By JAY ROBERTS

The Cassette Chronicles is a continuing series of mini reviews and reflections on albums from the 1980’s and 1990’s. The aim of this series is to highlight both known and underappreciated albums from rock, pop and metal genres from this time period through the cassette editions of their releases. Some of the albums I have known about and loved for years, while others are new to me and were music I’ve always wanted to hear. There will be some review analysis and my own personal stories about my connection with various albums. These opinions are strictly my own and do not reflect the views of anyone else at Limelight Magazine.

.38 SPECIAL – WILD-EYED SOUTHERN BOYS (1981)

In the mystery writing world, there are those who meticulously plot out their books before doing the actual writing of the story and there are those authors who write by the seat of their pants. While I don’t write mystery novels, I take the seat of my pants approach when determining which album I’m going to write about for a given week. 

Of course, then I have to do a little research about the album so I can learn about an album if I’ve never heard it before or have stuff to flesh out a piece on a release I’m already pretty familiar with.

In the case of writing about .38 Special’s 4th studio album Wild-Eyed Southern Boys, I had to learn about most of the album. While I have managed to acquire all of the band’s albums on either cassette or CD, it’s not like I know every song in their catalog by heart. 

For this album, I ended up knowing three of the nine tracks beforehand. And of those three tracks, I’m pretty sure the album’s title cut I only heard when I owned just a greatest hits release for the band. 

I do remember hearing “Fantasy Girl”, probably on the radio and you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who hasn’t heard “Hold on Loosely”, the biggest song from the album. While it had some success on the singles chart when it was released, it has gone on to become one of the biggest hits for the band. It still has a home in their live set and if you tune into any classic rock radio station you will inevitably hear this song. 

But that’s a good thing because the song does hold up quite nicely. Besides the great vocal from Don Barnes (who trades off lead vocals on the album with Donnie Van Zant), the guitar line provided by Jeff Carlisi provides a killer hook that always manages to draw me in.

For the title cut, I find it funny that given the song’s title, the song isn’t a bit more of a wild rollicking track in terms of tempo. It still has an uptempo drive to it but it is still a bit more mellow in its delivery compared to some of the other fast moving numbers.

That would include the song “First Time Around” which has a smoking musical score to it. Meanwhile, the song “Back Alley Sally” has a nice little rocking beat to it. Given the lyrical subject matter of the song, I thought this song coincided more with the album’s cover art than the actual title track.

Getting back to “Fantasy Girl”, the song ranges from mid-to-uptempo but has a solid hook that keeps me very entertained each time I hear this particular song.

That .38 Special can successfully combine both the Southern Rock and arena rock sounds to make high quality radio friendly tracks has always been the biggest key aspect of their appeal. However, since I’m nowhere near being an expert on their catalog, I was a little surprised to find that the song “Hittin’ and Runnin'” had a bit more of a pronounced bluesy feel to it. It’s woven throughout the song but unless my ears were playing tricks on me, it was there and it made the song that much more interesting to me.

When I first heard the song “Honky Tonk Dancer”, my notes said that I liked the sly guitar playing on the track. And that stuck with me through each successive listen to this song. The guitar work has a nice subtle touch at times and that deepens the overall tone of the music to me.

“Throw Out The Line” was used as the B-side for the “Hold On Loosely” single. While it is likely only remembered as an album track, I liked the hard rocking nature of the song a lot. The same could be said about the album’s final song “Bring It On”. It’s a straightforward rocker that will keep your excitement level high.

I’ve written about two .38 Special albums in the past (Special Forces and Tour de Force) and liked them both. You can now add Wild-Eyed Southern Boys to that list as well. At the moment, I don’t have any more of the band’s albums on cassette but hitting the high water mark on these albums certainly has whetted my appetite to get my butt in gear and investigate the rest of their catalog ASAP.

NOTES OF INTEREST: The Wild-Eyed Southern Boys album was the first album for .38 Special to go platinum. The album was reissued in 2023 via Rock Candy Records with four live cuts added on as bonus tracks.

Survivor’s Jim Peterik co-wrote three songs on the album but wrote the album’s title track on his own.

The song “Hold On Loosely” was the first single released from the album. It rose to #27 on the singles chart. It has appeared on the soundtracks for the movies Joe Dirt and Without a Paddle. It was also used in an episode of the TV series Better Call Saul.  The video for the song is credited with being the 13th video played on MTV the day the network premiered. The album version of the song runs nearly five minutes but the single version is edited down to just under four minutes in length.

By JAY ROBERTS

The Cassette Chronicles is a continuing series of mini reviews and reflections on albums from the 1980’s and 1990’s. The aim of this series is to highlight both known and underappreciated albums from rock, pop and metal genres from this time period through the cassette editions of their releases. Some of the albums I have known about and loved for years, while others are new to me and were music I’ve always wanted to hear. There will be some review analysis and my own personal stories about my connection with various albums. These opinions are strictly my own and do not reflect the views of anyone else at Limelight Magazine.

SURVIVOR – CAUGHT IN THE GAME (1983)

“Jackie no, Jackie don’t go
You’re a hard act to follow”

That lyrical line from the song “Jackie Don’t Go” might also sum up the relative lack of commercial success that Survivor’s Caught in the Game found upon its release in 1983.

Let’s face it, when you write the #1 song in the world in 1982, there’s only one way to go from there. But dismissing this album in the face of being sandwiched between the “Eye of the Tiger” song and album and the Vital Signs album that came afterwards is doing quite a disservice to yourself and the band.

You might be asking why you should go back and check out Survivor’s 4th studio album and the simple reason is that it contains some of their best work. The album’s musical direction had a bit more of a harder edge to it, but it still maintained some great pop melodies throughout as well.

With all but one song written by guitarist Frankie Sullivan and keyboardist Jim Peterik (Peterik wrote the song “What Do You Really Think?” on his own), the album opens with the title track. And while the song itself failed to chart as a single, it is a memorably rocking track. I loved the riff that powers the song. You first hear it in the song’s intro but it is threaded throughout the song and is the first definitive example of how the guitar would be much more in the forefront of the music on Caught in the Game.

