Thursday, April 18, 2024

Alvin Lee (Ten Years After) - Pump Iron! (1975)

Year: 1975 (CD 19??)
Label: Repertoire Records (Germany), REP 4703-DG
Style: Rock, Blues Rock
Country: Nottingham, England (19 December 1944)
Time: 46:41
Format: Flac Tracks 16/44,1 kHz
Size: 345 Mb

From Billboard Magazine:
A bit less frenetic than the Lee efforts with Ten Years After and a bit mellower than his live solo set of several months ago. Less emphasis on the mile a minute guitar style he trademarked near the end of the '60s and more emphasis on tasteful, apparently more carefully chosen licks. Several instrumentals highlighted by Lee's guitar and the organ work of Ronnie Leahy are standouts, as are the cuts where Lee uses his basically good voice to handle slower material. A couple of good acoustic cuts here as well.
Musicians include Boz of Bad Company, Mel Collins on Sax and production comes from Lee. Mix of rock, country and basic blues offers Lee's most versatile showing to date.

Dave's CD Reviews:
For me this album is a total enigma. To start with I expected the music contained within the cover to be a bombastic heavy metal explosion as the title implies, PUMP IRON an electric Gibson extravaganza, but what is presented is nothing of the sort. The cover should have been of sunflowers, love beads, a feather bed and a baggie of grannola with the words "too much time and space between us".
Secondly, it took little or no time for this recording to hit the bargain basement discount bin, never before or since have I seen an Alvin Lee album for ninty nine cents as was the case with this one. I got the impression that I wasn’t the only one dissatisfied with this solo project because it didn’t sell very well for whatever reason.
With all that being said I really love the damn thing, because after the high expectations I had I also learned to accept and appreciate it for what it was, a continuation of the In Flight  recording series with many of the same musicians. This could’ve been the third record in the In Flight set because that’s exactly where it belongs.
Bonus tracks: Track 12, called Madness is a total throw away unless you're angry and even if you're not you will be, one minute fifty seconds of chaos.
Track 13 is the exact opposite and well worth the price of this cd alone,  and here is how it came to be in Alvin’s own words: “I recently did a bonus track called “Midnight Special” for the “Pump Iron” CD. I actually recorded the track in 1997, it was a big jam at Hookend with Mick Ralphs, Boz Burrell and Tim Hinkley. I came across the multi track seven years later and put a vocal on it which sounded great. In the summer of 1988, I dug it out again, decided that the guitar solos were a bit weak and put new guitar solos on. So that track took 21 years to record! I did it with Stuart Epps as the engineer and it sounds great-like it was all done at the same time”.
(alvinlee.de/album_reviews.htm)

01. One more chance (03:54)
02. Try to be righteous (04:04)
03. You told me (03:53)
04. Have mercy (02:49)
05. Julian rice (04:55)
06. Time and space (02:43)
07. Burnt fungus (03:16)
08. The darkest night (02:26)
09. It's all right now (02:39)
10. Truckin' down the other way (02:31)
11. Let the sea burn down (06:46)
12. Madness (01:52)
13. Midnight special (04:49)

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