Old Enough to Forget

I picked this up because it looked like an interesting album. The back credits caught my attention: Produced by Gary Lyons, mastered by George Marino and recorded at the legendary Caribou Ranch in Colorado. I figured the album would lean one of two ways - a sucky late '70s Dan Fogelberg type album, or a straight ahead boogie woogie rock and roll album with a bit of twang. Guitarist Geoff Whitehorn was credited with playing "fiddle" so I figured that plaid jacket was appropriate. The anticipation of dropping the needle and those first moments of dead space are so good ... "Sail On" opens the album and the brief harmonic and sliding bass note is quickly followed by thick crunchy power chords that then give way to an infectious groove that has a lot of bounce and swing - in short swagger. The vocal harmonies are great and the interplay between the guitars and keyboards is simply awesome. I haven't had a truly great holy shit moment for a while. This was so good...

I'd never heard of The Rave-Ups prior to finding a sealed copy of the record. I was out of town and had popped in at a record store while the wife was clothes shopping, this happens a lot. It was a strange little shop that was squeezed into an alley entrance, and the stock was piled into the corners in a system only the owner seemed to understand. Despite it being cramped, it was fun poking around. I didn't find anything on my list, but the owner seemed determined to find something for me ... and he would rummage around while we were chatting about stuff, and he'd pop his head up occasionally and show me something he thought I might like. He managed to get a fair pile going, so I figured it was best that I just look through what he was stacking up. He had managed to get my measure pretty quickly as most of the records he'd pulled out were from artists I was aware of, and thankfully I had a lot of what he was showing me, but there were a couple that caught my attention. ...