I mentioned the song “Jackie Don’t Go” and while the nostalgic look back at a lost love opens with more of a keyboard driven sound, the guitar dominates the rest of the song. It’s just a cool uptempo rocker that has remained one of my personal favorite Survivor songs from the first time I heard the track.

The one true straight up ballad on the album is the song “I Never Stopped Loving You”. It’s got a powerful delivery from singer David Bickler and while the song is more than forty years old at this point, it remains quite a draw and doesn’t sound dated in the least.

There’s a killer hook in the straight up rocker “It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way” and the first side of the album closes out with another uptempo track in “Ready For The Real Thing”. Each of these two songs stand out on their own with great melodies threaded through the faster pace of the delivery.

The second side of the album opens with the song “Half-Life”. Now, I can’t remember if I’ve always thought this about the song or not, but when I was listening to it for this article, I thought the way it was presented in such a dramatic fashion, it felt like it was a track that belonged on the soundtrack of a science fiction movie. The song’s opening definitely feels like music you’d hear at a movie’s opening credits while the rest of the song would play over the end credits. But whatever the actual intent of the song, it was a damn fine piece of work.

“What Do You Really Think?” has a lively pace and hook that carries the listener along quite willingly.

As for the song “Slander”, I really loved the guitar work on this song. I felt this track had a darker tone to it that coincided with the song’s title and song lyrics. I found that tone really had a particular appeal for me.
The album closes out on what I think is one of Survivor’s finest works. The song “Santa Ana Winds” has an epic feel to it. I remember how blown away I felt when I first heard the song. It is vastly different from what most people who are only passingly familiar with the band’s music would expect. Peterik’s keyboards start off the song in the beginning but a more realized rock tempo soon takes over. Bickler’s performance is outstanding on this song and I loved the two extended instrumental breaks that help make up the song’s running time. In particular, the song’s outro really caught my ear.

While Caught in the Game barely broke the Top 100 on the Billboard album chart (#82) when it was released, this album is FAR AND AWAY better than it is given credit for. While nothing is going to replace the “Eye of the Tiger” song and by extension the Eye of the Tiger album atop the band’s list of successes, ignoring the fantastic work on this album is just criminal in my opinion.

NOTES OF INTEREST: The Caught in the Game album has been reissued on CD at least twice. There was a 1999 Japanese edition from Pony Canyon and then Rock Candy Records reissued a remastered edition of the album in 2010. This edition has no bonus material other than an essay/interview with keyboardist Jim Peterik about the recording of the album.

There were four singles released from Caught in the Game according to the album’s Wikipedia page. The title track, “I Never Stopped Loving You” and “It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way” were released in the US while “Slander” was released in Germany. However, other sources including that interview in the Rock Candy Records reissue say only 1 or 2 tracks were given single releases.

Survivor singer David Bickler left the band in late 1983. Though he did return for two stints fronting the band (1993-2000, 2013-2106), the band never recorded another album with him after Caught in the Game.

Special guest appearances on Caught in the Game included Kevin Cronin (REO Speedwagon) and Richard Page (Mr. Mister) on backing vocals. Daryl Dragon is credited for providing “additional keyboards”. He’s best known as the Captain from pop duo Captain & Tenille.

By JAY ROBERTS

The Cassette Chronicles is a continuing series of mini reviews and reflections on albums from the 1980’s and 1990’s. The aim of this series is to highlight both known and under-appreciated albums from rock, pop and metal genres from this time period through the cassette editions of their releases. Some of the albums I have known about and loved for years, while others are new to me and were music I’ve always wanted to hear. There will be some review analysis and my own personal stories about my connection with various albums. These opinions are strictly my own and do not reflect the views of anyone else at Limelight Magazine.

THE SCREAM – LET IT SCREAM (1991)

The Scream is a band that could be seen as a bit of a cautionary tale about missed opportunities.

When the band was originally formed in 1989, they were known as Saints or Sinners. The lineup featured John Corabi on vocals teaming up with three former Racer X members: guitarist Bruce Bouillet, bassist Juan Alderete and drummer Scott Travis. 

However, by the time the band got to recording what would become the Let It Scream album, Scott Travis had left to join Judas Priest. Call it a case of taking advantage of a much bigger opportunity. Considering Travis is still the drummer for Priest, it seems to have worked out well for him.

The band changed their name, brought in Walt Woodward III as their new drummer and the album got recorded. But in yet another example of seizing the bigger (or golden) opportunity, soon after Let It Scream was released, John Corabi left The Scream to take over as the new singer for Motley Crue.

I guess it was just never meant to be for The Scream. I’ve long known most of this story but like any number of other music fans I’m sure, I never actually got around to checking out the album itself. But just a few days ago, I was perusing a newly acquired collection at the local record shop and found a damn near pristine cassette edition of Let It Scream. I couldn’t let this opportunity pass me by yet again, so I bought it and jumped into listening to the album.

What did I think? Well, holy cow! I should’ve  followed Travis and Corabi’s example and seized the opportunity I had to listen to this album more than three decades ago.

The album opens up with the song “Outlaw” and it is made pretty clear from the outset that the band had everything going for it in the songwriting and performance departments. “Outlaw” is a keyed up hard charging rock and roller track from the start of the song. Corabi sounds incredible hear and the rest of the band is just on fire.

But as I would soon discover, there were a lot of different facets to the material The Scream had to offer here. Sure, most of the material was high energy rock but when the band switched things up here and there, they did it with great aplomb.

You’ve got pure straight up rockers like “Give It Up” on Side One. But then you have a song like “I Believe in Me” that blows the roof off the place and features a saxophone solo that deepened the song’s sound to my ears. 

Rounding out the first side of the album, you’ve got a couple tracks that incorporate far more of a blues rock style. “Man in the Moon” starts off slow, its bluesy drawl seeping into your brain through the song’s first verse, before the band comes on much stronger and you are hit with a solid ball of head-on rock. The side-closing “Never Loved Her Anyway” gives listeners a down home groove thanks to the track being fueled mostly by a superb acoustic guitar line threaded throughout the song. Add in a great vocal turn from Corabi and you’ve got a killer track. 

