Old Enough to Forget

I found a copy of Trooper’s debut from 1975, and this was my first time hearing the album in its entirety. Even though it contains two of the band’s best-known songs, “General Hand Grenade” and “Baby Woncha Please Come Home,” I was surprised the record didn’t go gold here in Canada. The band’s next four albums would all go platinum, with the latter two even going double platinum. What a run. The debut was produced by Randy Bachman and released on Randy’s Legend Records, although it was distributed by MCA Records  - the label Trooper would eventually move to and stay with during their commercial peak. I have always liked Trooper, and like just about every Canadian kid of a certain vintage, Hot Shots was part of the soundtrack of our formative years. I’ve had a lot of fun digging into some of their earlier albums and hearing deeper tracks I’d never encountered before. For whatever reason, the debut seems to be the forgotten Trooper record. I can sort of see why. Aside from those two...

I meant to pull out my copy of Hot Shots , but as I had recently found a couple of Trooper albums I'd not heard (which outside of their greatest hits album was pretty much everything in their catalogue) I figured why not put on something that was new to me.  It was either Money Talks , or Flying Colors , as there were a couple of songs I remembered from Flying Colors , so Flying Colors it was. Aren't you glad you get to get a little peek into my decision making process? I've not heard the album so it's the deeper tracks here I'm curious about, particularly the Frank Ludwig compositions. Frank had the unenviable position of being a decent writer and a good singer in a band where Ra was a great singer, and the songwriting team of Ra McGuire and Brian Smith were the backbone of the band. This I'm sure was a pretty sore spot, and it's not especially helpful or sporting for me to sit here and stir up the embers of what is now pretty ancient history. When Frank...