By Peter
Lindblad
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| The one and only Roger Earl has served as Foghat's drummer since the beginning of the band. |
When Roger Earl,
“Lonsome Dave” Peverett and Tony Stevens left British blues bashers Savoy Brown
in 1970 to form their own harder rocking, blues-infused, boogie-rock outfit, dubbed Foghat,
Simmonds – the brother of Savoy Brown guitarist and leader Kim Simmonds – was
dead set on blackballing them from ever setting foot on any stage anywhere in
the world.
Money issues helped drive them away, and, according to Earl, Kim wasn't about to stand in their way.
“Kim was kind of
okay about it,” said Earl. “Everybody was getting about 60 pounds a week, and
the band was earning like $10,000 a show or more. It might be a different
number. I’d never been paid for any of the records we did. I got paid on the
last one.”
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| Savoy Brown - A Step Further |
After the
release of 1970’s Looking In,
Earl and company were looking to go off on their own. Harry wasn’t having any
of that.
“It was going
well, and Kim had just signed a new record deal, and probably for hundreds of
thousands of dollars, and we weren’t getting any (laughs),” said Earl. “Anyway,
we thought about it and said, ‘Look, we’ll stay in the band as long as you need
us, and then we’re going to start looking to do something else.’ That’s when
the manager told us that we’d never play again. Kim didn’t say that. In fact,
Kim and I have remained friends over the years, and I have a great deal of
respect for him as a player, and, as I’ve said, he gave me my shot.”
Nobody gave
Foghat a chance in 1970, and Earl was started to get worried, although in
December of that year, they did recruit a valuable new member in guitarist Rod
Price, from the band Black Cat Bones.
“It was a little
weird being told that you’re never going to work again,” said Earl, “and it was
kind of scary for a while, but things turned out all right in the end.”
That it did,
thanks to the formidable Albert Grossman, who set Foghat on a path paved with
gold and platinum records that allowed them to become one of the
hardest-working, and most successful, touring acts of the 1970s. Despite lineup changes and the deaths
of original members like Peverett, they haven’t lost their ability to wow
audiences with their musical prowess, as Foghat’s latest concert DVD, “Live in
St. Pete,” makes abundantly clear.
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| Foghat 2014: Craig MacGregor (bass); Charlie Huhn (lead vocals/guitar); Roger Earl (drums); and Bryan Bassett (guitar). |
One more for the road
Even now, in his
late 60s, Earl still loves the road. And so does Huhn, and so does Bryan Bassett, the former Wild Cherry and Molly Hatchet guitarist selected by Peverett himself to replace him in the
band. And so does longtime bassist Craig MacGregor, although he did leave the band for a spell in the early '80s.
In 2011, the
foursome had just fulfilled all their tour commitments for the year. They got
an offer to do one more.
“So what
happened was, we finished actually touring for the year, and our agent called
us up and said, ‘Look, somebody’s canceled at this club down in Florida in St.
Pete. ‘Would you guys like to play there?’” recalls Earl. “Myself, I was
already down in Florida, staying at a house down there. Bryan lives down there,
as does Charlie. And two of our crew were already down there. So we called
everybody up and said, ‘Do you want to go out and do one more?’ And they all
said, ‘Please (laughs).’”
Neither the
recording nor the actual video was perfect. Still, it did manage the capture
the essence of a band capable of performing with enthusiasm and dynamic chops,
not to mention a youthful vigor that belies their age.
“We did it, and
our families were there, so we had a big party afterwards, and our sound
engineer came in with a CD from the night, and he said, ‘I think you sounded
really good,’” said Earl. “And he really didn’t have much to do with it. He
cleaned up most of the stuff he could, and then he handed us something. There
was also video from it, and we went ‘all right.’ We were drinking some wine and
(had some) cheese and vodkas, and having a party at the hotel, and we were
listening to it, and going, ‘Wow! This is really good.’”
The alcohol
did not impair their judgment. Although it sounded good, Bassett, who not only
serves up masterful slide guitar licks for Foghat, but also works as the band’s
studio engineer, had a little trouble cleaning up the mix, according to Earl.
Some of the microphones weren’t working during the performance, but Bassett
made it work.