I loved all that uptempo rock but I found myself quite struck by the song “Father, Mother, Son”. It’s pretty much a slow moving track up until the guitar solo, but the deliberate nature of the music lets the lyrics shine through this song that serves as a reflection and thank you to departed parents. Perhaps because my own parents are gone serves as the reason why this song was such a stand out.

When the second side of the album kicks off, there’s kind of a funky style to the song “Tell Me Why”. It’s mixed in amongst the more hot rocking portions of the music but it sure caught the ear when I listened.

On the song “Tell Me Why”, I swear there’s a female vocal accompanying John Corabi’s vocal take but damn if I can find any info on the liner notes as to who it may be. But I liked how the two vocals played off each other. That song and “Every Inch a Woman” are both white hot rockers. The song “I Don’t Care” is also a lively number that will get your heart racing. 

The song “You Are All I Need” is the one track on Let It Scream that didn’t quite do it for me totally but that was mainly due to how repetitious it sounded towards the end of the track. Before that point, I thought the song was pretty good. It first focused on just the vocal performance with a light musical touch to accompany Corabi. As the song’s chorus hits you get more of an instrumental flourish. The backing vocals include Ray Gillen and Jeff Martin who were both in the band Badlands at the time. Martin was also a former member of Racer X.

The album closes with the song “Catch Me If You Can”. It has an extended instrumental intro that went on just long enough that I wondered if it was going to be a full on instrumental track before the vocals kicked in. The band plays this song like their was a fire under their collective butts. It’s got a lightning fast delivery that in some ways reminded me of what little I remember from listening to a Racer X album way back when. But there’s a killer driving tempo to the song that is undeniable and I found this song particularly enjoyable. You get musical fireworks and then comes a rollicking vocal performance that tied everything together.

While not having listened to this album before makes me just as guilty as everyone else, I can’t help feel that had the music world not “conspired” to take and take from The Scream, they might just have had a chance to be something really special. I say this because the Let It Scream album is chock full of great songs and performances. It’s a stunningly self-assured album that shows The Scream deserves to be remembered for far more than as a launching pad for it’s members going on to bigger opportunities.

NOTES OF INTEREST: The band recorded a 2nd album with featuring Corabi’s replacement Billy Fogarty. It was called Takin’ It to the Next Level but it was never released as the band was dropped the record label.

According to the album’s Wikipedia page, there is a bonus track on Let It Scream called “Young & Dumb” but it must only be on the CD version of the album because it isn’t on the cassette. That song was used in the movie Encino Man in 1992.

Drummer Walt Woodward III died in 2010. While he never played on the Let It Scream album, drummer Scott Travis does have a co-writing credit on the song “I Don’t Care”.

I saw John Corabi during his first stint with The Dead Daisies when the band opened for a Kiss tour. I got to meet him after the set.

By JAY ROBERTS

Assuming this article is posted on its regularly planned day, when you read this piece it will be four days until Christmas.

But once again this year, I didn’t have to wait until the big day to get some presents. Instead, I got 24 presents over the course of 2023. That’s how many articles were written in The Cassette Chronicles series for the year. I got to discover old gems that I’d never heard before, rediscover some albums I hadn’t listened to in a while and had a few stone cold classic albums to write about as well.

The good news for me is that The Cassette Chronicles will return again in 2024. I love doing this series and since Jay and Katie seem to like what I’m doing, I’m more than happy to keep writing this series. The series will return in either the first or second week of January and will once again keep the every two weeks publication schedule.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading what I had to say about the albums this year and will continue reading into the new year. Until then, here’s a look back (in no particular ranking order) at ten albums I talked about in 2023.

See you next year!

(Please click on the cassette title to read the article)

1 – WITNESS – WITNESS

2 – JOHN WAITE – NO BRAKES

3 – HERETIC – BREAKING POINT

4 – JUNKYARD – JUNKYARD

5 – DANGEROUS TOYS – PISSED

6 – DIO – HOLY DIVER

7 – CINDERELLA – HEARTBREAK STATION

8 – GENESIS – INVISIBLE TOUCH

9 – HELLOWEEN – KEEPER OF THE SEVEN KEYS, PART 1

10 – GREAT WHITE – SHOT IN THE DARK

BY JAY ROBERTS

The Cassette Chronicles is a continuing series of mini reviews and reflections on albums from the 1980’s and 1990’s. The aim of this series is to highlight both known and underappreciated albums from rock, pop and metal genres from this time period through the cassette editions of their releases. Some of the albums I have known about and loved for years, while others are new to me and were music I’ve always wanted to hear. There will be some review analysis and my own personal stories about my connection with various albums. These opinions are strictly my own and do not reflect the views of anyone else at Limelight Magazine.

U2 – THE JOSHUA TREE (1987)

With a reported 25 million copies sold, including at least 10 million here in the United States, the U2 album The Joshua Tree almost certainly needs no little the way of introduction.

Looking at the album’s Wikipedia page, you get the idea that there has been a lot written about the album over the thirty-six years since it was first released. Hell, that page looks like someone wrote a dissertation about the album.

So I don’t think I have to write much in the way of anything approaching critical analysis in this article. I’m sure that how I reacted to the album back in 1987 and then going forward is more in tune with my own personal thoughts rather than going along with the general masses anyway.

But before we get into the album, a bit of my personal history with U2. I didn’t get into the band with their first three albums. I know that WBCN-FM out of Boston was a very early supporter of the band but I didn’t discover U2 for myself until they had that hit single “Pride (In the Name of Love)” off of the album The Unforgettable Fire, which is the predecessor to The Joshua Tree. I remember listening to the song on American Top 40 but I can’t remember how I came to own that particular album on cassette (which I still have in my collection).

That song got me hooked into the band as a fan, but I don’t think anyone was prepared for what was to come when March 9th, 1987 came and The Joshua Tree album hit the shelves. I know I sure wasn’t but from the first time I bought the cassette (which is what I listened to for this article), I was blown away.

