Customer Reviews

Who Do You Love

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

 

 

This is an anthology, taking songs from Juicy Lucy's four original ablums. It is around 70 minutes long. The sound quality is fair (not good). It has a some liner notes that give a brief history of the band.

Juicy Lucy was a British blues band that lasted from 1969 to 1972. They put out 4 albums. The line up was constantly changing so that none of the original members were on the final album. Members came from various minor British bands.

Maybe the most famous member was Paul Williams (not to be confused with the small American singer). He floated around with a number of bands. Just before joining Juicy Lucy, he was the singer for Aynsley Dunbar's Blue Whale group. There he picked up the Frank Zappa song, Willie the Pimp, which he brought to Juicy Lucy (Dunbar had been in and out of stints with Zappa). Williams also was a singer for Allan Holdworth's band.

Juicy Lucy is a typical sounding British blues band. They sound something like early Fleetwood Mac, or Peter Green.

The band mostly covered "traditional" blues songs. They had a minor hit in Britain with Bo Diddley's Who Do You Love. They play Spirit's Mr. Skin and Duane Allman's Midnight Rider. They do a nice job in playing these songs. They are the best versions ever made of any of the songs, but they are still good.

There are a few original songs they do. Mostly these are forgettable, or in the case of Jessica, just horrible.

The sound quality on this CD is rough. Some of it has to do with the way the band played, and some of it has to do with the poor mastering of the CD.

Amazing! Blues,rock,country... What a band! Don't miss this compilation. Every song is masterpiece. Fantastic remastering!
Yes, there are several covers on this album.They did great favor to,for example, ABB covering Midnight Rider (much better then original).

Back in 1969, when Vertigo Records in England broke the cork on its giant swirl, they were know as a progressive rock label and with good reason. Mannferd Mann Chapter Two and Coliseum were among the first bands to launch the ship. But Vertigo also had a yen for good blues and hard rock and music that combined the two: the other two bands that launched the label were Black Sabbath and Juicy Lucy.

The first Juicy Lucy album--released in the US on Atco, was a tour de force of blues and hard rock. With sax, slide guitar and a bass player-Keith Ellis, late of Van Der Gaff Generator--with a fantastic knack for placing notes in the strangest but most exquisite sounding places, Juicy Lucy quickly established themselves, musically if not commercially, as both heavy and progressive.

In 1969, blues bands in England sunk themselves so deep into blues--most had and listened in detail to Muddy Waters, B.B. King, all the genre's essentials--they were able to exude the music while adding both psychedelia and 60s amplification. Several of these guys had gotten their start with the professor blue, John Mayall.

"Mississippi Women," "She's Mine," "Who Do You Love," all the tracks on the first album by Juicy Lucy exuded grit and polish, moved the music forward and was tangled inescapably in blues roots. When Lie Back and Enjoy It came around 1970, it had the same type of sound, but with a plodding cover of Frank Zappa's "Willie The Pi-p" and writing and arranging not as sharp as on the first album, the band lost some of what had made their debut such a classic, and while there were great patches on following albums, they never quite lived up to their promise.

This Anthology culls some of the best material from this band, and is essential to hear. There is a lot of great rock and blues from a group too little known

But this does not contain the whole first album, and while you should without doubt get this set, Who Do You Love does not make up for the sin of the first 1969 album not being reissued

In the early 90's I lost most of my treasured LP collection. For almost two decades I thought them totally lost, irreplacable reminders of my youth. Then the CD industry answered my call and started cranking out heretofore obscure groups and albums. Juicy Lucy's first album (one of my top 10) has come out with two others in this compilation of dirty blues by the British rockers. The big hit was "Who Do You Love" which I believe the finest version of Bo Diddley's classic. 6 out of 8 tracks are reproduced here from the first album as well as a Frank Zappa great, "Willie The Pimp," making 19 heavy blues. Sound quality is excellent.

I recommend this collection for those that appreciate rocking and rolling with the blues.

This is a compilation CD and not the first album. I give it one star due to its misleading nature.