| Good Music For Good People |
|
|
THE ARROWS - A`s B`s and Rarities |
20-track collection contains all of Arrows A sides & B sides as well as 5 previously unreleased tracks. Features Cozy Powell and Chris Spedding. The Arrows were a mixed group of American and British musicians that made their biggest impact in Britain during the mid-`70s. The band worked with producer Phil Coulter on their one and only album, 1976`s First Hit, which didn`t really catch on in America but gave them a modicum of success in Europe. They also had several singles produced by Mickie Most during this era, the most important being "I Love Rock `N Roll," which would go on to be a smash hit for Joan Jett a few years later. The band was made up of bassist/vocalist Alan Merrill, guitarist Jake Hooker, and drummer Paul Varley. The three also scored a television deal, leading to a regular series that played from 1976 to 1977. "oung, dark, and smoldering -- painfully good-looking and talented too -- the Arrows were the sort of band every marketing department dreams of. The problem is, dreams don`t always come true. Despite a concerted two-year push that saw the Arrows gifted with everything from a songwriting team with a multi-platinum pedigree to their own prime-time television series, still the band has just two lasting claims to fame -- they scored a British Top Ten single with their first-ever release, "A Touch Too Much," and they wrote the Joan Jett anthem "I Love Rock`n`Roll." Fame does not shortchange them. Across the six singles that make up the first half of this collection, and the debut album that completes it, the Arrows are revealed as a competent, ambitious pop band, but little more. They accrue points for penning a lot of their own material, but -- "I Love Rock`n`Roll" aside -- still the best numbers were written either by Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman -- of Sweet, Mud, and Smokey fame -- or Bill Martin and Phil Coulter, the team that had already tasted glory behind the Bay City Rollers and Kenny, and who would soon be touching it again with Slik. Indeed, the Arrows` version of the duo`s "Boogiest Band in Town," though one of the finest tracks in the band`s entire catalog, was nothing more than a cover of an earlier Slik 45. The two Chinn & Chapman A-sides that opened the Arrows` account, "A Touch Too Much" and "Toughen Up," are similarly strong"-AMG
 Listen - mp3
Listen - mp3
Listen - mp3 |
|
|