The music, which is a lush tapestry of music throughout, is credited to U2 as a whole. Singer Bono is credited with writing all the lyrics. And while a varied set of topics are explored in those lyrics, I figure it is better to let you all decide for yourself what they mean. While I never delved deep into the actual meanings behind each song, I always had my own interpretation no matter how far off those might end up being.

Of course, the band was already popular with four studio releases to their credit already (plus a live release that was recorded in Boston). But everything that came before was just setting the table for what came forth from the recording sessions of The Joshua Tree.

The album opens with a trio of songs that became instant classics for U2 and they were also the first three singles (in a different release order) from the album. (Five singles in all were released with “In God’s Country” being a North American only release and the “One Tree Hill” single only being released in Australia and New Zealand.)

The song “Where the Streets Have No Name” opens up the album and I found that I was instantly captivated by the slow but steady build of the song’s intro before the guitar line from The Edge comes into play. Just as quickly you get the bass (Adam Clayton) and drums (Larry Mullen, Jr.) before the song takes off in full flight with Bono’s vocals. The song is decidedly uptempo, perhaps the most “rocking” of the eleven song track list. The guitar is superb throughout the song and I remember watching the video they made for the song on MTV a lot. As I recall, they were filming a live performance on a rooftop in LA and so many people were showing up to watch them that the police shut down the shoot after they did this song.

The song “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” continues to resonate quite strongly with me even now. The track switches between mid-and uptempo tones and this one became another monster track for U2. I don’t know that I need to say too much more about this other than for anyone who hasn’t heard the song to go check it out for themselves. I think you’ll find yourself pretty captivated by what you hear.

But as much as I think those two tracks are absolute stone cold classics, I wonder if they ended up still ranking just a teensy bit behind “With or Without You”. That song was the first single released from The Joshua Tree and is STILL a megahit with the fan base. It’s a ballad in musical tone and delivery with a little bit of “power” infused later in the song’s run time.

So that’s three for three to start off the album. Killer songs with huge commercial success. But what about the last two songs on Side One? Well, they may not have been singles but neither song is any kind of a slouch or letdown.

You have “Bullet The Blue Sky” which has a thumping rhythmic feel to it. And from the very first time I listened, I thought there was kind of a sneering attitude to the lyrics and how they were delivered at various points in the song. (Again, these are MY interpretations of the songs which are likely to have no basis in reality.) The funny thing I remember most about this song actually has nothing to do with U2 themselves. Rather, I remember seeing Queensryche in concert at the Orpheum Theater in Boston. I forget which album they were touring for but they covered “Bullet The Blue Sky” during the show. Stranger still for me was it wasn’t a particularly good show because singer Geoff Tate was sick and the show was pretty short. It was the first time I can remember being disappointed by their concert performance.

As for the side closing song “Running To Stand Still”, I remember reading the song title on the cassette insert and being intrigued simply because of the title. It’s a slower song, with a decidedly softer musical feel to the song. But still, I loved the song.

As for Side Two, much like “Running To Stand Still”, I was immediately intrigued by the song “Red Hill Mining Town” simply by the song’s title. Then I listened to the song and it was killer. The song briefly opens with a soft focus delivery but quickly grows more forceful, with Bono’s vox at times becoming pretty plaintive in how he sings the lyrics. The underlying rhythm track is solid but when The Edge, Clayton and Mullen, Jr. amp up the music for sections of the song, something special happens. I know the song wasn’t released as a single but I love this one as much as if it had hit #1.

As for “In God’s Country”, it does give a challenge to “Where The Streets Have No Name” for most rocking song on the album. And you know what, it may just outdo it in that particular department. I’m not sure if this is an accurate description but the song opens with this jangly guitar sound and from then on, the song just bulldozes its way across your eardrums. And as good as the vocals from Bono are, I think this song belongs to its musical score just a tad more. The guitar playing is impeccably assured here. Whenever I hear the song, it’s like getting my mind blown all over again.

The way the band composed the songs for The Joshua Tree really varied the types of songs they had to offer listeners. Case in point, the song “Trip Through Your Wires”. I’m not sure how anyone else feels about this one but I think it is an inspired track. You’ve got the bluesy music amped up with the harmonica from Bono. Plus there’s a kind of swing to the band’s performance as well.

“One Tree Hill” was written for a close friend of Bono’s that became a roadie for the band. When he was killed in a motorcycle accident, this song came from Bono’s grief. The funny thing is that while it was never released as a single, I thought it should’ve been back in the day. Of course, that was because I didn’t know the backstory of the song at that time. Still, the song has a kinetic energy that is still evident even now.

As many times as I’ve listened to The Joshua Tree over the years, I never looked into the creative process behind the song “Exit”. So imagine my surprise that the lyrics were inspired by the Norman Mailer book The Executioner’s Song about serial killer Gary Gilmore. It seems like such an odd pairing for U2 but the song is incredible. Plus the music gives you the chills as if it is embodying all the fear that a killer like that would inspire. Of course, there’s much more involved in the song to say the least but it sure gave me at least some new insight into the track.

The album closes out with the song “Mothers of the Disappeared”. It first starts out relatively soft. Bono’s vocals are hushed and the music kind of coasts along without too much forcefulness. As the song goes forth, the music does become a bit more upfront in the mix. While the song is generally about U.S. foreign policy at the time, I always thought of it serving as kind of an elegy for The Joshua Tree album itself. Yes, totally not what was going on in the track but that was my initial impression when I heard the track back in 1987.

As noted before, it has been thirty-six years since The Joshua Tree was first released. It was a commercial success beyond measure and made U2 global superstars. Something that hasn’t changed through all the time that has passed since then. It’s one of the most successful albums ever released. And there’s no real way to deny how influential the album has been on rock music either.

I’m mainly a hard rock and heavy metal fan. Nothing is going to change that. But something else that will never change is that I think of U2’s The Joshua Tree album as one of my personal favorite albums of all time as well. There’s so much going on here that I could spend another thirty-six years listening to the album and still not fully grasp everything that went into creating about as purely perfect a listening experience as you could imagine.

NOTES OF INTEREST: The Joshua Tree album has been given two anniversary reissues. The 20th anniversary version has a bonus disc with 14 tracks including B-sides and more. There’s also a DVD with a concert, documentary and two music videos.

