The Blasters
Over There: Live At the Venue, London 1982 - The Complete Concert
(Slash/Warner Bros./Liberation Hall)
The early 1980s were heady times. Downey, California's Blasters, who had germinated at Ronny Weiser's Rollin' Rock, were at the fore of a roots-music rennaisance that, in the US, also included Robert Gordon, the Rockats, Ray Campi, and the Stray Cats. Brash reinventions of vintage modes were animated by the rumbustiousness of the CBGB's Class of '77, many of whose more significant alumni (like the Ramones and Heartbreakers) were yet on the loose.
The Blasters offered particularly Blues-based neo-Rockabilly, and may well have introduced genre stalwarts to fresh ears. (Big Joe Turner, Pete Johnson, and Otis Redding come to mind.) Phil Alvin threw himself body-and-soul into vocals that were (and still are) among the most distinctive in roots-music revivalism. Brother Dave's joyfully manic picking lent vibrance to already steamrolling projection; his gleeful tearing off of savage licks stole oxygen.
All players were equally vital to krackajack American Music. The fearsomely formidable John Bazz/Bill Bateman rhythm cell made for solid firmament from which feral cats pounced. Eminent keyboardist Gene Taylor proved himself a master of the ivories, never hitting a wrong note and augmenting matters with alive-out-loud eminence.
And the sax duo of stormer Steve Berlin and living legend Lee Allen made walls tumble down to the elation of all. Their wailing exertions lent hue and texture.
1982's Over There leapt up in it's birth year as marvelous testimony to the era's exhilaration. Now, Liberation Hall's expanded reissue reminds mightily.
Recommended: "This Is It," "No Other Girl," "Border Radio," "I Don't Want To," "Tag Along," "Walkin' With Mr. Lee," "I'm Shakin'" "Hollywood Bed," "Go! Go! Go!," "Stop the Clock," "Marie Marie," "American Music," "So Long Baby Goodbye," "Roll 'Em Pete," "High School Confidential," "These Arms of Mine," Keep A-Knockin'"
Videos: "Roll 'em Pete" "I Don't Want To"
Liberation Hall
Bandcamp
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