“We were limited
with the shots they gave us, and so sometimes Bryan will be playing and the
camera will be on Craig or me,” said Earl. “Or, I’ll be doing something, and
the camera will be on Bryan’s feet. Other than a few minor foibles like that,
what we liked about it was the fact that everybody was playing well. I think
Bryan even said he needed to get rid of a couple of feedback squeaks from the
vocal mics. Other than that, it was just a question of getting everything in
order. It took them a while, obviously, but it’s something I wanted to do for a
long time.”
None of it would
have been possible, however, without Grossman.
Guardian angel
But before he became, in essence, their guardian angel, Savoy Brown had been an
important proving ground for Earl, Peverett and Stevens, as they honed their chops to a fine edge.
“I had a great
time with Savoy Brown, touring and the band itself,” said Earl. “Chris Youlden
was a fantastic singer and songwriter, and Dave (Peverett) turned out to be
that as well. Kim continued to get better and better every time he came out,
and yeah, I loved touring with Savoy. We weren’t making any money, but that
didn’t really matter to us at the time. It was always about the music, and it
was a training ground for us.”
Until Grossman
came along and signed Foghat to his Bearsville Records label in 1971, Foghat
was going nowhere, although they didn’t sit idle.
“When we left,
it wasn’t like we wanted to take a break or anything,” said Earl. “We jumped
right back into it, writing and rehearsing and stuff like that.”
Peverett, in
particular, got right to work.
“The night that
we actually sat down with Kim and his brother, Harry, the manager, and we
decided we would leave – well, Tony Stevens got fired, and Dave and I … well,
it’s a long story, but anyway, we weren’t fired – we decided it time to move
on," said Earl. "We went to my room, and Dave started writing and started playing ‘Fool’s
Hall of Fame.’”
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| Foghat's 1972 self-titled debut LP |
“He did
everything for us,” said Earl. “He was the only one who wanted the band. We’d
already recorded seven or eight songs. All of them actually made it on to the
first album. They were our demos and pretty close to what was on the album,
with Albert coming over to us in 1971.”
There was a
showcase was Grossman that clinched the deal.
“Albert was
coming over to England, where we all were, to meet the band and Todd Rundgren
was with him,” said Earl. “And our manager at the time knew Albert and called
up, and he was coming down to see us at a club in north London one afternoon.
Albert came down, and we played seven songs for him, and we were down at
Albert’s place right away for tea and biscuits.”
Grossman made an
immediate impression on Earl in their initial meetings.
“Albert was a
very striking gentleman,” said Earl. “He had big, long, silver hair and small,
brown glasses. We all knew who he was. He was the manager of Bob Dylan, Peter,
Paul and Mary, Janis Joplin, The Band … he was like this giant of giants. He
was really beautiful. He was very tall, and so we’re sitting there with tea and
biscuits, and he had his hands together, not quite like a prayer. And sometimes
he played with his cuticles, and he was sort of like looking around at us, and
he said, with this grin on his face (Earl’s voice deepening), ‘All right. Let’s
do it (laughs).’”
The memory of
that moment still gives Earl a great deal of pleasure.
“Every time I
say that, I just get a thrill, because I remember how I felt when he said it,
because I knew that meant we were on our way,” said Earl.
Getting to work
Wasting little
time, in two weeks, Grossman sent the band $10,000. He also set them up to
record in Rockfield, Wales, and he did something else – namely, getting them a
producer in Dave Edmunds.
“We had most of
the songs put together before we went there,” said Earl. “It was just that we
didn’t have anybody to produce it. We were sort of self-producing it, and we
were using the engineers at Rockfield. We were musicians. None of us were
producers. The engineers were engineers, not producers.”
As Earl
remembers, Edmunds was working the night shift at Rockfield. When he had time,
Edmunds would lend a hand, or an ear.
“He would come in at like 10, 11, 12
o’clock at night and work through until the next morning or mid-day,” said
Earl. “And we were playing at the farm there; it’s a farm in Wales. And he
sometimes would crossover to where we would still be playing, and Dave would
come into the studio, and we got friendly. We’d sit down and listen to his
stuff, and vice versa. And then sometime during the proceeding – I don’t
remember when, but it was probably with our manager – we talked and said,
‘Let’s get Dave to give us a helping hand.’”
Edmunds was a
godsend, and everybody who heard the results was impressed.
