I love it when you get mail, real physical mail. When we started off the Rockpit ten years ago it was a rare treat to get records in the mail, but after a few years a steady stream started to arrive at the office, these days again it’s rare, but it if you send it it shows you care, and we do try to get through as much as we receive as we can. And just for the record if you are looking for a review I never ‘stream’, never have, never will I was the last person I know to get a mobile phone and never stopped buying vinyl).
Another thing I love is the Kentucky Headhunters, though I must admit that back in 1989 when I picked up a vinyl copy of their debut ‘Pickin’ on Nashville’ purely by chance after hearing their cover of Don Gibson’s ‘Oh Lonesome Me’ (a song already 31 years old) in the record store I used to frequent, I never thought for a minute that they’d literally give birth to Black Stone Cherry – Headhunter’s drummer Richard Young is father of BSC’s skinsman John Fred!
‘Live At The Ramblin’ Man Fair’ captures the band’s first ever European show (well technically their second) twenty seven years later, taped in front of 25,000 fans at the Ramblin’ Man Fair in 2016 in Maidstone, U.K. A show that also featured Black Stone Cherry headlining the main stage that they’d warmed up earlier in the day.
Opening with the title track to 2005’s ‘Big Boss Man’ the Hunters quite rightly showcase their Rockier material in a nice and succinct 9 song set which originally the Ramblin’ Man organizers recorded so that they could include a track from each of the acts on a charity album for the Nordoff Robbins foundation. After Young inquired if they recorded the rest a deal was done and here is the record of it supplemented by a further three outtakes from their formidable 2015 release ‘Meet Me in Bluesland’.
Talking of which it’s tracks from that release that make up the meat of the set – starting with the contrified Blues Rock of ‘Stumblin”; and following up with the slow groove of ‘Shufflin’ Back to Memphis’ and the stuttering Southern workout ‘Walking With the Wolf’ the sort of Rhythm and Blues song that bands like Dr. Feelgood used to treat so nice back in the day.
Those tracks are broken up by the weeping guitar and Blues-soaked pain of ‘Have You Ever Loved a Woman’ from 2003’s ‘Soul’ and (no not the Free song) the rocking and guitar-shot ‘Wishing Well’ from 1991’s ‘Electric Barnyard.’ Of the tracks from that debut album it’s not the cover that started me off with the Headhunters that makes it to the set, rather the groove and grit of ‘Rag Top’ and the Georgia Satellites-like ‘My Daddy was a Milkman’ which spins into an impressive extended drum solo.
The live set closes with ‘Don’t Let Me Down’ that Lennon and McCartney staple which in the hands of the Headhunters turns into something you really need to hear.
The three songs left over from the ‘Meet Me in Bluesland’ sessions that round out the release include a version of ‘Rock Me Baby,’ and ‘High Heeled Sneakers,’ an old Tommy Tucker song, and then ‘Rock ‘n’ Roller,’ which, as Young says “believe it or not, was the first song that Itchy Brother [a band that Richard and Fred Young were part of before the Headhunters] ever recorded as a rock band in 1970.”
If you’re new to the band then believe me there’s a huge rich catalogue awaiting your attention.
