The Marshall Tucker Band – New Year’s In New Orleans! Roll Up ’78 and Light Up ’79! (Album Review)
The Marshall Tucker Band released their debut album in 1973, embarking on an impressive run of success that yielded a string of gold and platinum records throughout the decade. This success seems to have got a little lost in the annuals of rock history, but at their best, the band could proudly stand toe to toe with Southern rock luminaries Lynyrd Skynyrd and The Allman Brothers Band.
The roots of the Marshall Tucker Band date back to the early sixties, where a revolving mix of Spartanburg, South Carolina musicians would drop in and out of various bands. Slowly, over time, the musicians would find a home in a band called Toy Factory led by guitarist Toy Caldwell. The late 60s was an unprecedented time of change in the USA and various band members would leave to join the military during this period including Caldwell who chose the United States Marine Corps. Caldwell would serve - and be wounded - in Vietnam before returning to Carolina in 1969 to restart his fledgling musical career. In a similar plot twist to the Lynyrd Skynyrd story, Toy Factory eventually became the Marshall Tucker Band, taking their name from a local blind piano tuner Marshall Tucker whose name was on the key to the rehearsal space they rented. The band would land a deal with seminal Southern rock label Capricorn Records, home to such greats as The Allman Brothers Band and Dixie Dregs, for the release of their debut record.
The distinctive sound of The Marshall Tucker Band is a melting pot of rock, country, jazz, blues and folk influences. The most striking of which is the use of flute - If you can imagine Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull jamming with Lynyrd Skynyrd you’ll have a basic grasp of the sound. Legend has it that Toy Caldwell asked sax player Jerry Eubanks to learn the flute as he thought it’d be an interesting idea. I wonder if either realized just how integral flute would become to the Marshall Tucker sound. Many of the jam bands that became popular in the 90s owe a debt to the likes of The Marshall Tucker Band.
Originally released for Black Friday RSD - but now getting a wider release - this terrific live show recorded at The Warehouse in New Orleans on New Year’s Eve 1978 reinforces how big an act the guys had become at this point in their career. The show was simulcast on 150 radio stations nationwide making it the biggest event of its kind at that time. The band's original producer Paul Hornsby has done a good job of tweaking those original radio tapes – It’s not perfect but you wouldn’t want it to be. The music sounds great - nice and clear with good stereo separation. You might have to put up with gaps where the old radio ads used to be but it’s a small price to pay (singer Doug Gray even mentions it during the show). The band sounds great; Toy Caldwell is a fine songwriter and a very fluid guitarist with an interesting thumb pick driven style. He’s given plenty of room to play in no small part thanks to fellow guitarist George McCorkle whose choppy, western swing influenced rhythm parts are the bedrock of the sound.
All the band's hits are here with many standouts: a very hoarse Toy Caldwell takes a lead vocal on ‘Can’t You See’ and battles through brilliantly, but I very much doubt he could muster much above a whisper afterward. The George McCorkle penned ‘Fire on the Mountain’ features Toy on steel guitar and finds the band at their most countrified. Toy’s playing marries beautifully with singer Doug Gray’s gorgeous vibrato. ‘Pretty Little Love Song’ is exactly that with another terrific Gray vocal while Caldwell and Eubanks are in typically fine form. The band's ability to switch things up is highlighted by ‘Dream Lover’ which sounds for all the world like Van Morrison’s ‘Moondance’ on speed. The interplay between Eubanks and Caldwell is again fantastic. The show concludes with an exhaustive run-through of ‘Will the Circle Be Unbroken’ which proves a fitting end to the show as the band calls up opening act Firefall to help out
‘Roll Up ’78 and Light Up ’79!' is a fine tribute to a band captured at the peak of their powers. Unfortunately, tragedy would strike in 1980 as bassist Tommy Caldwell would be killed in a traffic accident. Toy Caldwell would pass away in 1993 and George McCorkle in 2007 but I’m pleased to report that original singer Doug Gray still fronts the band to this day and they continue to tour.
The Marshall Tucker Band – New Years’s In New Orleans! Roll Up ’78 and Light Up ’79! is released January 17th, 2020 via the Ramblin’ Records label on double LP/CD and digital.
Sons Of Liberty are a bunch of old-school rockers who, somewhat surprisingly, hail from Bristol in the UK but are steeped in the harder-edged Southern rock rooted in the Southern states of the USA that came to prominence in the late 70s. The quintet made their recording debut in 2018 with a brace of EPs, ‘...Shinola’ followed by ‘Aged in Oak’. 'The Detail Is In The Devil' is their third full-length release and first with new singer Russ Grimmett.