Гордый
@ 24-11-2007, 18:22
Review:
In the early 1970's a new form of music was emerging in the south. A mixture of blues, country, gospel and the English invasion of rock and roll that later was to be coined the phrase "Southern Rock." The music was filled with style and emotion and with bands in the forefront such as the Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd and a band from Jacksonville, Florida called Molly Hatchet. Named after a famous 17th century axe murderess hatchet molly who would behead her lovers with the hand tool Lizzy Borden made famous.
Their self-titled debut album which included Danny Joe Brown, Dave Hlubek, Duane Roland, Steve Holland, Banner Thomas and Bruce Crump in the lineup was released on Epic records in 1978 and reached multi-platinum status as the band established their reputation of working hard, playing tough and living fast through intense touring with such bands as Aerosmith, Bob Seger, The Rolling Stones and many more. In 1979, Flirtin With Disaster was released and history was in the making. The band continued touring on the road with an average of 250 live shows per year and like the first album it also achieved multi-platinum status. Lead singer, Danny Joe Brown left the band in 1980 and contacted Bobby Ingram, a Jacksonville based guitarist and friend, who gave brown his first singing gig in 1975 with a Jacksonville based band called Rum Creek. Brown and Ingram then put together with keyboardist John Galvin the Danny Joe Brown Band and continued touring until 1982.
During this time, Beatin The Odds(1980) and Take No Prisoners(1981) was released with singer Jimmy Farrar. Brown returned to record No Guts ... No Glory(1983), The Deed Is Done(1984) and Double Trouble Live(1985).
Named after a legendary Southern prostitute who allegedly beheaded and mutilated her clients, Jacksonville's Molly Hatchet melded loud hard-rock boogie with guitar jam-oriented Southern rock. Formed in 1975, the group's lineup featured three guitarists -- Dave Hlubek, Steve Holland, and Duane Roland -- plus vocalist Danny Joe Brown, bassist Banner Thomas, and drummer Bruce Crump. The group recorded a self-titled debut album in 1978, which quickly went platinum; the follow-up, Flirtin' With Disaster, was even more successful, selling over two million copies. Brown left the group in 1980 after the constant touring became too tiresome; he was replaced by Jimmy Farrar for Beatin' the Odds, but Farrar's voice was less immediately identifiable, and Molly Hatchet's commercial appeal began a slow decline. The band experimented with horns on Take No Prisoners, but Farrar left for a solo career soon afterwards. Brown rejoined the band in 1982, but the ensuing album, No Guts...No Glory, flopped, and guitarist Hlubek insisted on revamping Molly Hatchet's sound. After The Deed is Done, a straightforward pop/rock album, the group took some time off in 1985 while its Double Trouble Live album, a collection of some of its best-known songs, was released. Molly Hatchet returned in 1989 without Hlubek for an album of straight, polished AOR, Lightning Strikes Twice. Not even the group's fan base bought the record, and they disbanded shortly afterward. Molly Hatchet reunited in the mid-'90s as an active touring outfit, releasing Devil's Canyon, their first record since Lightning Strikes Twice, in 1996. Continuing to recapture the style of their glory days, Silent Reign of Heroes followed in 1998, and Kingdom of XII appeared in early 2001. A slew of live recordings appeared during the next few years, and the band's studio follow-up, Warriors of the Rainbow Bridge, was released in 2005.
In the late '70s and early '80s, Molly Hatchet attempted to fill the massive void created by the disintegration of the Allman Brother's Band and the tragic demise of Lynyrd Skynyrd with their own brand of heavy Southern rock. Unfortunately, the Jacksonville sextet could never hope to measure up to their heroes, and the reverent covers of the Allmans' "Dreams I'll Never See" and Skynyrd's "Freebird" contained in Double Trouble Live only serve to expose the huge shadow cast over the band by these Southern Rock giants. Still, this comprehensive live set does a fine job of collecting Molly Hatchet's no fuss rockers ("Whiskey Man," "Bounty Hunter"), extended boogie jams ("Gator Country," "Fall of the Peacemakers"), and melodic rock experiments ("Stone in Your Heart," "Satisfied Man"). On another positive note, "Flirtin' With Disaster" and "Beatin' the Odds" are simply fantastic songs, and two pieces of disposable pop featured on the vinyl version were thankfully excluded from the CD version.
