The Edgar Winter Group - They Only Come Out at Night

1972 was a good year for Mister Winter. In the spring he released Roadwork (which I really liked) and then that fall he'd release They Only Come out at Night with his new band The Edgar Winter Group. The group would feature a young Dan Hartman on vocals, bass, and guitar and a lot of other stuff (he was a wunderkind, his picture looks like it a yearbook photo), and Ronnie Montrose on guitar - a year later Ronnie would leave and start his own band - but it was here that Ronnie honed his rock chops.

I'll be honest I got this for two tracks "Free Ride" and "Frankenstein" and if the other eight tracks blow chunks I'd still feel like I got my monies worth. Then again, I found this in the dollar bin - it was a risk as who knows what condition this thing would turn out to be in. Turns out that with a little spit and polish the record looked pretty good.

The record leads off with "Hangin' Around" and it's a decent song, and as the first side played it became pretty evident that the band was running the gamut through various genres and doing what it wanted. "Alta Mira" is a very quirky pop song and as I listened to it I kept thinking about Larry Norman's "Fly Fly Fly" and I'm guessing as Edgar was first out that if there was an influence to be had it was over in Mr. Norman's direction - this is pure conjecture on my part. Of course the killer here was "Free Ride" which to me is as good a classic rock song as there ever was.

The second side opens with a country song, and dang it was nice. This to me is one of the great things about so much of the classic rock era, bands didn't necessarily have to be pigeonholed. Heck the transition between what I heard on his live album Roadwork, and the songs on They Only Come out at Night are complimentary but not just retreads of what Edgar had done before. Heck, Dan's ballad "Autumn" was foreshadowing what would be a wheelhouse of bands like Bread. It's a great song. The album closes out with probably the single greatest instrumental rock song ever cut into wax. "Frankenstein" had it all - and my goodness it still gets me.

The album was produced by Rick Derringer who contributed some guitar, pedal steel and other stuff. Bill Szymcyk was credited as technical director - I'm guessing he engineered this. I like reading credits.

I totally got more than my dollar's worth here - even if a few cuts on the second side were a little distorted in places there was nothing that skipped or crackled to the point of distraction. This will see a few more spins before I file it for another night.

Despite what the cover says, it came out during the day too. It was easier to play really loud when there was no one else home.