TS: Climax Blues Band vs. Little River Band

And because when my buddy Eddie sings "Reminiscing" I get the goofiest dumb grin on my face.

Climax Blues Band was okay in the beginning. "That's All" (no, not the Genesis song) is almost Manfred Mannesque. "Couldn't Get It Right" is one of the best singles of the mid-seventies, and "I Love You" is okay for some nostalgic syrup.

But, man. LRB. Just the intro's to their songs win me over. Songs like "The Night Owls" show why being assholes damned the Eagles. Maybe being from Australia kept them right and humble. Then you've got the bouncy little riff of "Reminiscing" clouding your pores. "The Other Guy" is such a sad song in the most passive-aggressive way. And as I alluded to in the last thread, "Man on Your Mind" has one of those elastic bass lines that smears across the nicest sounding beat.

Climax Blues Band, though a good blues band, couldn't get it right in the end. Whenever I want a cool change, I turn to the Little River Band.

(BTW, there's a Little River County in Arkansas!)

It can be pretty entertaining to check out the "Customers who bought this title also bought:" section for a given release on Amazon. In the case of the LRB's greatest hits comp, the listing makes for, as one might guess, a brief rundown of some of the schlockiest names in 70's soft rock-- including Player, Ambrosia, and Orleans, who together comprise something of a truly unholy triumvirate.

As for "Sentimental Lady", I think that Welch's version with Fleetwood Mac is really fantastic; superior to his solo recording of it...

ARS started heavy and went more into smooth pop, picking up an audience from American radio along with way. "Spooky," I think, had been a hit before for them -- when they were called the Classics IV (?). "Red Tape," which was about their heaviest record -- "Another Man's Woman" was alcoholic southern bruiser fare -- didn't do much for them in the market.

Wish all you like for Climax Blues Band to stylistically go up against Little River Band. That doesn't make it a match with much sense to it, particularly for quite a bit of CBB's stuff, material I'm betting you've never heard.

CBB were mediocre most of the time and often frankly lousy. But like a lot of hard rock bands, which LRB wasn't, they managed about one to two full albums worth of material that showed some fire and iron.

"Walking through the park and..."

Climax Blues Band, though a good blues band, couldn't get it right in the end. Whenever I want a cool change, I turn to the Little River Band.

godamm when can we reset the ilx archive?

where does Starbuck fit into all this?

The only Little River song I care about is “reminiscing” and “couldn't get it right” blows it out of the water.

Someone needs to put that one on Guardians of the Galaxy 3 or some other blockbuster pronto so it gets comeback success and I can start hearing it everywhere. very underrated and better than most of the AOR 70’s hits that still get heavy airplay.

I've always liked "Happy Anniversary" by LRB, which is about as far from a Hallmark song as you can get, really. Plus, the singer reminded me of Harvey Keitel.

CBB has Stephen King on drums though

what's with the vocal production on that track? sounds very recent!

cover's wild...
https://cps-static.rovicorp.com/3/JPG_500/MI0000/169/MI0000169363.jpg

They do vocal harmonies an octave apart which sort of reminds me of Squeeze... the vocals are pretty much perfext.

Perfect too

Perfect too

Original singer Colin Cooper passed away 10 years ago. I had no idea they’re still touring from time to time, they have Graham Dee on vocals nowadays... man that guy has aged rather gracefully and still has a good voice:

https://youtu.be/-NF7rAfohAw

One of my favorite things about this song is, during the final chorus repeats, when the cool minor-key melody from the verses and the sax/guitar solo start playing over that progression. IIRC the chorus is the relative major of the verse (C and Am) but it just sounds so great.

Never made that Squeeze connection but it's right on! Very close to something like "Take Me I'm Yours."

"Couldn't Get It Right" sounds like something the Arctic Monkeys would have recorded had they decided to re-orient their sound totally around AM's "Snap Out Of It" (a scenario I'd totally be into, at least for a record or two)

Love the story of how that song came about:

The band at the time had released eight albums and although that had translated into fame, they did not have a great impact on the charts.[8] Copeland suggested a cover version of an Elvis Presley song; this suggestion was ignored, and instead the band came up with an original composition[9] "from absolutely nowhere". It was simply a case of sitting in the studio, conjuring up a rhythm, appending the traditional dual vocals for which Climax Blues Band were known for, and coming up with a couple of hooks. The sudden emergence of the song irritated the producer, as he thought the band had been withholding a hit from him.[4]

Also, their oldest member (keyboardist Arthur Wood) was twenty-two years older than their youngest member (singer-guitarist Pete Haycock).