Foghat: A 'Slow Ride' to the top, Part 2

The highs, the lows and the future
By Peter Lindblad

Foghat 2014: Charlie Huhn, Craig MacGregor,
Roger Earl and Bryan Bassett
(Photo by Steve Sirois)

Not everyone survived Foghat's seemingly endless touring cycles. There were casualties of the road, including bassist Tony Stevens, who had had his fill of it in 1974.

Weeks, months and years spent playing show after show after show left little time to record. Despite that they did manage to follow up their self-titled debut with a second self-titled LP – often referred to as 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, except for Fool for the City, were recorded during Foghat tours, with the band entering whatever studios they could when they found a little free time.

"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."

For a long time, Earl wasn't so keen on either Rock and Roll and Rock and Roll Outlaws. Earl remembers the making of both being rather trying experiences.

Roger Earl behind the kit for Foghat
(Photo by Steve Sirois)

"We did both of those albums kind of piecemeal in different studios," explained Earl. "We didn't know exactly where. We'd go in for a day or two and do it. And then we'd go and do something somewhere else. That I found a little difficult, but having said that, both those albums I had to listen to about a year or so ago, because they were being re-released in Asia and Europe, packaging them all together. I had to listen to them and sort of talk to people about it. And I was surprised how much I enjoyed them. I'd forgotten how they actually sounded, and I thought, 'I don't remember them being this good (laughs).' At the time, you're always very critical, especially when you're in the studio, about whether it's good enough. That's probably the hardest thing to do is to let something go.

Fool for the City was a different experience. Foghat had time, and Nick Jameson, on their side.

Genius level

Along with producing the Fool for the City record, Jameson also took over for the departed Stevens on bass. His musicianship was almost supernatural, and Foghat made good use of it.

Earl became acquainted with Jameson during the recording of Foghat's first album.

"We mixed a couple of songs – a song called 'Gotta Get to Know You,'" said Earl. "He mixed 'Gotta Get to Know You' and he remixed a couple of other things with Dave Edmunds around 1970. So that was my first meeting, and then the second time I met Nick was at Bearsville (Studios in Bearsville, N.Y.). We were just doing some demos and stuff up in Bearsville, and Nick was the resident engineer at the label. Nick and I got real close. I loved the man, an absolute genius as a musician, and I loved working with him, even though that didn't quite work out apparently, but then he came in from time to time over the years."

Living up in Woodstock, N.Y., Earl and Jameson had the opportunity to hang out together often.

"We'd go and play badminton together, or we would go out and jam together at various places, up at the barn, because there were much better musicians up there," said Earl. "I was very closed off up there at Woodstock, and we became very good friends. I loved Nick. I probably learned more from Nick about music and musical things and playing and everything else than any other singular person."

A man of many talents, Jameson wasn't the first choice to replace Stevens, according to Earl's memory.

"So when Tony Stevens left the band in 1974, I think I'd moved to Bearsville, though I shared a house down there on Long Island with Rod Price," said Earl. "Actually, we auditioned (current Foghat bassist) Craig MacGregor, and I liked him, but I think our manager didn't think it would work. So I'm back at Woodstock, and I'm hanging out with Nick, and I said, 'Nick, do you play bass?' He said, 'Yeah, the first thing I picked up was bass.' I said, 'Do you want to join the band?' He said, 'Yeah.' I said, 'All right.' And then he said, 'Hold on. I don't have a bass.' I said, "Oh, so what do we do?' He said, 'I know somewhere we can rent one.' And I said, 'All right. Let's go.' And he said, 'It's 4 o'clock in the morning.' And I said, 'Oh, do you want to hit the bar?' And he said, 'Yes, Roger (laughs).' So then we rented a bass guitar."

Jameson's initiation would have to wait, but when the moment arrived, it was magical.

"At the time I had a 1967 convertible Corvette 427, a bit of a monster," related Earl. "I've always loved cars. I'm a car man. Picking up, we had the top down, and on the way down, the rear axle broke on the car. We were doing about 80 miles per hour, and the rear axle breaks, the swing axle on the back ... one of them broke, all of a sudden. I thought, 'Oh, shit!' Then we pull off the road, and there was a Chevy dealership there. We pull in there, and we could see the car wasn't doing very well at the time. It was sort of stuck up in the rear. They said, 'Well, this is an old car.' And I said, 'Yeah, I know. Can you fix it?' And they said, 'Well, yeah, but it'll cost a bit of money.' Then I call a cab, and Nick and I get in the cab, and we go out to Long Island, and then it started. In fact, we were rehearsing in the house Rod and I shared down there, where we soundproofed the basement. And that's where 'Slow Ride'came from, from a jam."

