Saturday, 22 March 2014
What we have here is the intersection of a band looking for a front man, a singer-songwriter looking for a band and a musical environment shaped by the intersection of Bob Dylan, The Band, old school rhythm and blues or soul music, Van Morrison, the singer-songwriter movement of the early seventies and the London pub rock scene.
Graham Parker and The Rumour weren’t the only figures on this particular musical landscape and their debut album isn’t the only musical milestone that emerged from it.
Shift the balance of influences slightly, downplay the Dylan/R&B and build up the singer songwriter bit (think Jesse Winchester) and you’ve got Chilli Willi & The Red Hot Peppers. Change London pub rock to New Jersey seaside bars and you’ve got Springsteen and Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes. Put those factors into an Australian setting and you’ve got Jo Jo Zep & The Falcons and The Sports.
Together those acts represented some of the few lights on the horizon in the dire days of the disco-dominated pre-punk mid-seventies.
While Howlin’ Wind came out in 1976 to widespread critical acclaim and ended up in fourth place in the Village Voice critics poll of the year's best albums (the follow-up, Heat Treatment, ran second) it didn’t connect with the wider public and all involved ended up as also-rans despite the fact that they provided much of the template successfully employed by, among others, Elvis Costello, Joe Jackson and the New Wave end of the seventies punk spectrum.