I read once that Alan Lancaster (the principal founder member of Status Quo, despite what revisionists might say) walked out on the recording sessions for 1983's "Marguerita Time" because to put it mildly, he didn't like the style of the song. Complaining that he wouldn't be able to show his face in public if his beloved band had gone 'all soft', he is alleged to have walked out with the words 'But I'm a rocker!'
The stuff of Spinal Tap legend, made real; any resemblance to a diminutive, moustachioed bass player called Derek Smalls is purely coincidental. Marguerita Time went on to be a smash hit that Christmas, while Lancaster refused to tour, flew to Australia and sulked. But what if, with hindsight, he might have had a point after all?
Let's rewind to 1974. Status Quo, psychedelic one-hit wonders of the late 60s, have reinvented themselves as denim-clad masters of the three-chord shuffle, and after a lean period during which their albums sold rather poorly, have signed to the mighty Vertigo label. It's an imperial phase for Quo - from the early to the mid-70s the classic 'frantic four' lineup really couldn't put a foot wrong. The band have just returned from a mammoth world tour with Slade, and enter the studio to record the follow-up album to Hello, their first to go to Number One and which has yielded two classic hits in Caroline and Roll Over Lay Down.
This period is generally considered to be Status Quo's golden era; the space, say, between 1972's frantic Paper Plane and 1976's, er, frantic Mystery Song. Later, the band would produce unashamedly commercial fayre in order to try and crack America (Rockin' All Over The World, Red Sky), experiments with disco (don't believe me? Listen to 1978's god-awful Accident Prone) and then, when we didn't think they could sink any lower, they went all 80s on us with a pointless cover of a minor hit for Dutch duo Rob and Ferdi Bolland, 'In The Army Now'.
But for many years in the 70s, Quo were truly and deservedly at the top of their game, and smack-bang in the middle of this golden era is the album Quo, boasting a mere eight tracks and a ludicrously high-concept sleeve depicting the band as a mighty four-headed creature which looks like the love child of an ancient oak tree and Mount Rushmore.
The epic opener, Backwater, starts with the kind of extended loud-quiet-loud intro that Quo would later turn to classic effect on Whatever You Want. It starts with Rossi and Parfitt playing a simple duelling guitar melody, their trademark Telecasters buzzing away harmonically. Unlike previous albums which were recorded more or less 'as live', some attempt was made during the sessions to keep the instruments separate without losing the overall character of the music, as was the case with 1977's Rocking All Over The World album, which lacked atmosphere, despite boasting some of their strongest songs. The result is a big, bold guitar riff which gives way to a calming bridge, filling time until the rest of the band come thundering in, Rossi providing the classic Quo hammer-on riff in the left speaker while Parfitt bangs out brutal machine-like chops on the off beat in the right channel. It's a potent rocker which never disappoints and doesn't sound overpretentious or flawed. Three verses and an epic guitar solo later, Backwater climaxes under the weight of one of John Coghlan's best ever drum solos, a grand symphony for tom rack which may just have been the template for Cozy Powell's 'Dance With The Devil'. This serves to segue seamlessly into the thunderous Just Take Me, which finds Parfitt picking a fight with an old Bo Diddley riff and turning it into one of Quo's hardest ever rockers.
Backwater could have been a great single, but the record company had other ideas, reasoning that Francis Rossi was the lead vocalist of Quo and that to let anyone else sing lead on a single would confuse the public, and thus it came to pass that the album's third cut, Break The Rules, a rare group composition which essentially is a rewrite of Down The Dustpipe with added honky-tonk piano, was released as a single. BTR always sounds great on compilation albums, and it's always welcome at parties (well, most parties) but listened to in isolation, but it sticks out like a sore thumb when bookended either side by two of Lancaster's heavier contributions; Drifting Away, a fast-paced rocker probably best listened to when speeding up the M1 on a Harley, closes Side One, and Lancaster's final contribution Don't Think It Matters (a slow, drawling, more bluesy cousin of Roll Over Lay Down) opens Side Two, which on the whole shows a more diverse side to the band than the unrelenting, piledriving rock of Side One.
Next up is Fine Fine Fine, a gentle country rocker of very little consequence written by Francis Rossi and Bob Young, the songwriting duo responsible for most of Quo's classic hits. It's a welcome antidote to the unrelenting barrage of boogie we've been listening to, but certainly not one of the duo's strongest tracks. However the penultimate track, Lonely Man, is one of Parfitt's best songs, built around a gentle rhythm guitar riff rather than that lumpen, chunky stuff he usually plays, and like his later Living On An Island, almost succeeds in being heartbreaking thanks to some sensitive lyrics.
The final track, Slow Train, rewards us with a grand finale that contains everything bar the kitchen sink. It's another seven-minute epic, which, unusually for Quo (but for the second time on this album) has a narrative lyric, telling the story of the writer leaving home and having to 'jump a ride on a cattle trucking slow train'. The song is made up of several different parts - perhaps they were fragments of different uncompleted songs. Quo would, quite rightly, be scorned in later years for their ludicrous Stars On 45-style live medleys (such as the Doors' Roadhouse Blues mixed with the Mexican Hat Dance, an unholy marriage culturally akin to welding a Great Dane's head onto the body of a kitten) - but Slow Train stands as a magnificent example of what Quo used to be good at, and are now terrible at: segueing melodies without resorting to cheesiness.
Drummer John Coghlan leads the band through several changes of time signature, from the template headbanging riff at the start, through a military two-step during which you expect Max Wall to burst in; and a Celtic reel which once again sees Parfitt and Rossi's guitars duelling just as they did at the start of the album. And then comes The Almighty Drum Solo, followed by a grand reprise. Coghlan, for once, sounds like he's enjoying himself, and it's possibly his finest moment with Quo, in fact possibly Quo's finest moment, period.
Quo really is Lancaster's album insofar as he contributes over half the songs, in fact Francis Rossi's nasal noodlings only put in an appearance on three of the album's tracks, and the result is a harder-edged and less 'pop' sound than its predecessor. Weighing in at just under 40 minutes, Quo is not a taxing listen, and may even shatter some people's perception of what classic Status Quo sounds like.
The latest reissue includes a remaster of the original B-side to Break The Rules, Lonely Night, previously a rarity which doesn't feature on any other album, and again shows a syncopation between Rossi and Parfitt that is as natural and as perfectly timed as the mechanisms on a grandfather clock. As I listened to it the other day, I suddenly realized where I'd heard the pitter-patter drum track before. It's Buddy Holly and the Crickets, of all people.
Maybe Lancaster was a rocker, after all. I'm no fan of Lancaster's solo work, but if the rest of the band had only listened to him back in 1983, they might not have unleashed some of those later aberrations on us.
No comments:
Post a Comment