The 30th anniversary edition has a 2 disc version with the 2nd disc being a concert from New York in 1987. The four disc edition has that concert plus a disc of remixes and what appears to be the disc of B-sides from the 20th anniversary edition. I have the two disc edition of this release. I got it when I realized that I didn’t have The Joshua Tree on CD at all.

I’ve only seen U2 in concert once. It was pretty special as my parents got me tickets for my birthday. It was the tour for the Pop album. While there’s been a lot said about that album and the tour over the years, I rather enjoyed U2’s performance on the evening even if I didn’t like the new material they happened to play all that much (Pop is not one of my favorite U2 albums). But the classic songs, KILLER!

By JAY ROBERTS

The Cassette Chronicles is a continuing series of mini reviews and reflections on albums from the 1980’s and 1990’s. The aim of this series is to highlight both known and underappreciated albums from rock, pop and metal genres from this time period through the cassette editions of their releases. Some of the albums I have known about and loved for years, while others are new to me and were music I’ve always wanted to hear. There will be some review analysis and my own personal stories about my connection with various albums. These opinions are strictly my own and do not reflect the views of anyone else at Limelight Magazine.

WHITESNAKE – LOVE HUNTER (1979)

“I love the blues, they tell my story. If you can’t feel it you can never understand.”

That line, from the song “Walking in the Shadow of the Blues”, is a drop-dead awesome introductory lyric and while it may not sum up any kind of description of me, it does loom large for me when I talk about that song.

But we’ll get to that in a bit. First off, it’s been just over four years since I first wrote about a Whitesnake album for The Cassette Chronicles series. Truth be told, despite having multiple albums on cassette from the band, I hadn’t really even thought about writing about another one. There’s no great rhyme or reason to that, it just hadn’t come to pass.

But then a couple days back, I watched a video on YouTube with a ranking of Whitesnake’s studio album catalog and suddenly, I just felt like the time was right to talk about another album. Oddly enough, I have yet to broach the idea of writing about the band’s breakthrough albums of the 1980’s. There’s not a whole hell of a lot new to say but maybe down the line I’ll have a piece on one of those huge releases.

No, instead I’m once again focusing on the first incarnation of Whitesnake. The blues rock driven 1970s version. The one that would basically become a home for ex-Deep Purple members (with keyboardist Jon Lord already on board for this album).

As I wrote when I talked about the Whitesnake album Come and Get It four years ago, this version of the band was something I only discovered after the band went supernova with the self-titled 1987 album.

It is a case of better late than never because I found out just how much I loved this version of the band. I’ve listened to Love Hunter any number of times over the years so most of the album isn’t much of a “discovery” to me. In fact, I rather appreciate and love the album quite a lot. But as I listened to the album for this article, it was pretty cool to find myself once again rocking out to early David Coverdale and crew!

One of the earliest things that stands out in particular with this album is that David Coverdale is not the only singer who gets to shine in the vocal spotlight. In fact, guitarist Bernie Marsden shares lead vocal duties with Coverdale on the album’s opening track “Long Way From Home”. That song has no preamble to it at all. When you hear the first notes of the song, it is already in full rocking form from those first moments. It’s a quick and lively rocker and it is just the start of some incredible rock and roll moments throughout the album.

Whitesnake isn’t really known for doing cover songs but the first side of the cassette does feature the song “Help Me Thro’ the Day”. The song title is ever so slightly altered from the original “Help Me Through the Day” which was written by Leon Russell.

Whitesnake’s version is pretty decent, slower in tempo for sure. It has what I wrote in my notes as a kind of “hazy” delivery. Originally, I was going to say “sleepy” but that not only seemed inaccurate, I thought it might seem a bit insulting which is definitely not what I would say about the track.

The song “Medicine Man” was written by Coverdale alone and it is one hell of a kicking rocker. The side closing “You ‘n’ Me” has a fiery delivery to it that gives the song a nice bit of charm to it.

And getting back to that quote at the start of the article, the song “Walking in the Shadow of the Blues” isn’t just one of my favorite Whitesnake songs, it is a song that I would list as one of my all-time favorite tracks, period. The funny thing is, I didn’t discover this version of the song first. Instead, it was the live rendition on the 1980 Whitesnake live release Live…in the Heart of the City where I first heard the track. And I was just blown away by it. The song was co-written by Coverdale and guitarist Bernie Marsden. It’s got a killer amped up guitar sound powering the track and the vocal performance of what seems like an autobiographical set of lyrics is superb.

I can’t exactly explain why this song hit home with me so much but when I first heard the studio version of the song, it only served to further deepen my love of the track.

When you flip the cassette over to Side Two of the album, you start off with the song “Mean Business” and there’s no doubt that the song and the band live up to the song’s title. It bursts out of the speakers right from the start. The song’s fast paced and electrically charged delivery never relents or relaxes all the way through its running time. Just a killer track!

The album’s title track and the song “Rock ‘n’ Roll Women” are both pretty damn rocking tracks as well. The title cut has a nice solid thump to it while the latter tracks has a quick stepping groove to it.

The most interesting song on Side Two is the song “Outlaw”. It’s a good song, hard charging throughout, but what makes this particularly interesting to me is that Bernie Marsden is the one singing on it, not David Coverdale. Imagine that happening now? I can’t remember if I knew that Marsden was singing and just forgot or if I never realized it even though I’ve listened to the album so many times and read the liner notes probably just as often. But for some reason, when I read the liner notes this time, there was Bernie Marsden credited with the lead vocal and I felt surprised for reasons passing understanding.

The album is chock full of bluesy hard rock, but to close out the album, you get a really brief (just over 90 seconds long) slow moving track called “We Wish You Well”. The song serves not only as the band basically saying so long to the listeners but you could say that it could serve as a way for them to say goodbye altogether when Whitesnake officially ends their run. The song is at first the vocal track and the keyboards of Jon Lord, but then quick as you can, you get the whole band (including guitarist Micky Moody and bassist Neil Murray) joining to give the song a final flourish before it and the Love Hunter album as a whole comes to an end.

