| Barbed Wire Sandwich | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Studio album by | |
| Released | 13 February 1970 [1] |
| Recorded | May–October 1969 |
| Studio | Decca Studios [2] Tangerine Studios [2] |
| Genre | Blues rock |
| Length | 40:47 |
| Label | Decca Nova |
| Producer | David Hitchcock [2] |
Barbed Wire Sandwich is a heavy blues rock studio album by British band Black Cat Bones, released on 13 February 1970 by Decca on its Nova label. [1] It is the only record by the band. [2]
"Chauffeur" is a blues rock adaptation of a song that the album credits to Andy Stroud, Nina Simone's husband and manager. [3] Stroud had adapted Big Mama Thornton's version of Memphis Minnie's "Me and My Chauffeur Blues" of 1941 for Simone to record on her Let It All Out album of 1966. [4] Reviewer Ben Bevan considered Black Cat Bones' recording a stand-out track, [5] and Steve Leggett thought it one of two tracks that got into "interesting territory". [2]
"Death Valley Blues" is another blues rock cover of a song first released in 1941, this one written by Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup. [3] It is "a powerful cover", featuring "stellar guitar work" by lead guitarist Rod Price, according to the book Blues-rock Explosion. [6]
"Feelin' Good" was written by English composers Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse in 1964 for a musical and was covered by Nina Simone on her I Put a Spell on You album of 1965. [3] The song starts with Brian Short singing a cappella, [3] followed by piano playing by Steve Milliner, and switching between acoustic and electric guitars. [6] Bill Hart called it "an interesting mix of show biz blues meets hard rock" [7] and Blues-rock Explosion rated it one of the best tracks. [6]
"Please Tell Me Baby" covers a song by Peppermint Harris, real name Harrison D. Nelson, Jr., whose name was miswritten on the record as "Harrison, Nelson". This is more a rock and roll number, with Robin Sylvester, the recording engineer and also a musician, contributing piano playing that accentuates its almost doo-wop swing. [3] Steve Leggett rates this the best track. [2]
"Coming Back", with writing credited to lead guitarist Price and the band's former vocalist Paul Tiller, continues in the rock and roll [3] or boogie rock vein. [7]
"Save My Love", credited to the whole band, is "swaggering hard rock blues". [7] Reviewer Thierry Aznar considers it one of the best songs on the album. [3]
"Four Women" is a song written by Nina Simone and released on her Wild Is the Wind album of 1966. This acoustic track is out of character with the style of the rest of the album, [7] but Blues-rock Explosion considered it one of the best tracks. [6]
"Sylvester's Blues", an original song written by Price, starts as an acoustic country blues before becoming a fast boogie. [7]
"Good Lookin' Woman" is a blues rock number, also an original by Price, and the only track on which he does the singing instead of Short. [3] Bevan considered this a second stand-out track. [5]
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   [2] |
The British blues boom was fading by 1970 [6] [3] and the album did not attract great popular interest, with few copies selling. However, it was well received critically. Disc and Music Echo said the band played "with conviction and feeling". [6] Steve Leggett was moderate in praise, calling it "well executed", "straightforward and professional" British blues. [2]
The original vinyl record is now rare and highly sought after by collectors of rock and heavy blues music of the late 1960s and 1970s.[ citation needed ]
Black Cat Bones
Additional musicians
Production
The Animals are an English rock band, formed in Newcastle upon Tyne in the early 1960s. The Animals are known for their deep-voiced frontman Eric Burdon and for their gritty, bluesy sound, exemplified by their signature song and transatlantic number-one hit single "The House of the Rising Sun" as well as by hits such as "We Gotta Get Out of This Place", "It's My Life", "Don't Bring Me Down", "I'm Crying", "See See Rider" and "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood". They balanced tough, rock-edged pop singles against rhythm-and-blues-oriented album material and were part of the British Invasion of the US.
Eunice Kathleen Waymon, known professionally as Nina Simone, was an American singer, songwriter, pianist, and civil rights activist. Her music spanned styles including classical, folk, gospel, blues, jazz, R&B, and pop.
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion was an American three-piece rock band from New York City, formed in 1991. The group consisted of Judah Bauer on guitar, backing vocals, harmonica and occasional lead vocals, Russell Simins on drums and Jon Spencer on vocals, guitar and theremin. Their musical style is largely rooted in rock and roll although it draws influences from punk, blues, garage, rockabilly, soul, noise rock, rhythm and blues and hip hop. They released nine official studio albums, collaborative records with Dub Narcotic Sound System and R.L. Burnside as well as numerous live, singles, out-take albums, compilations, remix albums and, in 2010, a series of expanded reissues. Throughout the course of their career, this experimental sound and occasionally unconventional recording techniques has allowed the band to work with such artists as Elliott Smith, Beck, Solomon Burke, Steve Albini, Martina Topley-Bird and Ad Rock of the Beastie Boys.