Jameson hasn't been given enough credit for his role in the creation of "Slow Ride," still a staple on classic rock radio.

"He had everything to do with it," said Earl. "And the fact that he didn't get a writing credit for it ... well, that was it. The arrangement was basically everything that we jammed that night. Nick obviously did the bass playing part, also the break ... every break that was there, Nick came in with. In fact, even the intro, although I claim I wrote it, it was Nick who actually suggested it: 'Hey Rog, just go back.' And I said, 'What do you mean, go back?' 'Just go back.' I said, 'Like this?' He said, 'No, no ... back.' I said, "Oh, you mean like ... bang. Oh, okay.' So I did ... got on to the bass drum. And he said, 'Yeah, that's it.' (laughs) It's basically a John Lee Hooker riff. Instead of playing it like a shuffle, you straighten it out. In fact, the jam part was very similar to what ended up on the record. We even sped it up like on the record, and the middle part, Nick wrote, like the rhythm playing and all that stuff. He didn't get credit for it, but he did get credit for producing it."

Around the same Peverett was trying to learn how to play the saxophone. He would practice at all hours in his hotel room and the house where Foghat was working on Fool for the City.

"And when you're hanging out with a bunch of musicians, you don't say to somebody, 'Here, can you shut the f--k up?'" laughs Earl.

When Jameson heard Peverett's sax, Jameson became inspired.

"So the next morning, Nick goes out behind this secondhand store, and he finds a saxophone, and when we got to the studio, Nick had probably had this instrument for maybe an hour or two, if that," said Earl. "He'd already learned to play it. Dave had been practicing for years to learn to play this instrument. So Nick now is writing charts for sax players, and Dave had a song called 'Going to the Mardi Gras' It didn't make it on the record. I don't know where it is, but anyway, Nick and Dave had all these horn parts written. We recorded the song, and I think Nick also put piano on it. So it had that Mardi Gras kind of feel to it. I don't know what happened to it, but that's typical of his genius."

There was cause for jubilation in the aftermath of Fool for the City, as the band garnered its first platinum record, the infectious, galvanizing anthems "Fool for the City" and the slide-guitar slathered "Slow Ride" fueling rising album sales.

Jameson, though, wanted to get off the ride. He had aspirations of working on his own solo material.

Fishing hole

Able to work at their own pace, with a skilled producer and engineer in Jameson always at their beck and call, Foghat made an album for the ages in Fool for the City, and the record-buying public ate it up.

"Fool for the City was an album we actually took time off and recorded in just one place, and it was just the band and our engineer and producer, Nick Jameson," said Earl. "And I thought that worked really well. Anytime we were just in one place, and we could lock ourselves away, I think the music benefited. Having said that, we were a touring band. We didn't have the luxury of time, where we were going to say take six months off and actually make a record. We did take time to do the Fool for the City album ... in the end, it we proved it to be the right decision (laughs)."

As always, Foghat's sense of humor helped ingratiate them with their fans. The cover for Fool for the City is one that's always given Earl and a lot of people a good laugh. Away from rock and roll, Earl loves to fish. Jameson thought they might be able to use that.

"I'm pretty sure Nick was the one who suggested it," said Earl. "I should ask him about it. I think it was his idea, because anytime I had some time off or I was wanting to unwind, I would go fishing. I'd grab a rod and go."

Foghat - Fool for the City 1975

Needing an idea for a cover photo, Jameson liked the idea of having Earl do some angling in an unlikely place.

"I think we'd finished the record actually, and we were out on Long Island, and we got up early one Sunday morning, drove to Manhattan with a pole, lifted up the manhole cover and started fishing," Earl related. "And a couple of New York's finest came along and said, 'Hey, you got a license?' Because I had a pole, and I said, 'Oh, shit.' And he said, 'Do you have a fishing license?' (laughs) They said, 'What the f--k are you guys doing?' And we explained to him what we were doing, and they said, 'Oh, okay.' So they just made sure the taxis and other cars wouldn't go down the manhole or anything. They're New York's finest, and they laughed at it. They were more worried about murderers, robbers and rapists ... not some rock 'n' rollers pulling up manhole covers (laughs)."

