Blackfoot Strikes, I can’t help but think that this is one LP that really should have an exclamation mark after the title. Like the rattler on the cover at its best Strikes is lightning fast and deadly and probably not something you’d want to find in your sleeping bag at night*.
After a couple of false starts in their career Strikes catapulted Blackfoot firmly into the firmament of southern rock in 1979; it was wryly noted the band were a 10 year overnight success story. They deserved it, they had pedigree and all the chops and tropes a southern band needed, plus their own little bit to add to the pot. Three members of Blackfoot were of, or partially of, native American ancestry and more to the point Blackfoot brought some real heaviness to the party.
Strikes kicks down the doors with ‘Road Fever’, which rocks and rolls in a decidedly mean fashion. It’s like getting kicked in the face by a man wearing some really nifty snakeskin boots, it hurts but kinda stylishly so. The guitar tone is just so right it makes me tingle and at one point Medlocks barks out ‘Go Mr Guitar!’.
There are three covers on Strikes and the first is the best a cover of Spirit’s ‘I Got A Line On You’, featuring Medlocke howling like something lonesome out in the night and a great stomping beat. The dusty melancholic turn (see what I did there?) of ‘Left Turn On A Red Light’ is another cracking tune, replete with dusty manly regrets and a great guitar solo from Charlie Hargrett.
The next four tracks whip along in a familiarly groovy southern rocky style without troubling the scorers overmuch, although I do like the heaviness ‘Pay My Dues’ brings to its’ funk and the cover of ‘Wishing Well’ also benefits from a touch of the ol’ heavy.
We, umm, strike real gold on the last two tracks though with a pair of all-timers ‘Train Train’ and ‘Highway Song’.
Fully kitted out with a great harmonica intro, courtesy of the song’s writer, Rickey’s grandfather, Shorty Medlocke, ‘Train, Train’ is a monster; it just sounds so right and tight. Everything about this song sounds real lived experience and in these locked down days who doesn’t fantasise about taking the midnight train to Memphis once in a while? Again Blackfoot lace it all with a real undercurrent of heaviness, but carefully, not clumsily.
Strikes ends on a high with ‘Highway Song’ another ‘Foot classic, albeit often one put down as a copy of ‘Free Bird’. Which … it … is, basically but really is no worse for that. Blackfoot’s protagonist seems kinder, more regretful about a loved one left behind and after a suitable spell the guitars swoop in and fly us right into the sunset, accelerating wildly as we go. All true, but that’s just fucking words – just listen to it as Medlocke keens and the guitars shriek in over the horizon; feel don’t think. Go Mr Guitar!
I am not claiming Strikes is perfect by any means, hell it is possibly only my third favourite Blackfoot LP but it is damned good and a damned good place to start appreciating this criminally overlooked crew^.
So dust off your best shit kickin’ boots, leave your woman/man/inflatable and jump a train further on down the line bound for good times, regrets and get groovin’; Strikes awaits.
1057 Down.
*mostly because it should be safely at home carefully alphabetised and filed next to Tomcattin’.
^not helped by the band releasing some horribly sub-par 80’s stuff and the current franchise aspect to the band today.
