NRBQ Celebrate 50 Years Of Rock And Roll With ‘High Noon’ Box Set (ALBUM REVIEW)

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nrbq-high-noon-ov-190When considering the great underrated bands of all time, NRBQ easily ranks near the top. Since 1966 this rotating cast of merrymakers have been choo-chooing along with their own style of rock and roll. In that time the band has released numerous studio LPs, live recordings, and compilations. Even though the lineup of NRBQ today is almost totally different than the founding lineup, the band is still going strong. In honor of the band’s fifty-year anniversary, the folks at Omnivore Recordings have just released the five-disc box set High Noon.

Interestingly enough, and in contrast to the chronological layout of most career retrospectives, High Noon starts off with the most recent period of NRBQ history. Spanning 2005 to 2016, this first disc presents the most playful side of the band and treats us to new tunes. With the most recent formation of NRBQ, there is a sense of childlike jolliness throughout many of the songs, kicking off with their take on Sun Ra’s “Love From Outer Space”. What follows is a reminder that the NRBQ magic is still very much in place, with longtime favorites like “Snowfall” and “Ruby, My Dear” colorfully reimagined alongside live rarities like “Let Go”, “Everybody Say Yeah”, and the catchy, zydeco-inflected “Boozoo and Leona”.

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Disc two is where we truly begin, going back to the band’s humble beginnings when it was founded by brothers Terry and Donn Adams in their Kentucky home. This collection features some of NRBQ’s best known tunes, including their rollicking take on Sun Ra’s “Rocket Number 9”, “Flat Foot Flewzy”, the blues meets doo-wop number “You Got Me Goin’”, and the exuberant party tune “C’Mon Everybody”. These songs rarely stretch longer than three minutes and we can sense a band testing the waters for what would later become a more refined dedication to the many nuances of pop music. But here we also find a wide-eyed band doing their best to emulate the rock and roll and boogie woogie sounds of their idols.

As they entered the 1970’s, NRBQ experienced personnel changes with the departures of Steve Ferguson, Frank Gadler, and drummer Tom Staley. This period also saw the band teaming up with the Whole Wheat Horns (Donn Adams on trombone and Keith Spring on tenor saxophone). Songs like “Help Me Somebody”, “This Old House”, and “Do You Feel It?” found the band bolstering their confidence in tackling New Orleans style R&B and rockabilly, while more intimate tunes like “Only You” revolved around acoustic strumming and harmonies. Other tunes like “Howard Johnson’s Got His Ho-Jo Workin’” were both funky and funny, and things really light up with a scorching sax solo on “That’s Neat, That’s Nice” and the guitar-heavy rendition of Johnny Cash’s “Get Rhythm”.

The selection of songs on disc four are from the era of 1977-1990, a time period that has become synonymous with the NRBQ “sound” that transformed them into a cult act with a devoted following. Here the band is firing on all cylinders with the same loose, free-spirited approach to recording that made their live performances so entertaining. This is the rowdy NRBQ crafting delicious pop morsels like “Me and the Boys”, “I Love Her, She Loves Me”, and “Rain At The Drive-In”. There’s a cheesiness to NRBQ during this period, but also a self-awareness in recreating more innocent sounds of the best. The late 70’s and 80’s were a time when much of pop and rock and roll was driven by sex and debauched, over-the-top excess, so it’s almost refreshing to know that a band like NRBQ kept things wholesome in their own kind of way while throwing a kick ass party.

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On disc five we sail into the 90’s with a swinging rhythm section that would do much of the heavy lifting throughout the decade and into the 21st century. This is perhaps best heard on the instrumental “Next Stop Brattleboro”, a piano-driven tune that feels as much like a score for a silent Western film as it brings to mind the band’s jazz influences. Throughout this disc we find NRBQ as the elder statesmen of rock and roll, as comfortable playing power pop as they are roots music and even swinging boogie (“Puddin’ Truck”), keeping us satisfied all the while.

NRBQ have always been cool with being uncool, which is, perhaps ironically, what makes them so damn cool. Throughout their five decades as a band, they’ve continuously bucked the musical trends happening around them. Their chameleon-like approach to genres that balances musical prowess with a sense of humor is something that bands like Ween would later receive recognition for. With each respective era they did exactly what they wanted to do while always conveying a devotion to bygone styles of music.  Accompanying the discs are liner notes that, while not extensive, shed light on each period in the band’s history and include a neat collection of candid photos. It would be hard to thoroughly capture five decades in any one box set, but for die-hards and first-timers alike, High Noon is a perfect encapsulation of the magic that is NRBQ and is therefore a must-own.

High Noon – A 50-Year Retrospective is out now on Omnivore Recordings. Visit nrbq.com to order. 

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