The fun didn't stop there for Foghat. In fairly short order, they found a replacement for Jameson, calling back Craig MacGregor to give him the job. In 1976, Foghat released another gold effort in Night Shift, which boasted another classic track, "Drivin' Wheel."

"'Drivin' Wheel' is probably one of my all-time favorite songs," said Earl. "I love the way it starts, and I thought Craig MacGregor played really cool bass on it.

Foghat - Night Shift 1976

Night Shift was not an easy birth, as Earl remembers it.

"That was a learning experience on that record," said Earl. "In the end, it turned out well, but you know, sometimes the music comes easy and everything sort of flows, and other times, you have to really work at it."

According to Earl, Foghat would lay down basic track in Long Island in a mobile unit, while also working on backing tracks in Manhattan. Dan Hartman served as producer.

"We'd been working with some stuff, and we went over to his studio, and I really like the way he plays," said Earl of Hartman. "He's a very talented musician, and he has great ideas. He's an excellent recording engineer, and we recorded in his house. And it is was this really nice big house, huge big rooms for the drums."

The accommodations were wonderful. Earl said, "What happened on that album was we were really working, but we were working in a really nice environment," said Earl. "We stayed in that house, and we'd get up anytime we wanted and play, and Dan had this fabulous cook ... I remember she was from Jamaica. This woman was absolutely beautiful and made some of the best food."

They ate well, but Peverett and Price were at loose ends, as Earl recalled. "The problem with doing that album was Dave and Rod, I think would come up against a brick wall." Still, it was an enjoyable time for the band, especially with guests like Edgar Winter lending a hand on backing vocals and keyboards.

Foghat - Foghat Live 1977

All of this was prelude to the biggest-selling album of their career, 1977's Foghat Live. It exceeded 2 million copies in sales, but Foghat wasn't about to rest on their laurels, as the band released Stone Blue in 1978, the studio tension between the band and producer Eddie Kramer resulting in a more aggressive sound.

Change of fortune

As Foghat headed into the '80s, however, their commercial fortunes waned and wholesale lineup changes added to their frustration. Price was the first to leave in November, 1980, and MacGregor followed him out the door in 1982, only to return two years later. Jameson came back, playing on In the Mood for Something Rude and Zig Zag Walk.

The biggest hit of all came in 1984, when Peverett departed and went back to England. That one forced Foghat to disband, but only for a short while, as Earl, MacGregor and Price's replacement, Erik Cartwright, regrouped with a new guitarist/singer in Eric (E.J.) Burgerson. Peverett returned to the U.S. in 1990 and formed his own Lonesome Dave's Foghat. Bassett was a part of it.

Three years later, producer extraordinaire Rick Rubin negotiated a reunion of the original Foghat lineup, which released a couple of albums in the '90s. Price would leave again after a second tour of duty, leading to Bassett being welcomed into the fold for good.

Joining forces again brought Earl and Peverett closer than ever. They spent a great deal of time together reminiscing and finding out that when they were much younger, they'd gone to a lot of the same concerts.

"Yeah, we talked about that on our last tour that we did together," said Earl. "It was kind of cool, because we had calmed down somewhat over the years, and afterward, we'd sit in the back of the bus and Dave would put on some music. He was the resident DJ. And we'd sit there having some cheese and crackers and drinking some wine, and we'd talk about stuff we did when we were kids, and who we'd go and see. And it would be like, 'Oh, were you there?' It was strange, because we'd been together since 1967, or something like that, playing together and we'd never really talked about it, seeing Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, Chuck Berry."

Peverett died in 2000, complications from kidney cancer being the cause. Price shuffled off this mortal coil five years later. In 2010, the Foghat lineup of Earl, MacGregor, Bassett and Charlie Huhn – the one that's been together now for years and continued the band's legacy of busy touring – finally completed a project that Peverett and Earl had always dreamed of doing: the blues album, Last Train Home.