“Dave, he
sprinkled some magic on it,” said Earl. “I didn’t know if everybody else liked
it (laughs). But everybody liked it, and it went down great, and ‘I Just Want
to Make Love to You’ was a Top 40 single over here. So we were on our way.”
The old Willie
Dixon song was an old favorite of the threesome.
“We actually
started playing it when we were in Savoy Brown,” recalled Earl. “Actually,
Dave, myself and Tony Stevens would jam it at sound checks, or if Kim wasn’t
there. I don’t know that Kim ever came in on that, but we would just jam that
kind of riff and play in that kind of riff, and Dave would just sing that song.
So that’s where it came from, but Rod Price came in and put his magic on it,
and then Dave came in and he looked at Rod and said, ‘This is what you want to
do, boyo, in this part (laughs).’ Yeah, that was well done, I think.”
Indeed it was, as the single shot to No. 83 on the Billboard 100. Foghat had their first hit on their hands, and they were eager to keep the momentum going.
"Having a year and a half off, it was a little tough," said Earl. "I think once we got a chance to play again, especially over here in the States, it was great and you sort of grab it with both hands. And we did. We toured incessantly. A couple of members fell by the wayside, but not many (laughs). And actually, Dave loved touring as well. Dave was always up for it no matter what, when or how. Dave never moaned about that. I mean, sometimes he'd get a little pissed off about the money. Other than that, Dave was great."
Not everybody was as keen about Foghat's seemingly endless touring cycle as Earl and Peverett. That was the reason Stevens left the band in 1975.
Rock and Roll, due to the cover, which featured a bakery roll and a rock – as well as 1974's Energized and a pair of 1975 efforts, Rock and Roll Outlaws and the seminal Fool for the City LP. All were recorded during Foghat tours, with the band recording in whatever studios they could when they found a little free time.
Despite the weeks, months and years Foghat spent on the road in those days, they did manage to record a second self-titled record – often referred to as
"It was pretty weird, actually," said Earl. " Anytime you think that [if you spend] weeks or whatever in the studio, everything's getting improved. But we were going to studios for maybe a couple of days to try to lay down the stuff, and then we'd go somewhere else. It wasn't our idea. I think our second album and Rock and Roll Outlaws ... they were a little difficult and were made in a number of different studios and mixed in different places. It was okay, but whereas the first album, we did it all in one place, with the same producer and we had time, I thought that album worked really well."
Fool for the City was a different experience. Foghat had time, and Nick Jameson, on their side.
* Look for Part 2 of our Foghat story in the coming days
Indeed it was, as the single shot to No. 83 on the Billboard 100. Foghat had their first hit on their hands, and they were eager to keep the momentum going.
"Having a year and a half off, it was a little tough," said Earl. "I think once we got a chance to play again, especially over here in the States, it was great and you sort of grab it with both hands. And we did. We toured incessantly. A couple of members fell by the wayside, but not many (laughs). And actually, Dave loved touring as well. Dave was always up for it no matter what, when or how. Dave never moaned about that. I mean, sometimes he'd get a little pissed off about the money. Other than that, Dave was great."
Piecemeal approach
Not everybody was as keen about Foghat's seemingly endless touring cycle as Earl and Peverett. That was the reason Stevens left the band in 1975.
Rock and Roll, due to the cover, which featured a bakery roll and a rock – as well as 1974's Energized and a pair of 1975 efforts, Rock and Roll Outlaws and the seminal Fool for the City LP. All were recorded during Foghat tours, with the band recording in whatever studios they could when they found a little free time.
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| The self-titled Foghat album that's also referred to as Rock and Roll. |
"It was pretty weird, actually," said Earl. " Anytime you think that [if you spend] weeks or whatever in the studio, everything's getting improved. But we were going to studios for maybe a couple of days to try to lay down the stuff, and then we'd go somewhere else. It wasn't our idea. I think our second album and Rock and Roll Outlaws ... they were a little difficult and were made in a number of different studios and mixed in different places. It was okay, but whereas the first album, we did it all in one place, with the same producer and we had time, I thought that album worked really well."
Fool for the City was a different experience. Foghat had time, and Nick Jameson, on their side.
* Look for Part 2 of our Foghat story in the coming days
