MARSHALL TUCKER GETS IT UP, GETS IT ON, AND KICKS IT OUT

A CREEM piece about any pop group oughta have at least one off-thewall thing about the group in question, least thats how I figger it, so let me get mine out of the way right off and let you people get back to your Lou Reed albums, or whatever the shit it is you listen to when people like Toy and Tommy and George and Paul and Doug and Jerry and me are sittin in some dagblag fishin boat out in the middle of Watery Nowhere, South Carolina. Here it is, get your pencils out.

How about The Marshall Tucker Band drag racing? Yeah, how about if a couple of them lanky-looking cowboys like to get down offa those horses and feel some HOT STEEL answer back when they stomp down on the accelerator? Too incredible to believe? You read it here first.

Tucks amiable rhythm guitar player (and boy, does he play it on the bands latest Capricorn album, Carolina Dreams), George McCorkle, has definitely got a Mr. Hyde streak, for when he fires up that 67 Camaro—which went out in fifteen races last year, and even won its class in the Southern Nationals -its time to LOCK UP YER DAUGHTERS for exactly one quarter mile. “Im gonna take you out in it," George casually tosses at your reporter, “next time youre around here. You really got to feel the first few seconds for yourself, I cant tell you about it." All this stuff is AHRA-sanctioned, kiddies, were not speaking of some kind of Carolinadirt-road-at-4-a.m. affair, but its a far cry from that ol hoss that you see on all the Tucker albums.

And it wouldnt be so dangerous if George were the only aberrant soul. But Americas Only Rock n Roll Magazine has also ferreted out the surprising fax that a certain Mr. Doug Gray, he of the endless vocal range and Official Marshall Tucker #1 Singists Spot, is also takin up this here little sport. With a newly-purchased 66 Chevy to play with (Vega bucket seats, 500 HP, moving to 8000 RPM in 35 feet), Doug is a novice dragster, soon to be the helmsman at the second Tucker Mean Machine. (Georges car goes to races with the Tuck logo painted on the side.) And Doug relates the same panting thrill at Sudden Speed. Can this be the beginning of South Carolinas first E Streeters?

Heaven forbid.

Because behind all this babble (Lou Reed people go away, please, we have to talk about the records for a little while. Back in a minute) lie six boys who are having as good a time as they ever had, and feeling better about it too. Why? Because Carolina Dreams is a record which some Southern ears believe hearkens back to their very first efforts for the label, some four years ago. Its the most happily realized Marshall Tucker record since A New Life, with the charming innocence of the Tucker sound combined with years of world wisdom about the music business, the recording studio and the people who dwell within. It couldnt happen to a better bunch of guys.

I'oy Caldwell, master chicken picker, nexus of the Tucker sound and one of the finest pop guitarists that you will hear nowadays, says hes “fired up for this record. Real fired up." Paul Riddle, drummer extraordinaire, says it felt in the studio like it did when they were making the first Tucker record, back in 1972, back when Paul was 18 years old. Doug Gray says he feels good about the record, but hayell, Doug: thats because you wrote one of the songs. George McCorkle says thats one of the things he likes about the record: that “everybodys maturing, everybodys writing."

What was on the first couple of Marshall Tucker Band albums, that everybodys hearkening back to?

For one thing, some especially tasty material. Now that “Cant You See" has become a country smash (blew me away last weekend, as I was sitting in Pat OBriens in New Orleans, to hear the piano-bar duo strike the tune up. Kinda like Elvin Bishop hearing “Fooled Around" at the DodgersGiants game on the organ), people have started to listen hard to the stuff these Carolina boys are coming up with, and let me be the first to hip country coverers to the existence of Toys “Heard It In A Love Song," which is the strongest tune— in the classic sense—on the record.

Innerstin that those two songs come up together, because “Cant You See," alive version, is the new Tucker single, released to follow up the biggest 45er theyve ever had: “Heard It In A Love Song." And Carolina Dreams has

" We were glad to be a part of helpin a Southerner get elected President. -George McCorkle "

turned out to be their biggest album ever, 800,000 units so far and still goin. So the follow-up to that one, being recorded now, will be a crucial elpee, too. The reason Carolina Dreams has done so well is that its the fairest representation yet of the tremendous eclecticism these boys carry around under their cowboy hats.