And Foghat is working on something that might just top it.

"Well, we've already done a couple of weeks of rehearsing and recording and writing, and we're going to start writing and recording again," said Earl. "We've already picked out a number of songs that we want to do. I've got three or four tunes, with lyrics and stuff, that are written, as I'm sure Bryan and Charlie and Mac do. And we're going to probably have some guests on this album. I find that rather refreshing. When (blues legend and longtime friend of Foghat)  Eddie Kirkland came up it gave us the idea (on Last Train Home). Eddie is no longer with us. I think we'll have some guests and other players joining us. It's always fun when somebody else sort of joins the band for a while, whether it's my brother (Colin Earl, electric keyboard player for Mungo Jerry) or somebody on harp singing or playing guitar."

For Earl, that's the good stuff.

"Playing music is a joyful thing, so playing it with someone else has got to be joyful, right?" said Earl. "Charlie and I were talking the other day about maybe doing a couple of blues songs, or maybe another thing I did back when I was in Savoy Brown. He's a big, huge Savoy Brown fan, so we might resurrect one of them as well. It worked. The idea of sitting down and picking out the songs you really like, and then there's also something to be said for four people being productive and writing original stuff, as well. It will probably be a year along similar lines, but hey, who knows?"

Foghat: 'Slow Ride' to the top, Part 1

Leaving Savoy Brown behind to start something new

By Peter Lindblad

The one and only Roger Earl has
served as Foghat's drummer
since the beginning of the band.

There was no work for Foghat. Harry Simmonds, it seemed, was making good on his promise.

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.”

Savoy Brown - A Step Further

It was Earl who replaced Bill Bruford in Savoy Brown, ending the future Yes drummer’s two-week tenure in the band. Earl and Peverett played on a pair of Savoy Brown albums recorded in 1968, Getting to the Point and Blue Matter, and drummed on the classic single “Train to Nowhere” in 1969, the year Savoy Brown put out A Step Further. Stevens had come aboard to replace Rivers Jobe.

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.

Foghat 2014: Craig MacGregor (bass);
Charlie Huhn (lead vocals/guitar); Roger
Earl (drums); and Bryan Bassett (guitar).

"Yeah, we were rather pleased with it,” said Earl. “We’d been trying to put out a DVD. The last one we had was about 10 years ago, and it was taken from a whole bunch of shows. Over the last 10 years or so, we’d record regularly, or if there was decent filming equipment there (we’d film it), and we’d been going through all the DVDs and stuff that we had, and I’m trying to compile a bunch of tunes that we could put on a DVD. The problem I was having was that some films and shows sounded really good, but the video left something to be desired. Other shows looked really good, and like the bass drum or the bass guitar weren’t on there or we had no lead guitar, or (lead singer) Charlie’s (Huhn) voice was distorted. So, I’d gotten through all this stuff, and it was um … definitely a labor of love, but it really wasn’t (laughs).”

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.’”

Foghat's 1972 self-titled debut LP

That song appeared on Foghat’s self-titled 1972 debut. It was Grossman who greased the wheels and allowed Foghat to make the record. Grossman was Bob Dylan’s manager. His named carried a lot of weight in the business.

“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."

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.

The self-titled Foghat album that's
also referred to as Rock and Roll.

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

Gone fishing: The story behind Foghat's 'Fool for the City' LP cover

Roger Earl remembers an encounter with New York City's Finest
By Peter Lindblad

Everyone's had a good laugh over the years over the cover to Foghat's Fool for the City album cover. Count Roger Earl, the band's original drummer and the only founding member of the '70s blues-rock giants left in the band, among them.

Foghat - Fool For The City

"Yeah, to this day, people tend to get a real kick out of it," said Earl. "The thing is, one has to maintain one’s sense of humor. I think it’s imperative."

The boys in Foghat certainly never took themselves too seriously. On the cover of Fool for the City is a photo of Earl sitting on a soapbox fishing in a manhole in the middle of East 11th Street in New York City. Foghat's American office was located nearby.

Despite being an avid fisherman, it wasn't Earl who came up with the idea.

