A Streaming Pile of Hit: Ric Cua

A Streaming Pile of Hit: Ric Cua - Koo'-ah

Time for another edition of A Streaming Pile of Hit - where you put the "s" in hit is up to you.

Not sure why I've been going back to the old CCM stuff that I was particularly enamoured with back in the day. Rick Cua had been playing bass in The Outlaws, most notably on a coupe of their later albums: Ghost Riders (1980) and Los Hombres Malo (1982) and when he dropped Koo'-ah in 1982 I was really looking forward to hearing it. It's weird that this is listed as being from 1985 ... I can't make heads or tails out of where the dates come from.

After all both Hughie Thomasson, Billy Jones as well as Freddie Salem from The Outlaws were playing guitar on the album (and killing it by the way), and former Wings drummer Joe English was featured on several tracks. If nothing else there was some pedigree on the album.

The songs though were mostly middle of the road, with a little extra punch here and there. I remember wanting to like this more than I did. The songs were decent for all that and lyrically a little heavy handed and trite at the same time. Considering this was 1982 it was weird that he felt the need to write a song like "You Can Still Rock 'N Roll" that was essentially a weaker reworking of Larry Norman's "Why Should the Devil Have all the Good Music" from a decade earlier. This was still a thing?

Oh well, while I'd pick up the occasional CD later by Rick I was never really that big a fan. Going back to the beginning with Koo'-ah was an interesting trip down memory lane, but aside from the tracks that featured members from The Outlaws on guitar there really wasn't a lot here I feel any need to revisit anytime soon.

It's hard to put my finger on this one. You can tell that there was a decent rock record here waiting to be unleashed with some southern rock overtones, but it's like Rick was trying to be all things to all people and please everyone, and oddly enough despite saying he could still rock n' roll he wasn't really allowed to rock and roll after all.

Oddly after this I did try to find some of Joe English's early stuff as I had his debut but it was nowhere to be found. Maybe it's better that way.

Comments

6 Cylinder

As a kid we had one radio station, not counting CBC, and generally there was very little that was worth listening to, although there were times something would come on that would make you pay attention. It was 1979 and on a couple of occasions I heard "There Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens" and it cracked me up, and I always wanted to get a copy for myself. A few years ago when my niece was dancing, they did a performance to this song, and now I can't separate my niece from a bunch of dancing chicks in chicken suits. Such is life. When I found this in the dollar bin I actually let out a little chirp, my goodness could it be? It was, and it was in great shape - including the inner sleeve. Score. I had no idea what to expect, for all I knew there was only one song worth listening to, and if that was the case it was still a dollar well spent. If I could buy an album by Showdown and enjoy it, odds are I'll find something to enjoy here to. Before I put this on I...

Meat Loaf - Bat Out of Hell

File under: TLDR Note to the reader. First sorry, second not really, but I am sorry I don't have the ability to edit. Oh happy Valentine's day. To celebrate let's take a gander at Meat Loaf's 1977 Bat Out of Hell. Over forty three million people disagree with me but for decades I thought this album was, and continues to be, one giant disappointment. I'll be the first to admit that despite decades of baggage the overwhelming power of nostalgia managed to erode even the hardest of convictions and I found that Bat Out of Hell was one of those albums I wanted to have in my collection, but I wasn't looking all that hard. It was an album I knew more about than I actually knew about. So at this moment in time I'm still holding firm on my long held opinion. But before I get into things, it's time for some meanderambling blurbage ... I remember seeing the cover when I was a kid and thinking it was the single greatest cover I had ever seen. What wonders were to b...

Opus - Up and Down

I snatched this up when I found it. Up and Down was released in '84 the same year "Live is Life" was a worldwide hit. Polydor repackaged the album, dropped a couple of songs from the European release and tacked on "Live is Life" which for those of us over here was a pretty good idea. I also suspect they subbed out the studio version of "Flyin' High" as well. Despite their success much of the band's catalogue was never released in North America, and even now the band has a surprisingly small digital footprint on the streaming platforms. The album is really good, and the title track "Up and Down" that opens the album is really strong with Herwig's soaring vocals and Ewald's tasty fretwork. The whole album is full of pleasant soft rock with hints of AOR and some progressive overtones. Knowing there are songs out there that were left off it makes me wonder what they were like. The nine songs here, seven studio tracks and two live ...

Old Enough to Forget

Search This Blog