City Boy - Dinner at the Ritz

I've picked up an awful lot of stuff over the last few months, probably more than I should have, but dagnabbit a deal is a deal, but the shelf where my incoming pile is stored is getting pretty full. Which means I get to spend more time in the basement listening to tunes and avoiding other chores.

Win win.

Of all the guys in City Boy, it was Mike Slamer's name I was familiar with from his work with Steve Walsh - both solo and as a member of Streets. The guy was a super tasty player and could really rip it up too. From there I found out he'd been in a band called City Boy and that was about it.

Fast forward, and I picked up a really nice looking copy of Dinner at the Ritz. I scan the back cover and there are six dapper looking lads wearing tuxedos. Also on the back cover Mutt Lange was listed as producer and co-engineer. I was already sold, this just made is more solder. I have yet to hear anything associated with Mutt that was a stinker ... that includes Shania Twain (I know, I know).

I generally try not to form an opinion before hearing things ... although I had already pegged this a rock record that was likely going to melt my face. The album opened with "Mama's Boy" which was just rock enough to put a little grin on my face. I was thinking, "Man, this was 1977 but this would sound right at home into the early '80s." To be fair there were a few years between like 1978 and 1983 that were pretty interchangeable until they weren't - then it was a pretty hard stop that cratered a lot of bands who couldn't adapt, or grow out their hair.

However, I'm only a song in, let's not get to far ahead of myself. The guys didn't make a batch of cookies from the same recipe. Musically City Boy was meandering all over, from near progressive with bits of Yes, to bordering on Sweet favoured glam. In short, it was a lot of fun and the guys had chops. Heck the boys even went deep into the '70s schlock with a string infused ballad "The Violin" a song that I can imagine a sea of lighters flickering along with a host of burned thumbs. It's actually a very good song. That features a lot of, well, violin. It felt long, but I didn't realize it was seven minutes long. Yeah, I'm pretty sure no one was going to hold a lighter up for seven minutes. Still a pretty ambitious song. It's no more out of place than any other rock ballad that's sandwiched between a couple of rock songs - although if I'm to play along with the album conceit, each selection was a table, not a song, or a serving (which would have worked better, but then again I wasn't asked my opinion).

The album closes with table No. 7 "State Secrets - a Thriller" that is spread over three parts and clocking in a seven and a half minutes. It's a fitting close to the album. Time to flip it over and do it again.

Interesting now that I've had a chance to go through it, and the opening track, really is the most straight ahead rocker on the album. Don't get me wrong, the whole album is really good. It's not like a bait and switch, the guys are just covering a more ground musically than a lot of other rock band from the same time. This is what album oriented rock should be - an album that is fitted together and takes the listener on a journey. I'm still having a dickens of a time trying to process this as an album that came out in the mid '70s.

The title track "Dinner at the Ritz" didn't really catch me the first time through, I thought it was good ... but having played this through a couple of times now, this song is amazing. It feels like Queen and Supertramp with a dash of Floyd all at the same time ... yeah, that's not quite right but it's really cool. They didn't sound like a lot of other bands, they were doing their own thing.

After giving this a couple spins I figured it was worth looking up the band, and apparently Dinner at the Ritz was originally released in 1976, but in North America it came out on Mercury records in 1977. As to Mutt Lange, the first full album he produced was City Boy's debut, and Dinner at the Ritz was their second album. All in all he'd produced five of the band's seven records. By 1981 the band would release their final album and despite their best efforts they seem to have been mostly forgotten.

Which is a shame, this one is really a lost classic, and frankly I'm not the look out for more of their stuff.

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