Starwood - Starwood

"What have we here to hear?" I thought to myself as I rummaged through the dollar section on a quiet day. I had decided it was an ABBA day - you know, "Take a Chance on Me" - wait, don't stop reading yet, I'll get to the point.

The album looked to be in fair shape, but was missing the insert and the jacket itself was pretty decent. The back photo featured seven guys who seemed to be pretty good friends as they were all mushed together to fit in the frame. Moustaches outnumbered beards, but back in 1977 that was pretty much expected if you wanted to be in a band and taken seriously. The only credits on the back related to the production team of Bruce Botnick and Terry Powell, names that seemed familiar but I couldn't place them at the time.

I wasn't sure what to expect from the band, considering the sheer size of it, I figured they would be somewhere in between Lighthouse and Three Dog Night. As the adage goes, you can't judge a book by its cover. The first song, "Burning Over You," is a blend of pop with heavy harmonies and a clever detuned guitar hook. It's a nice introduction to the band and a good song. It's immediately followed by "Almost Monte Carlo," an acoustic guitar and strings song with a lot of vocal harmony. It reminded me in places of the Bee Gees' "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart," except this one has a long and very sultry saxophone solo that closes out the song and then suddenly launches into the mid-tempo foot-tapper, "Simone," that isn't quite disco but has a good groove. Up next is "Always Brings Me Tears," which starts with a piano and more lush harmonies. I kept thinking of Crosby, Stills, and Nash or maybe the Eagles, or possibly America - you see where this is going? But it wasn't necessarily country rock, although this one is a more country-rock ballad and was another solid song. So far, everything has been very enjoyable. The last cut on the first side is a song about pirates, "Tortuga" that starts slow with woodwinds and stuff, and then turns into a disco sea shanty. Okay, I'm officially hooked.

The second side of the album opens up with "I Gotta Dance With You," an uptempo song that's pretty good. If you wanted, you could probably dance to it. It's followed by "You Don't Have to Cry," a song that carries a bit of the vibe from Jimmy Buffet's "Margaritaville." Both songs came out the same year, and any similarities are likely to be coincidental, although one became a cover band staple and the other didn't. These comparisons are bound to happen when you hear something new for the first time after four and a half decades. I'm trying to find little points of reference and sometimes you just hear things that weren't there at the time. "Silver and Gold" is another song with a lot of harmonies, and this is the first one where the lead guitar stands out. No, this was not a cover of the Burl Ives classic. Tasty. 

I'll have to see what information is out there on the band. I'm really enjoying this, and musically, they're covering a lot of ground without repeating themselves and still managing to stay in their "soft" rock lane. "Give a Little Bit" didn't seem to stick the landing on the first pass. It felt tired and more generic than the others so far, but I suspect that's due to me more than the band. The album closes out with "Ophelia," and it starts with a solo vocal accompanied by piano and slowly builds with a flute solo and strings. It's an interesting song, and one I'll want to hear again.

Overall, this was a very pleasant surprise, and an album I'll be spinning a few more times. This is very much an album of its time, with solid performances and a lot of vocal harmonies. It's always a strange thing to find an album that is really enjoyable but doesn't appear to have had a lot of success.

There's not a lot of information out there. From what I see, they had one major label release on Columbia, and a couple of the guys were in, or played with The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and David James Holster, who sang and played guitar, wrote some songs for John Denver. It would be cool to put a name to the picture on the band.

The production team had an impressive list of credits. Bruce Botnick engineered all The Doors albums, worked with the band Love and assisted on the Rolling Stones album Let it Bleed and produced Eddie Money's first two albums. Terry Powell, did a lot of work with the band Sparks, and even produced a Tommy Tutone album (don't laugh it was pretty good) so it wasn't like the band wasn't in good hands. Starwood is a good sounding album.

Well, regardless, it's one of those albums that likely deserved a better fate. But the times they were a-changin', and the band, as good as they were, were a day late and a dollar short.