Counterculture southern boogie rock...BOA 1971-77 - The Definitive Rock Collection: Black Oak ArkansasCD#1...trks 1-4 frm Black Oak Arkansas s/t 1971.......trks 5-7 frm Keep The Faith 1972.......trks 8-10 frm If An Angel Came... 1972.......trks 11,12 frm Raunch n Roll 1973.......trks 13-15 frm High on the Hog 1973CD#1 Total Time= 61:03_______________________________________________CD#2...trks 1,2 frm High on the Hog 1973.......trks 3-6 frm Street Party 1974.......trks 7-10 frm Ain t Life Grand 1975.......trks 11,12 frm Live Mutha! 1976.......trk 13 frm X-Rated 1975.......trk 14 frm Balls of Fire 1976.......trk 15 frm Best of Black Oak Arkansas 1977 CD#2 Total Time= 52:25_______________________________________________Love em or loath em, this is a decent compiliation of what BOA were all about during their half-decade rise to the surface of what was becoming the well respected genre known as Southern Rock, more or less begun by the Allman Brothers. BOA were less serious of course, and their music was as much a hybrid of that genre than a contender of that throne. So, their overall impact on the scene remained slight and eventually the band was delegated to cult status.Their rarified antics best typified outlaw hippies on a Southern skid, characterized by the JohnKay/CaptBeefheart-like vocal proclamations of one Jim Dandy Mangrum, and amplified by a tight, rock in 3 guitar attack.Not sounding as raunchy as you d think in the studio (by todays standards anyway), BOA are a little tagged with the 70 s rock sound. However, with these remastered tracks and me unfamiliar with most of CD#2, I found this to be a fine slice of selections overall by a band that, in some small way helped propell the flower-power infused daydream of the 60 s into a gutsy back-to-nature rebel rock n roll of the 70 s and beyond.My guilty pleasure for sure.
Some fun, not to be taken too seriously.... - I didn t grow up with a great fondness for Southern rock but Black Oak Arkansas has always had a special place in my heart. I couldn t help but grin when songs like Uncle Lijah or Jim Dandy hit the radio. Now 2 CD s is probably too much (OK, Not probably) of this swampy blend of loose playing and the growl of Jim Dandy Magnum, a truly original rock voice, but hubris is what this band s all about. These guys are so over the top that any real criticism is wasted. There are plenty of songs that will grate on your nerves, most often found on the first CD (Fertile Woman is painful, tongue in cheek or not and Mutants of the Monster with its man is an animal gone mad lyric is just an example of some of the other preachy tunes that occasionally pop up.) but the overall effect is one of harmless if a bit leering fun. The second CD of later material gets it right with some good covers of Taxman and So You Want to be a Rock and Roll Star filtered through BOA s unique approach and originals like Everybody Wants to see Heaven (Nobody wants to Die) and Back Door Man and the ballad, Strong Enough to be Gentle that has Mangrum emoting at his best that demonstrate the band at their best. This is too much BOA for me but for a band that had its short-lived heyday in the 70 s, they can still make me smile.
Just Like the Title Says - Definitive is the key word for this collection. It pulls together the best album cuts along with the BOA signature tunes. A collection well worth waiting for.
Infuriating! - The biggest idiots I ve ever heard except for Rappers of course. This is a band that could have been a great band if it wasn t for the goofy vocalist botching and making a joke out of everything. The musicianship is definately there, excellent musicianship, but comic book lyrics and vocals trash it all! After a few songs of this, the humor gets old real quick. It s sad to see such gifted Southern musicians live up to an outdated stereotype played out by a childish vocalist who thinks all of life is a joke. If it wasn t for this, and they had gotten a real vocalist to sing the songs seriously, they probably would have been as big as Lynyrd Skynryd, and their musicianship gives strong evidence of what should have been, instead of them being reduced to dime store novelty status! Thank god that Lynyrd Skynyrd, Ozark Mountain Daredevils, and Molly Hatchett got it right, and did the South proud with some dignity!
The Best BOA Collection Yet - THE DEFINITIVE ROCK COLLECTION is a wonderful double-disc anthology of Black Oak Arkansas, featuring songs from throughout their career as one of the funkiest, grittiest, most psychedelic bands ever to come out of the South. This band provided the blueprint for such 80s street-metal bands as Guns N Roses, L.A. Guns, Motley Crue, and Junkyard. True, BOA lacked the musical finesse of the Allman Brothers Band, Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Marshall Tucker Band, the Outlaws, .38 Special, or even Blackfoot and Molly Hatchet, but they made up for it with an absolutely wicked sense of humor that s good to equate teasing with so that the bully doesn t get any satisfaction. The fact that lead singer Jim Dandy Mangrum and guitarist Ricky Reynolds currently advocate sanctions against Indonesia in retaliation for that country s trumped-up 2005 drug-smuggling conviction of a young Australian tourist, as well as increased funding for law enforcement and stern justice for kidnappers, makes this anthology an essential prchase for both your ears AND your conscience.