Popping the Blues

Popping the Blues

Savoy Brown bopped back into Detroit, home of their greatest successes, sans lead singer Chris Youlden and with a new, back-to-the-blues format that lead guitarist Kim Simmonds described as “mellowed out.”

Youlden left, according to Simmonds, because “he’s a songwriter, a beautiful songwriter and he needs a band to play his songs. He left us with a group that’s a lot more improved, and one that’s got a lot more freedom.” Receptions are about equal, Simmonds said of their British experience, but apparently there’s a tad of concern about the response the crew will receive in Amerika.

For the group, it’s a new Amerikan experience — in Britain they had performed as the Savoy Brown Blues Band, and done at least one killer all-blues album {Shake Down) though that record had never been released over here, perhaps because the group got better mileage out of the pretentious pop material they’d been presenting with Youlden. At any rate, only Simmonds is left from the band that did Shake Down, a record said to be heavily influential on the British blues scene a few years back.

Then too, the group is appearing on their Amerikan tour without the conga drummer they’ve recently added, Owen Finnegan, known variously as “Conga Johnny” or “Funky Fingers” depending on whom one asks. “He just couldn’t get it together to get his shots in time,” explained drummer Roger Earl.

On this tour, Savoy is doing large concert dates, though Simmonds noted that it was sort of hard to believe that they were possessed of enough stature to headline arenas and such.

The new record, drifting away from the group’s Mike Vernon produced pop-ness is drifting back to blues. And Raw Sienna is to be followed momentarily by their even newer pop smash album, Lookin’ In, which is said to be even more blues-based. Ah well, “someone’s got to keep playin’ the blues,” Kim Simmonds said. And then again, he also said that “I always thought we lacked pretension.” Well, now . . .