"Um, I might be wrong, but I believe it was suggested by our producer and bass player at the time, Nick Jameson," said Earl. "I’m pretty sure Nick was the one who suggested it. I should ask him about it. I think it was his idea, because anytime I had some time off or I was wanting to unwind, I would go fishing. I’d grab a rod and go. Fly fishing was always fun, and fishing on rivers, because you could walk. But it didn’t matter if I was in a boat or sitting on a sandy beach, it was still fishing. And that’s the way I still feel. Anytime I could go fishing, it wasn’t wasted time. That what they say, right? (laughs) In fact, I read somewhere, God doesn’t take time out of your life if you go fishing. And I said, “I like that.” Fishermen like that (laughs)."

Some of the local authorities weren't initially so jolly about what Earl and Foghat were doing, as Earl recalls.

"I think we’d finished the record actually, and we were out on Long Island, and we got up early one Sunday morning, drove into Manhattan with a pole, lifted up the manhole cover and started fishing," said Earl. "And a couple of New York’s Finest came along and said, 'Hey, you got a license?' Because I had a pole, and I said, 'Oh, shit.' And he said, 'Do you have a fishing license?' (laughs) They said, 'What the f—k are you guys doing?' And we explained to him what we were doing, and they said, 'Oh, okay.' So they just made sure the taxis and other cars wouldn’t go down the pot hole or anything. They’re New York’s Finest, and they laughed at it. They were more worried about murderers, robbers and rapists, not some rock ‘n’ rollers pulling up manhole covers (laughs)."

One of the best live bands to ever come out of the '70s, as evidenced by 1977's massively successful Foghat Live album, Foghat has a new live DVD out titled "Live in St. Pete" that's available at http://www.foghat.net/. Earl likes how it came out.

Foghat - Live at St. Pete

"Yeah, we were rather pleased with it," said Earl. "We’d been trying to put out a DVD. The last one we had was about 10 years ago, and it was taken from a whole bunch of shows. Over the last 10 years or so, we’d record regularly, or if there was decent filming equipment there, and we’d been going through all the DVDs and stuff that we had, and I’m trying to compile a bunch of tunes that we could put on a DVD. The problem I was having is that some films and some shows sounded really good, but the video left something to be desired. Other shows looked really good, and like the bass drum or the bass guitar weren’t on there or we had no lead guitar, or Charlie’s voice was distorted. So I’d gotten through all this stuff, and it was um … definitely a labor of love, but it wasn’t really (laughs)."

This one, they got right, as per our review of the video. http://backstageauctions.blogspot.com/2014/02/dvd-review-foghat-live-in-st-pete.html

"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?" related Earl. "Myself, I was already down in Florida, staying at a house down there. Bryan (Bassette) lives down there, as does Charlie (Huhn). 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) 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.' And he really didn’t have much to do with it. He cleaned up most of the stuff that he could. And then he handed us something us. 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.'"

And so, "Live at St. Pete" was born. Look for more of our interview with Earl in this space in the coming days and weeks.

  

DVD Review: Foghat – Live in St. Pete

DVD Review: Foghat – Live in St. Pete

www.foghat.net

All Access Rating: B+

Foghat - Live in St. Pete 

The road is littered with the spent carcasses of bands that couldn't survive the grind of touring for interminably long stretches at a time. Roger Earl is made of stronger stuff, and so is Foghat.

Barnstorming their way through the '70s, the raucous blues-infused, boogie-powered, hard-rock gypsies toured relentlessly, proving themselves to be a dynamite live act night after sweaty night, slugging it out under the lights on stages from coast to coast and country to country. If anybody needed confirmation of their raw firepower in a concert setting, 1977's searing Foghat Live album, one of the truly great concert albums in rock 'n' roll history, settled the issue for good.

Earl is all that's left from the original lineup that broke off in 1970 from British blues freight train Savoy Brown, but bassist Craig MacGregor's been a fixture in Foghat since 1975, and those are his boisterous, brawling grooves on classic releases Foghat Live, Night Shift and Stone Blue. And they aren't ready to call a day just yet.

Joining forces with vocalist/guitarist Charlie Huhn, who's played with the likes of Humble Pie, Gary Moore and Ted Nugent, and lead/slide guitarist Bryan Bassett, formerly of Wild Cherry and Molly Hatchet, Earl and MacGregor, such a powerhouse rhythm section, are keeping the Foghat legacy alive, the band still going at it hammer and tong onstage, as a new no-filler live DVD, "Live in St. Pete," so emphatically makes clear.