Roderick Michael Price was an English guitarist best known for his work with the rock band Foghat. He was known as 'The Magician of Slide', 'The Bottle', and 'Slide King of Rock and Roll', due to his slide guitar playing.
"I Put a Spell on You" is a 1956 song written and composed by Jalacy "Screamin' Jay" Hawkins, whose own recording of it was selected as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. It was also included in Robert Christgau's "Basic Record Library" of 1950s and 1960s recordings—published in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981)—and ranked No. 313 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. The selection became a classic cult song covered by a variety of artists and was his greatest commercial success, reportedly surpassing a million copies in sales, even though it failed to make the Billboard pop or R&B charts.
Black Cat Bones were a British heavy blues rock band that existed with various lineups from 1966 to 1970, when they became Leaf Hound.
"Feeling Good" is a song written by English composers Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse for the musical The Roar of the Greasepaint – The Smell of the Crowd. It was first performed on stage in 1964 by Cy Grant on the UK tour.
Wishbone Ash is the first studio album by Wishbone Ash. It peaked at number 29 in the UK Albums Chart in January 1971.
Let It All Out is an album by Nina Simone, released by Philips Records in February 1966.
Leaf Hound is an English hard rock band that formed from blues rock band Black Cat Bones in 1970. Their debut album Growers of Mushrooms, released in 1971, is said to be a mixture of heavy metal, hard rock, psychedelic rock and stoner rock, and influenced those genres. They are often cited as pioneers of heavy metal, hard rock, psychedelic rock and stoner rock. They disbanded not long after recording the album. Vocalist Peter French reformed the band with a new lineup in 2004 and they released a studio album in 2007 and a live album in 2014.
"Four Women" is a song written by jazz singer, composer, pianist and arranger Nina Simone, released on the 1966 album Wild Is the Wind. It tells the story of four African American women. Each of the four characters represents an African-American stereotype in society. Thulani Davis of The Village Voice called the song "an instantly accessible analysis of the damning legacy of slavery, that made iconographic the real women we knew and would become."
"Don't Explain" is a song written by jazz singer Billie Holiday and Arthur Herzog Jr. It was Billie Holiday’s final song.
Black Mountain Rag is the title of a recording by American folk music and country blues artists Doc Watson and Merle Watson, released in 2006. It contains songs taken from albums that Doc and Merle recorded on the Flying Fish label in the 1980s.
"Me and My Chauffeur Blues" is a song written and recorded by blues singer and guitarist Memphis Minnie in 1941. It was added to the U.S. National Recording Registry in 2019. A number of other musicians have recorded the song, or adaptations of it, often under shortened titles.
"My Baby Left Me" is a rhythm and blues song written by blues singer Arthur Crudup.
Flashback with the Grateful Dead is an album by the rock band the Grateful Dead. It contains ten songs, selected from eight of their studio albums that were originally released between 1969 and 1989. The compilation was released on CD on the Flashback label, a subsidiary of Rhino Records, on April 5, 2011.
True to the Blues: The Johnny Winter Story is a compilation album by blues rock guitarist and singer Johnny Winter. Comprising four CDs, and packaged as a box set, it contains songs selected from numerous albums — some recorded in the studio and some live — released over a 43-year period, from 1968 to 2011, as well as several previously unreleased tracks. The box set also includes a 50-page booklet of essays and photos. It was released by Legacy Recordings on February 25, 2014.
The Wild Angels is an English rock and roll group. The group got their name from the 1966 Roger Corman film The Wild Angels starring Peter Fonda.
The Essential Johnny Winter is a two-CD album by guitarist and singer Johnny Winter. It is a compilation of songs from previously released albums, many of them from the late 1960s and the 1970s. It was released by Columbia Records on April 30, 2013.
Gifted & Black is an unofficial studio album from jazz singer, pianist, and songwriter Nina Simone. It was originally released in 1970 by Canyon Records. However, it is thought to be a demo tape made by Simone in the spring of 1957 some months before the recording of Little Girl Blue, her first official album, in December of the same year. For the release in 1970, the original recording had strings added.
The debut album from Decca group Black Cat Bones is titled Barbed Wire Sandwich and is due to be released on the new Decca Nova label on February 13.
Featuring superb guitar from Rod Price [...], this is driving blues including standouts Chauffeur and Good Looking Woman.