CD Review: Sammy Hagar – Sammy Hagar & Friends
Frontiers Records
All Access Review: B-
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| Sammy Hagar - Sammy Hagar & Friends 2013 |
That said, the affable Hagar is not without friends, as the
new album of hard-rocking, bluesy, country-flavored collaborations Sammy Hagar & Friends points out.
Taj Mahal, Kid Rock, Nancy Wilson of Heart, Journey’s Neal Schon, Ronnie Dunn
and Toby Keith, Montrose pals Denny Carmassi and Bill Church, and, of course,
his boys in Chickenfoot – the cast is a who’s who of musical
heavyweights. In typically raucous and rowdy fashion, Hagar presides over what should be a
10-song soundtrack for a week-long drunken bender, but by the end, there’s a sense that the hangover has come early, thanks to some strangely reinterpreted covers and an overall sense of malaise.
An uneven set of ballsy, rough-and-tumble, metal-tinged
originals like “Knockdown Dragout” and the slow-burning, fuzz-toned “Not Going
Down,” penned by Jay Buchanan of the Rival Sons, Sammy Hagar & Friends also features the red-hot, tires-squealing, rock ‘n’ roll thrill
ride “Bad on Fords and Chevrolets” – a Hagar-Dunn duet that drives recklessly like a bootlegger being chased through gravelly back roads by the Feds. By far the most exciting and infectious track on Sammy Hagar & Friends, Jerry Lee
Lewis would approve of it and probably join in, although he might not be so
complimentary towards the lazy, lethargic and surprisingly stiff treatment of
“Margaritaville” Sammy and company sleep through here.
Given his taste for tequila and fondness for the laid-back
island fun, everyone knew the day would come when Hagar would try his hand at
“Margaritaville,” and it’s an utter failure, almost completely devoid of any of the
sunny charm of Jimmy Buffett’s version. Turning Depeche Mode’s “Personal Jesus”
into a mid-tempo blues holy roller – complete with soulful backing singers –
might not seem like such a bad idea, but in execution, it seems awkwardly
arranged and anything but a religious experience, sucking the hypnotic creepiness out of the original version and transforming it into a bland, insipid Vegas-style lounge number, instead of a fiery, organic sermon. Not all of the covers chosen by Hagar are treated so shabbily, as Bob Seger’s “Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man” is a vibrant revival tailor-made for his loud monster-truck vocal pipes.
“Father Sun” and “Winding Down” come off as much more
inspired works, with the bright mandolin and acoustic guitar strumming of the
former drenched in Southern down-home charm and the slinky slide-guitar
meanness of the latter slipping and sliding around a lyrical laundry list of
societal and political ills. Recorded live in the studio, the brawny, crawling
“Going Down” finds Hagar, Schon, Michael Anthony and Chad Smith grinding and tenderizing
the song’s body with bruising rhythmic blows, making a big drill out of it that could tunnel through bedrock.
Sammy Hagar &
Friends runs hot and cold, its country-pop warmth and heavy rock statements
made all the more powerful through the instrumental prowess of articulate
players like Schon and Joe Satriani, even if they feel like as if they’re saving themselves for something for more challenging than this off-the-cuff experience. What should
be a colorful rock ‘n’ roll fiesta has too many grey spaces, too many
periods of lifeless fist-shaking at enemies real or imagined that lack real conviction. When Hagar should
be the cheery drunk wearing a lampshade on his head, he expresses halfhearted defiance, as
if the beating he’s taken over the years by faceless critics has finally gotten
to him. For once, the shaggy-haired Hagar shies away from being the life of the party, and that grinning,
laughing personality of his is missed. http://www.frontiers.it/
– Peter Lindblad
– Peter Lindblad
