that ALL the songs are very strong. The first melody is the title-song `Long Hard Ride`. Close your eyes and you`ll believe that you`re in the wild west! And then the band continues with seven more great songs, among these I will mention `Walkìn`the Streets Alone, `Windy City Blues` and `You Say You Love Me`. Well this cd means a lot to me. I remember that it was a christmas-gift to me back in 1976 or something like that, off course on lp. And now so many years after, it is still such a great album.

The live bonus track "If I could See You One More Time" is mentioned to come from the show on April 18, 1980 at Nassau Coliseum, NY. However, this version is different from that on the LIVE ON LONG ISLAND 04-18-80 CD. So where exactly does this version come from????

"Long Hard Ride" is probably the least known of MTB's 70s albums because it contained no big singles. Nevertheless, it is fairly representative of their 70s sound. There are both rockin' and country tracks with a few good lovesongs thrown in. If you own Tucker classics like "A New Life" and "Where We All Belong" and are looking to supplement your collection, you could certainly do worse.