As you can clearly see, I love this album. Love Hunter was the second studio release from Whitesnake and you’d be hard-pressed to argue that they didn’t have some really great material. I know that the band will always have the two sides to them but I’ll never have anything overtly bad to say about the early days of the band because every time I listen to the early albums, I wish that I’d seen them during that time. And as you listen to Love Hunter for yourself, you’ll see why I say that.

NOTES OF INTEREST: The Love Hunter album was the last one to feature drummer Dave Dowle. The album was reissued in 2006 with an addition four bonus tracks.

Of the nine original songs on the album, each member of the band had at least one co-writing credit to their name.

The artwork, which is of course considered controversial (both then and now), was done by fantasy artist Chris Achilleos. Oddly enough, it was this piece that had the artist refuse to work with bands again until 2003 when he did an album cover for the Gary Hughe album Once and Future King Part 1. The original Love Hunter artwork was stolen from the artist in the 1980’s. Chris Achilleos had his art featured in magazines such as Heavy Metal and Radio Times. It also appeared on the covers of books featuring Conan the Barbarian, Doctor Who and Star Trek amongst his numerous credits.

By JAY ROBERTS

The Cassette Chronicles is a continuing series of mini reviews and reflections on albums from the 1980’s and 1990’s. The aim of this series is to highlight both known and underappreciated albums from rock, pop and metal genres from this time period through the cassette editions of their releases. Some of the albums I have known about and loved for years, while others are new to me and were music I’ve always wanted to hear. There will be some review analysis and my own personal stories about my connection with various albums. These opinions are strictly my own and do not reflect the views of anyone else at Limelight Magazine.

JUNKYARD – SIXES, SEVENS & NINES (1991)

After discovering just how good the self-titled debut Junkyard album really was a couple months back, I figured I didn’t want to wait too long before hearing what their second album had to offer me as well.

If I was expecting Junkyard to sort of ease into things I was quickly disabused of that notion. The album’s opening cut “Back on the Streets” has a killer pacing to start off the song and that is melded together with a catchy hook filled delivery as the band seemingly goes for broke right from the get-go.

The next song up is “All The Time in the World” and while the song isn’t delivered in quite the same breakneck speed style, there is still an extremely quick moving tempo here. And the song’s chorus really grabs you. The guitar solo on the song is fantastic and singer David Roach continues to surprise the hell out of me. (All that time not hearing the Junkyard albums is really biting me in the butt once again!)

While there is always a bluesy type of feel to Junkyard’s brand of hard rock, the song “Give The Devil His Due” brings that swinging rhythmic blues-driven feel more to the forefront of the song. I could feel my foot start bouncing in rhythmic time to the music and I love when a song can make this totally lacking in any kind of rhythm guy feel like I could somehow move in time to the music.

“Slippin’ Away” (not to be confused with the Dokken song of the same or at least similar name) is much slower at the start. Not quite a ballad delivery, but it has that kind of storytelling country music vibe even with the harder rock edge coming in here and there throughout the song. The lyrical content is excellent. I know that I usually prefer the more rocking type of song but this track was just flat out superb. You can wrap yourself up in the music as the song transports you into the world it creates with each note and lyric line.

The first side of the album comes to a close with the full bore rocker “Nowhere To Go But Down”. The music hits you square out of the gate and then Roach’s vocals hit you all over again! It is yet another song that will grab ahold of you and not let go until the final note. The lyrical content makes it seem like Roach and/or the band is admonishing some repeated ne’er do well or something. Just a damn entertaining track.

As for the second side of Sixes, Sevens & Nines, the song “Misery Loves Company” kicks things off in an interesting fashion. You’ve got a hard rocking soundtrack that is deepened by the inclusion of a piano track that makes everything else sound that much more lively. According to the liner notes on the cassette, the piano (and Hammond organ) is played by musician Kevin Savigar. His playing gives this song a great little boogie-woogie sound to it. Incredible to say the least!

The piano goes away for the song “Throw It All Away”. That track has pretty much all sharp edges to it. At first I thought there was kind of sneer in how the vocals came across but that ended up being a figment of my imagination. Instead, Junkyard just bulldozes through the song giving listeners yet another song that will let them raise their fists and yell.

There’s a more deliberate delivery on the song “Killing Time”. It’s nearly seven minutes long and the kind of swamp rock music vibe rolls over you like a slow moving river. As the song heads into the chorus, the music does get a bit more of a jolt which gives the song an added edge but it works just about as perfectly as you could hope for.

The slightly country sounding tinge returns in the beginning of the song “Clean The Dirt”. It’s a rather spare musical soundtrack to start the song off with the guitar and vocals pretty much alone in the forefront, the drums come in a bit later and at first they are almost muted (or pushed way down in the mix), but then the band comes in full for the song’s chorus before going back to the slower delivery. That tempo switch continues throughout the song and makes for a very interesting track to listen to.

The album ending track “Lost in the City” has its foot on the gas from the first note of the song. It aims for straight between your eyes and finds the mark easily enough. Just a resoundingly uptempo way to end the album. It plays almost as a final victory lap in my head because it finishes off a rather superb album that has just rocked me back on my heels with just how good it is.

One thing I can definitely say after hearing the two Junkyard albums is that the next time they are in my area (or at least close enough that I can drive there and back), I’m going to have to go see them live. The studio material is just incredible and now I have a serious hankering to see how it translates live. Sixes, Sevens & Nines once again confirms that I’ve done myself a great disservice to have waited so long to get into Junkyard and that I now have a lot of catching up to do!

NOTES OF INTEREST: Guitarist Chris Gates and singer David Roach co-wrote each of the tracks. There were only two other co-writing credits with one of those being Steve Earle. He co-wrote (and sang backing vocals on) the song “Slippin’ Away” with Gates and Roach. He also added background vocals on the songs “Misery Loves Company” and “All The Time in the World”.

Bassist Clay Anthony left the band just before the Sixes, Sevens & Nines album was released. He passed away in 2020.

