Customer Reviews

Raunch N' Roll Live

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I love this album.It is what a live release is supposed to be,a souvenir of the event that captures the original energy and spirit.This is one of the best rock albums ever period.Lead vocalist Jim Dandy's performance is nothing less than legendary.Just one listen and it becomes obvious where David Lee Roth and Axl Rose developed much of their styles.Tommy Aldridge's drumming is excellent,better than anything I've heard him play for OZZY or anyone.His driving double bass style brings a hard edge to the music.The guitar arrangements are top notch.This band is TIGHT.Every single song is excellent.The BOA southern boogie selections are "Gettin Kinda Cocky","Gigolo"and "Hot and Nasty"."Hot Rod"is hard driving indeed with Aldridge at the wheel.The more complex,serious selections,are "Electricity"which begins with Jim Dandy's washboard and thimble intro and includes the bands vocal interpretation of power humming through the line!,"Up"a very heavy tune with a drum solo and "Mutants"the environmental-hippie classic that describes man as "an animal gone mad".Just between Jim Dandy's introduction and the first note,a man in the audience is heard shouting "MUTANT OF THE MONSTER!"Oh,how I wish that I could have been that character!

I was lucky enough to see these guys live twice in the early '70's and once in the mid 80's. Always raw, always wild and lots of fun! Jim Dandy Mangrum's antics on stage always a blast to watch. This release comes as close as possible to the energy of being there. Every song on here blows the studio versions out of the water! Southern hills party rock at it's best. HOT AND NASTY never sounded so good, WHEN ELECTRICITY CAME TO ARKANSAS, and HOT ROD are true gems. I've heard THE ALLMAN BROTHERS, LIVE AT THE FILLMORE EAST, hailed many times as the best live album ever made, but for power, energy, and pure kick ass fun, I believe this one leaves the ALLMAN's offering far behind in the dust. And that is not meant as an insult to the ALLMAN BROTHERS, I have the afore mentioned album on c.d., and enjoy it. It just doesn't live up to this one. The only flaw with this c.d. is that it comes in at only a little over 33 minutes. Short by today's c.d. standards. But then again, I'm not sure adding filler and fluff would have really been an improvement to an already great performance.
Thanks,
Tom

A lot of great live albums came out in the 1970s and Black Oak's Raunch N Roll was definitely one of them. It simply rocks from cover to cover. Black Oak consisted of Jim Dandy who maybe was not technically a good singer but very unique and enjoyable, totally one of a kind. He was a four-runner to many of the ultra cocky singers of today. Rick Reynolds, Stanley Knight and Heavy Jett on lead and rhythm guitar, and Pat Daugherty on Bass all fine musicians and Tommy Aldridge on Drums, he is one of rock n rolls best drummers. I just love every song on this CD It starts off with a band with Gettin' Kinda Cocky a fast pace rocker with JIM Dandy extolling his cockiness. Then we go into a seven minute jam with When Electricity Came to Arkansas (Great scream--natas). It rocks. Then into Gigolo and Hot Rod too fine rockers (funny lyrics on hot rod). Then into another long rocker Mutants of the Monster. Then Hot And Nasty (maybe BOA best song) and finally closing with UP another long rocking jam. My only complaint about this CD is its too short. Would love to see them redo it and add more live tracks. But no real complaints its great to see they finally released it one on CD. I got it the first day it was available.

"If you believe..." OK, I'll admit it, there was a time back when I was but a wee kid, that my idea of rock and roll was stuff like "Down By The Lazy River" by the Osmond Brothers. Then, late one night, a miracle happened! I saw Black Oak Arkansas on one of the old Don Kirshner or Midnight Special concert programs and it changed my life. And yes, 30 some odd (!) years later I still say that was for the good.

Raunch and Roll was one of the very first albums I ever bought (along with Machine Head and Band of Gypsies) and it still ranks as one of my all time favorite releases.

This album is everything that rock and roll ought to be - it's loud, rude, crude, and socially unacceptable (to borrow lyrics from a later BOA song). These guys rocked, they may not have been the most accomplished of musicians, and while you can call me a backwoods uneducated mutant hillbilly, I'll take the guitar tandem of Stan Knight and Harvey Jett over those two guys in Aerosmith any day.

BOA was one of the greatest live acts in rock history and this captures them at their peak. Jim Dandy set the standard for front men and, for those who may have only known of him from his days with Ozzy or Whitesnake (or Pat Travers, or Nugent, or Gary Moore, Vinnie Moore, Thin Lizzy, etc...) Tommy Aldridge's blueprint for his incredible drum solos was captured live here, first!

Tom Dowd's production was stellar and, IMHO, is one of the biggest differences between RnR and their later (and lesser) live album, "Live Mutha".

The only thing wrong with RnR is that it screams for a full blown remastering job. Not that there's anything wrong with the sound quality. It's just that RnR went Gold, the fact that it hasn't been re-released with bonus tracks is a cryin' shame.

Black Oak Arkansas had released three albums prior to Raunch n Roll's early 70s release. Each of these studio albums had been heavily laden with the bluegrass, country and Memphis bar band influences which always figured into the music of this very southern band. If one had listened only to the three studio albums, one might have thought that BOA was going to evolve into a slightly more hippie-influenced Ozark Mountain Daredevils, with a foot and an ankle in the country-pop tradition, and only a number of toes in the rock mode.