Devoid of frills, but filmed with great attention to the stellar musicianship of this version of Foghat, "Live in St. Pete" lacks the state-of-the-art visual sharpness taken for granted with such releases these days, but the images of a rollicking band having a whale of time and completely comfortable in its own skin are shot with welcome clarity and warmth.

Full of vim and vigor, and as tenacious as junkyard dogs, these blue-collar heroes run through high-energy favorites like "Drivin' Wheel" and "Fool For the City" with passion and a youthful playfulness, even though they've probably played them both thousands of times. Cooked to a rolling boil, with that insistent throb, "I Just Want to Make Love to You" is maybe less wolfish here than in Foghat's heyday, but they bring more unabashed joy to it nowadays, while Foghat's cover of "Take Me to the River" is delivered with gripping soulfulness and gospel fervor, thanks to Huhn's hard-scrabble vocals.

"Road Fever," "My Babe," "Stone Blue" – Foghat rides roughshod on all of them, but saves their best for the churning closer "Slow Ride," where Bassett's delicious slide guitar drawl sounds greasy and cutting at the same time, as he unleashes a bevy of sinister and seductive movements. "Live in St. Pete" is unspoiled Foghat, suffused with the humidity and summery atmosphere of Florida. The good times never seem to end with Earl and the crew. www.foghatcellars.com; www.facebook.com/foghat; www.youtube.com/foghatmusic
– Peter Lindblad

CD Review: Foghat 'Last Train Home'

CD Review: Foghat 'Last Train Home'

All Access Review: B+

It’s hardly surprising that Foghat would record a blues album. What does raise eyebrows is that it took them this long to get around to it.

After all, three-fourths of the original band, including guitarist/vocalist “Lonesome” Dave Peverett, bassist Tony Stevens and the solo remaining founding member, drummer Roger Earl, all cut their teeth in Savoy Brown, one of the bands that spearheaded the British blues boom of the late 1960s. And even though Foghat would make their bones in the classic-rock arena with the hard-charging anthem “Fool For The City” and the bump-and-grind, slide-guitar wail of “Slow Ride,” both timeless hits that were contractually bound to make up at least part of the soundtrack for every hush-hush late-‘70s high school kegger ever held, blues was always a part of their DNA. 

Only Earl is left from Foghat’s founding fathers to carry on the band’s good name, and for years, he’s had unfinished business he’s wanted to attend to – namely, Last Train Home, the record he and Peverett always wanted to make. And with a new pack of wild-eyed good ‘ol boys – lead vocalist/guitarist Charlie Huhn, guitarist/background vocalist Ryan Bassett, bassist Jeff Howell, keyboardist Colin Earl and Lefty “Sugar Lips” Lefkowitz on harmonica – picking up the flag for Earl’s fallen comrades, the new Foghat rises to the occasion.

A mix of fresh, new compositions and old blues covers, all electrified, Last Train Home is Foghat firing on all cylinders and pouring their hearts and souls into this labor of love. That familiar, nasty slide-guitar you loved on “Slow Ride” is front and center on the smoldering title track and slithering like a snake through the rugged, down-and-dirty grooves of “Born for the Road,” two of three new Foghat originals here. And the great thing is that everything on the electrified blues of Last Train Home bears that Foghat stamp. It’s unmistakably Foghat, Earl having taught his charges well the Foghat way, evidenced even on surprises that include the frantic piano pounding and harp blowing of “495 Boogie,” which sounds like Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Walter on speed, and “Rollin’ & Tumblin/You Need Love,” a mean, gutsy, muscular blues reminiscent of Blackfoot’s Southern rock fury.

Closing time on Last Train Home comes after Foghat interprets two more traditional blues numbers by special guest Eddie “Bluesman” Kirkland, the slow, simmering “In My Dreams” and the whorehouse swagger of “Good Good Day.” While Kirkland sings, and does so expressively, Foghat shows a different side here, performing with touch and feel instead of the more straightforward rock and roll that almost becomes too paint-by-numbers with the band elsewhere on Last Train Home. That slight criticism aside, Foghat has truly honored Peverett’s wishes with this tribute.

-         Peter Lindblad