Great Album, poorly mastered - This is one of my all time favorite albums. Pretty much every song on the album is fantastic! I really had a hard time rating it as the music is a solid 5, but the mastering is pretty bad. The CD seems muted. I notice that the sample tracks were remastered in 2006, but the CD was released in 2001.Frankly, if this were any other business but music, the manufacturer would have issued a recall for the original disks and replaced them with remastered versions.If I didn t already own it, I would hold out for the remaster and buy a solid 5
Good in 76 still good in 07 - A slight departure from some of BOA s material,but I believe it works for them.I think it was an attempt to reach a broader fan base without selling out,the current fan base. Did it work? You be the judje.Buy the cd,it s pretty good.
Son Of A Gun!!! - Rating: 4.5 StarsArguably their best effort, Black Oak Arkansas was one of the hottest groups around in the mid-70 s when they released their sixth album entitled Street Party in 1974. Following up on their excellent 1973 release High On The Hog, Street Party continued the pattern of mixing blistering rock tunes with down-home bluegrass-country numbers that was both satisfying and frustrating at the same time. The rock-only crowd (most of my friends at the time) considered tunes like the Caribbean/calypso flavored Good Good Woman, the chain gang dirge of Sure Been Workin Hard, the doleful country offering Going Home, the odd spiritual pair of tunes both entitled Brink Of Creation, and the bluegrass-tinged Everybody Wants To See Heaven to be novel distractions at best that disturbed the momentum created by the smokin rock numbers (Dancing In The Streets, Sting Me, Jail Bait, Son Of A Gun, I m A Man, Dixie, and Hey Y All). Then there were those like me who found this mixture to be an enriching experience and extremely effective inasmuchas it came from a group of seriously good musicians who decided to have some serious fun while putting out a seriously good musical product that didn t have to be taken so seriously to be enjoyed. Thanks to releases like Street Party, I developed the ability to appreciate other musical genres beyond rock and roll at an earlier age than many of my teenaged counterparts. And here s a nod to reviewer mdavis255 from San Antonio for bringing up the comparison to the Darlin family on The Andy Griffith Show. Good call as the scenario you described is quite valid. However, let there be no doubt that BOA are rockers first and foremost who just happen not to have any reservations at all about slipping into their bib overalls and breaking down on some hot and nasty bluegrass and country when the mood hits them.So there you have it, if the variety of styles described in this review appeal to you, listening to Street Party should be a very rewarding experience.
Give us what we want. - I rated this album low based on what the fast dollar CD distributors want to shove down our throats and not on the content of the album, That s worth five stars. Of all the BOA albums this may be my favorite although there s several that run close seconds to it. Here s where I think Black Oak was at their best. Please, stop calling this Southern Rock. This is (do I dare say it?), Hill-billy music, Electrified Bluegrass. Remember the Darlin family on The Andy Griffith Show? These are those guys ten years later with electic instruments. And I LOVE what they did. This album and the rest of the catalog MUST be remastered and repackaged. I add this as a side note. Has nt anyone in the music business figured out what we, the consumer, really want? Give us the vinyl the way it was pressed with the original label and the same full-size Album sleeve and all the original packaging. And then give us the remastered CD so we never have to play the vinyl if we don t want to. Here s a shocker... WE ll PAY FOR IT!