By JAY ROBERTS

The Cassette Chronicles is a continuing series of mini reviews and reflections on albums from the 1980’s and 1990’s. The aim of this series is to highlight both known and underappreciated albums from rock, pop and metal genres from this time period through the cassette editions of their releases. Some of the albums I have known about and loved for years, while others are new to me and were music I’ve always wanted to hear. There will be some review analysis and my own personal stories about my connection with various albums. These opinions are strictly my own and do not reflect the views of anyone else at Limelight Magazine.

DANGEROUS TOYS – PISSED (1994)

With the sold-out Dangerous Toys show at The Vault in New Bedford, MA, happening just two days (Saturday October 21, 2023) after this article will post online, I thought it would be interesting to check out the band’s album Pissed this week. While I’ve written about the band’s self-titled debut album and their Hellacious Acres release, not only have I not written about their third album but I’ve never even heard it before deciding to write about it for The Cassette Chronicles.

So I get to go in totally cold on the 10 tracks that make up the album because to the best of my knowledge I’ve never heard any of the songs at all. And since the most recent set lists attributed to the band on setlist.fm say that two songs from Pissed are played live, it might be nice for me to have some familiarity with them.

And that new-slash-growing familiarity with those two songs comes right at the start with both the title track and “Paintrain” opening things up on Side One.

There’s nothing in the way of overture or intro for the title track with the music pretty much kicking in hard and fast right from the first notes. It’s aggressive with singer Jason McMaster viciously intoning “You always seem to piss me off!” While the song may not have had the same “hit single” attached to it as the band’s best known songs, I really liked this song and the seeming level of extra intensity the band had in the delivery.

With “Paintrain” listeners get another in-your-face rocker with a razor sharp focus from the music given increasing fuel to the fire with the gripping vocal performance.

As for the rest of Side One, “The Law Is Mine” kicked off with this very brief but cool sounding drum beat in the intro before the band kicked in as one. This is a blast of a track for me. I loved the way the guitar solo came out on this one. The fast pace had my foot a-tapping throughout.

On “Promise The Moon”, I wasn’t crazy about the way Jason McMaster’s vocals were presented during the song’s first lyrical verse. It was just too over-produced sounding to me. And while this song is probably what we all would consider a “power ballad” (or at least the Dangerous Toys version of one), it’s actually a pretty cool track. McMaster’s vocals return to a more natural style after the song’s first stanza and the questioning and emotional nature of the lyrics come through a bit more powerfully.

The first side closes out on a far more aggressive posture with the song “Strange”. The immediate opening of the song might make you think differently the first time you hear the song but man, once that more fiery delivery kicks in, you can hear how the band’s songwriting “posture” changed immediately (and for the better). And the gutteral yet elastic vibe conveyed through the vocal performances are just fantastic. Edgy and vicious without sacrificing clarity and power.

The second side of Pissed opens pretty much like side one. There’s no real table setting intro for the song “Loser”. Instead the song once again just bursts forth from your speakers and goes full bore right from the first note. And man, the guitar playing on this one (particularly the solo) is phenomenal.

And then comes an absolute monster track in “Hard Luck Champion”. OH MY GAWD! This is incredible. A full frontal musical attack of the senses, the music is fierce (with another highly motivating guitar solo) and the way McMaster attacks the vocals is awesome. The middle part of the song slows down just a bit before getting back to the more aggressive stance of the track. This is an amazing song. I WISH this was going to be in the set list this coming weekend.

“Screamin’ For More” and “Oh Well, So What!” serves to provide a particular focus on the way that McMaster’s vocals are rapid fire machine gun bursts. He spits out the lyrics that leaves you rocked back and glued to your seat.

When you hit the album’s final cut, “Illustrated Man” you’ll find that the tempo is a bit more restrained than the two tracks that preceded it but it is still a pretty lively number. And it brings the album to a fitting conclusion.

After Dangerous Toys was dropped from their major label during the tour for their 2nd album, you have to think they were indeed ticked off about how things had gone for them. I would say this third album being called Pissed is probable confirmation of that notion. I’ve seen other reviews and editorial comments calling the album darker and harsher in terms of the music and lyrics. But I have to say that I found myself thoroughly enjoying this album from start to finish.

This was a really interesting development for me because when I wrote about the first two Dangerous Toys album back in 2017 and 2021, I wasn’t quite as taken with those releases as a whole. Sure I liked the “known” songs but particularly with the first album, I thought the non-single tracks left me wanting just a bit.

But Pissed pretty much avoided anything resembling a song I wouldn’t want to hear ever again. It’s a great collection of songs that may have missed its mark with audiences in 1994 but nearly three decades later, it’s finding a home in my cold dead heart.

Listening to this album will leave you feeling anything but “pissed”. Instead, you’ll find yourselves wondering why I was so stupid as to have spent nearly thirty years without knowing just how damn good Pissed really is!

NOTES OF INTEREST: After the recording of the Pissed album, bassist Mike Watson was replaced by Salty Dog’s Michael Hannon.

The Pissed album was produced by Billy Sherwood, who has had two stints (including the current lineup) with the prog rockers Yes.

The album was reissued in 2017 through ex-Megadeth bassist David Ellefson’s record label EMP Label Group.

By JAY ROBERTS

The Cassette Chronicles is a continuing series of mini reviews and reflections on albums from the 1980’s and 1990’s. The aim of this series is to highlight both known and underappreciated albums from rock, pop and metal genres from this time period through the cassette editions of their releases. Some of the albums I have known about and loved for years, while others are new to me and were music I’ve always wanted to hear. There will be some review analysis and my own personal stories about my connection with various albums. These opinions are strictly my own and do not reflect the views of anyone else at Limelight Magazine.

DIO – HOLY DIVER (1983)

Given the fact that Holy Diver, the debut studio album from Dio, is to this day acknowledged as the best album the group did and remains a defining moment in the career of singer Ronnie James Dio, I don’t think it is going to shock anyone if I get the spoiler alert portion of this article out of the way early.

That is to say I absolutely love this album! Of course, I was late in getting around to the album because the first time I heard a Dio release was the Dream Evil album which came out four years after Holy Diver.
But on this first album, when you combine Dio’s vocals with Vivian Campbell’s guitar playing, Jimmy Bain on bass and Vinny Appice on the drums, you definitely get a full-on metal assault that stands the test of time.

