The biggest factor preventing the spread of glitter rock in America is the persistent popularity of blues, particularly in the form of its degenerate offspring, boogie.

Original album advertising art. Click image for larger view.

The boogie trend has strengthened the vitality of domestic rock, and lately its purveyors have grown crass enough to relieve some of the style's innate boredom. But the most appealing mutation lies on the horizon: the marriage of blues and glitter, and performed first by Edgar Winter, and now Foghat.

Take that simple boogie beat and guitar drone, add flash and glamour, and you've got the 1974 Foghat. Their approach is livelier, more refined, and more exciting than ever before, and this is one of the most satisfying fast-paced albums since Deep Purple's classic Machine Head.

It jumps open with an unequivocal derangement of ol' Kansas City Joe Turner's "Honey Hush," in a marvelously shameless send-up of the Yardbirds. A rare cut that makes you discover how loud your equipment can go, it sets the album's tone. Ten Years After comes in for the same treatment with "Wild Cherry." Throw in a thankfully tasteless "That'll Be the Day" for an album than wins full points on irreverence alone.

In addition, Energized has a great "Step Outside" that reminds me of Three Dog Night, and an original "Home in My Hand" that's almost as good as the oldie of the same title everyone else is doing. It's a rude, raving riot of an album, from a group that's doing a bang-up job of closing the gap between where rock & roll has been and where it ought to be going.

- Greg Shaw, Rolling Stone, 4-25-74.

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