Raunch n Roll established that Black Oak Arkansas was first and foremost a live rock band, and that the three hundred+ days a year this band spent touring had resulted in a strong, heavy, altogether satisfying southern rock sound.

Critical opinion of the time was not favorable (I seem to recall a review by Lester Bangs referring to this as music for "teenage Frankensteins"). But as with so many things, the critics missed the whole point. One example is the much-repeated press criticism that although BOA had three guitarists, they combined to sound like "one good one". This kind of critique sounded relevant in the guitar-hero-worshipping pre-punk 70s, when rock sounds were actually judged solely by the critics' impressions of the guitarist's stylings, but is wholly beside the point today. Black Oak Arkansas was a hard rock band, but they never set out to be instrumental virtuosos. Instead, they were very much self-taught musicians seeking a fun sound; rather than meeting the "politically correct" standards of rock criticism of their time, they basically took the influences around them--Memphis soul, New Orleans bar band music, liberal doses of bluegrass and country,and funnelled it through an Allman Brothers-gone-boogie sound. The result, on Raunch n Roll, is an album that consistently rocks and whose offbeat metal melodies work twenty five years after the fact. Lead vocalist Jim Dandy Mangrum's vocals, heavily influenced by blues and New Orleans "growling" vocalists, interplay with the ringing guitars and driving bass to convey that this was a band that genuinely had fun doing what they did.

The album is not a perfect one. Although the band's trademark earthy live performance banter is rather subdued here, the lyrics nonetheless cross that line from merely racy over into merely sexist--with BOA, like many of its fellow bands of that era, the lyrics seem pretty old-fashioned now. Still, who could fail to enjoy songs like "Mutants of the Monster", whose lyric suggests that the new generation is called upon to eschew longevity, or "When Electricity Came to Arkansas", with its two minute scrub-board solo?

Earlier in their career, BOA showed that bluegrass and rock could go places that they had not hitherto gone. Later in their career, BOA showed that a touring rock band can polish a sound over time. But Raunch n Roll is probably the high water mark for BOA, because it showed a bunch of guys from rural northeast Arkansas who had broken out of playing Fayetteville and Memphis roller rinks and broken into playing before concert audiences. Part of the album's charm is that it was recorded just after the band had started to "figure out" its sound, but before the band became old hands. This is a period piece, but a period piece well worth owning.

Thank you BOA for releasing this on CD! Like an earlier reviewer, I too saw them on "Don Kirshner's Rock Concert" back in the day and ran out to buy this album. This is everything a live rock & roll record should be. You can almost feel the energy emitting from this this live collection. Tommy A. was simply on fire behind the kit during these shows! The only reason I gave the CD 4 stars instead of 5 is because of it's length. I agree with another reviewer that they really should have added some tracks. Atlantic Records (this was originally released on their Atco label) MUST have some additional live cuts collecting dust in a vault from this tour. I own a lot of well done live albums from the 70's, but this one absolutely smokes from start to finish!

This is an unbelieveable live album! If you like live music and are a fan of '70's live performances then YOU NEED TO OWN THIS ALBUM! Even if you are not really a fan of Black Oak, YOU NEED TO OWN THIS ALBUM! This record truly rocks from start to finish. If you like this one then check Grand Funk, Live Album too. They rock!

One of the great party bands of the 70's!! I saw them several times live in the early 70's and the energy they dispayed on stage puts many of the acts today to shame. They might not have been the "prettiest" bands around but for good old Southern rock, they couldn`t be beat. Rock on Jim Dandy and the gang!!!

Just listening to this says it was a dynamite show.Jim Mangrum,Rick Reynolds,Stan Knight,Pat Daugherty,Harvey Jett,and Tommy Aldredge were at the top of their game.Put it on vinyl-sold over 1 million copies.Then was gone.Now back on CD in pristine audio we can hear live-"When Electricity Came to Arkansas,"Mutants of the Monster","Hot Rod","Gigolo",and the signature rock finale all bands during this time had.A nine minute jam compleate with an impressive drum solo from one of the most underrated performers-Tommy Aldredge.No, drum solos do not bore me(as it may other critics),because I have seen way too many A-1 artists do this.From Keith Moon to Roger Earl.You really marvel at Aldredge and his tecnique.For all rockers of "the (real) day.

As a kid growing up in the midwest, I bought this album just for the album cover alone -- these guys looked wild! And let me tell you, you can judge a book by its cover. This is a great addition to CD, as this has a good variety of previously recorded tunes, and some you can't get elsewhere (Getting Kinda Cocky, Hot Rod, Gigelo, and UP. Album starts great with a kicking boogie and high voltage electric guitar send-up on Getting Kinda Cocky. The rest of side one builds up to Hot Rod, which made every high school boy smile. Hot and Nasty is great boogie and guitar work, Mutants of the Monster has some great bass work for your sub-woofer, and Up has that mid-70's long jam going for it, ending in some sonic guitar crecendo's. If you're looking for artsy rock, this ain't it, but if you want something with more than a little kick, this is it.