Whether or not it was expected to go down that way when the album was originally released, I have no idea. But I know that I still get excited each time I go to put this album on.

The music for Holy Diver was written by the four individual members in varying combinations while Ronnie James Dio wrote all the lyrics. And it is the lyrics that really stand out to me. I mean as a whole within each song and then with each track also having some killer individual lyrical lines that continue to blow me away even now. They have just struck a chord with me so that each time I hear them, I get this little jolt of memory from the first time I heard the words.

The first side of the cassette opens with the song “Stand Up and Shout”, which is ball of kinetic energy tossed into a crowd like a grenade. It bursts out of the speakers and wastes little time in getting the listener amped up. I can’t imagine anyone not jumping out of their seats when you hear this song. The anthemic exhortations feel just as empowering now as they did in 1983. And I love the opening line, “It’s the same old song / You’ve gotta be somewhere at sometime /And they never let you fly”.

The album’s title cut comes up next and while the video for the song isn’t exactly what you would call “great”, it was always a thrill to see it come on MTV back in the day. It’s still one of the most popular Dio tracks and while it is not quite as revved up in terms of tempo as “Stand Up and Shout”, the song still has a highly charged uptempo feel to it. As for a killer lyrical line I think “Between the velvet lies / there’s a truth that’s hard as steel” is great one.

The song “Gypsy” is a solid rocker that lets the band shine nicely as a whole. And the verse: “Well I rolled the bones / To see who’d own /My mind and what’s within /And it’s a given rule / That we’re all fools /But need to have a little sin” always manages to catch my ear.

I could be wrong about this but I think the song “Caught in the Middle” is a bit of an overlooked track in the Dio catalog. But I actually like this song a lot. I like the uptempo pacing and I think Vivian Campbell’s playing on this one is really cool. To top it off, I like Dio’s vocal performance here a lot as well. And the lyrical line “Looking inside of yourself / You might see someone you don’t know / Maybe it’s just what you need / Letting the river I know that’s in you flow” seems rather like a positive affirmation kind of lyric without being the kind of cheesy that would make one’s eyes roll.

The first side of the album closes out with “Don’t Talk To Strangers” which is another classic Dio track of the first order. I love the way the song opens with a vastly slower and more dramatic tempo but then blows up into a take-no-prisoners fiery rip-roaring rocker. At times, Ronnie sounds positively vicious in his delivery. And I have to say, start to finish, the song has a killer set of lyrics though I do love the line “Don’t writing in starlight / ‘Cause the words may come out real” a lot.
As a fan of stories and words in general, I am always on the lookout for song lyrics that can just hit me out of nowhere and continually catch my ear no matter how many times I listen to the song. And the Holy Diver album never disappoints.

The second side of the album opens with “Straight Through the Heart” which is a powerfully stomping rocker. I love the first line of the song “Hanging from the cobwebs in your mind” but the verse “Oh, never tell a secret with your eyes / It’s the eyes that let you down / Tell a little truth with many lies / It’s the only way I’ve found” is just flat out awesome in my estimation.

While “Invisible” starts off with a sense of the theatrical in the song’s intro, it quickly becomes a blazingly hot high energy rocker. The storytelling that Dio does with his vocals and the song lyrics is amazing. It’s another track that I found that I love the entire set of the song lyrics. But the opening stanza when the song is far slower in tempo always gets me. It’s just incredible to hear “If your circle stays unbroken / Then you’re a lucky man /’Cause it never never never has for me / In the palace of the virgin / Lies the chalice of the soul / And it’s likely / You might find the answer there” before the band comes in hot and heavy and Dio adds an edgy growling tone to his performance with lines like “She was a photograph / Just ripped in half / A smile inside a frown”.

Chances are if you still listen to the radio, you are still hearing the song “Rainbow in the Dark” a lot. I know when I am listening to 94 WHJY out of Providence, RI, I hear the song all the time. You’ve got that instantly recognizable keyboard heavy intro leading into the song as a whole but man, just when you might think the song is a tad overplayed, you hear it again and it hits you all over again. And while I do love all of the lyrics that Ronnie James Dio is singing in the song the stanza “You’re just a picture / you’re an image caught in time / We’re a lie, you and I / “We’re words without a rhyme” is just intensely cool.

The Holy Diver album ends with the song “Shame on the Night” and it’s Jimmy Bain’s bass and Vinny Appice’s drums that not only hold down the bottom end of the track but give it that thumping whallop you hear throughout the song’s running time. It’s a much more methodical delivery that the more fast paced and in-your-face songs but no less heavy and catchy. Plus how can you not like a song that has lyrics like “Shame on the night / For places I’ve been / And what I’ve seen/ For giving me the strangest dreams / But you never let me know just what they mean”?

I can’t imagine anyone who could hear the Holy Diver album and not like it. I’m shocked if people don’t LOVE it! After time in Rainbow and Black Sabbath, Ronnie James Dio got it right once again with his solo Dio band right out of the gates. Holy Diver is an essential heavy metal album that belongs in every fan’s collection. You’ve got great music, killer lyrics and perhaps (or even likely) the all-time greatest metal singer on the mic. What more can you ask for from an album whose greatness is undisputed four decades after it came out?

NOTES OF INTEREST: The Holy Diver album has achieved at least platinum certification according to the album’s Wikipedia entry. It was remastered and reissued in 2005 through Rock Candy Records with audio of Ronnie James Dio answering questions. It was then reissued again in 2012 in a 2-disc edition that had nine bonus tracks on it.

The documentary Dio: Dreamers Never Die was released on DVD and other physical media formats on September 29th, 2023.

A graphic novel entitled Dio: Holy Diver was published by Z2 Comics in 2022. It was written by 30 Days of Night author Steve Niles with art by Scott Hampton and Bill Sienkiewicz. Its storyline focuses on what led up to the moment that is captured on the cover art for the album. I own a copy of the graphic novel and it is a decent story.

According to a September 27th news article link I saw, Dio’s widow Wendy has said that the Dio’s Disciples band will be going back out on tour in 2024.