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BUY THE CD
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Anybody celebrate a birthday recently? I did last week. At my age, I have a tendency to look back at past birthdays and fondly recall some gifts I received. Since I’m a music lover, many albums and/or CDs have come my way. At twelve years of age, I received A Hard Day’s Night, and the next year, at thirteen, The Dave Clark Five’s Weekend in London. I was, however, on my twenty-fifth birthday, in 1977, feeling old (a quarter century!) when my girlfriend gave me The Outlaws’ third album, Hurry Sundown.
To this day, the title track is one of the most played on my car CD player. I also think it had one of the coolest album covers, as it inspired so many Outlaws fans in getting that as a tattoo—the badass cow skull with the rattlesnakes on both sides of it!
Hughie Thomasson, one of the original members, as well as the song writer and lead gunslinger guitarist, when asked about the band’s early days would say, “If we could sing like the Eagles and play like The Outlaws, we’d have something.”
Ironically, this album had The Eagles’ producer Bill Szymczyk’s imprint in polishing the blazing guitar attack in “Florida Guitar Army.”
The album was truly a collaborative effort, with songs written and sung by Thomasson, Henry Paul, Billy Jones, and new bassist Harvey Dalton Arnold. Behind the drum kit was Monte Yoho, with his inspired drumming, which showed influences from Ringo Starr to Poco drummer George Grantham.
Highlights are Paul’s “Gunsmoke,” with imagery as though it were a novel about the Civil War, great catch phrases by Dalton, such as “I’ve been tom catting for a long time now” from “Cold and Lonesome Feeling,” an autobiographical song, “Night Wines,” by Billy Jones, who was battling alcohol and substance abuse, and the beautiful pedal steel playing by Thomasson on “Man of the Hour.”
However, it is the title track that hooks you and won’t let go. Thomasson’s haunting voice on the song gives perfect narration to the demise of an Outlaw named Sundown. Thanks to the spine-tingling melody and the soaring guitar riffs by Jones and Thomasson, I’ve hit the repeat button countless times on the car CD player while cruising down the Garden State Parkway.
Sadly, that album was the last with the overall southern rock feel due to Paul’s departure from the band. The band’s next studio album, Playing to Win, was more geared toward the arena rock sound. In a recent conversation I had with Henry Paul, he explained that the current Outlaws lineup is trying to recapture the spirit of the band’s first three albums. Their hope is to release a collection of new songs by January, and he took the time to read me some of the lyrics. One song in particular, “The Flame,” is in memory of Thomasson who passed away in September 2007.
If it’s as good as Hurry Sundown, here’s hoping that many of you will receive that CD for your next birthday.
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