Theres a tour through the varied style that Marshall Tucker is particularly adept at and famous for: Western swing (“Desert Skies," itll make you wanna kick your dawg, its so nice), c-c-c-country (“Tell It To The Devil" makes you wanna ORDER A BEER), rustic pop (“Fly Like An Eagle," the album-opener), pure pop (“Life In A Song," and listen to that Caldwell lead!), and one which I have got to tell you about, “I Should Have Never Started Lovin You." Not only was it co-written by Doug Gray, a distinction in itself, but doesnt it sound a little bit, well, like, uh, a soul song?

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“Isss meant to be a surprise," says George, a co-writer, who cant wait to see your reaction when you hear the HORNS kick it on the cut. “Whats so funny about that?" says Doug. “Thats really all we used to play when we were growing up, you know. When we listened to the radio, R&B tunes were what we heard." Dougs vocal is definitely meant for misty eyes and latenite git-down bars. And Tommy Caldwells bass just sounds like it was meant to be there forever.

Damn. Add “Never Trust A Stranger," Tommys Western song, and, youve got a good record. A real good record. It just seems like these Tucker boys keep hanging around, going out and getting an audience of whoever can dig the music (you know, of course, that theyre getting to be as popular with country record buyers as with the pop people).

That sphere of influence has been widening pretty dramatically of late, too. And mainly because of two items, the first of which is Marshall Tuckers first-ever tour of Europe, which they done with feller Corn acts Bonnie Bramlett and Grinderswitch.

Doug Gray remembers: “They kept tellin us as wed go to the gigs, theyd say, dont get upset if the people dont get up and start jumpin around, because people here arent quite as rowdy as they are in the States. But we didnt find it that much different at all. People were singin the words along with us an everything." The tour took the Tucks to France, England, Scotland, Belgium, Holland and Germany, among other well-known Dixie rock hotspots. Ask George McCorkle about it, and he can wax philosophical if he knows you need the story:

“The response we got in Europe was bettern I expected, but in a way it was still a little like starting over again. On our European tour, we were back in what I consider a real good standpoint in the industry: it was gettin back to the music, not a reputation."

That Tucker hit it big in Europe does not surprise anybody whos given them a steady listen over the years. Like the best Southern music, Marshall Tuckers is universal, or as near to it as you can get in South Carolina. The musical colors mean just as much to a kid from Holland as they do to one from Ann Arbor. They paint a picture of a rustic, romanticized, relaxed Southwest—the “Sun Belt," if you please, and how we Southerners are gonna get sick of that one in the next few years!

And speaking of the next few years, thats the other item I was talking about up there. The Jimmy Carter Inaugural. Or, as Capricorns crazed house organ The Macon Messenger put it in a headline to its February 1977 issue, CARTER IN-ROCK & ROLL HERE TO STAY. What did Spartanburg, South Carolinas finest think of playing for all those political geeks in their fancy finery?

“Weird gig," mutters Toy Caldwell. Hes speaking of the nite-before-theInauguration show that Tucker played in Washington as one of The Prezs invited musical acts. “Lots of politicians in the audience, man. We played for forty minutes, I had my picture made with my baby, and it came out in the Washington Post the next day."

“I tell you," says George McCorkle, “it was fun because you could look out and see lots of people in tuxedos who were watchin us—and they obviously had no idea who we were when they got there. Well, they knew who we were when they left.

“Certainly, it was a privilege," muses McCorkle. “We were glad to be a part of helpin a Southerner get elected President. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and I tell you: I enjoyed the thang."

“We kind of went through extremes," says Doug Gray. “We played in Europe, and in a lot of ways it was just like breaking Chicago or New York all over again. We had to prove ourselves. Then we did the Inaugural, and it was a situation in which we were known by some of the people—the ones who knew why we were here in the first place—and breaking Washington, too. The people who came through politics didnt know us at all." Might add that in the interests of better journalism Doug Gray told me I could make up anything Id like and put it in quotes under his name. I told him I dont do stuff like that, and it remains for the reader to decide whether Im talking for Doug in this story or not. Is this what we really talked about? Itll take a lot of shield law-suits, or a shitpot full of money, to make me tell.

It returns to good music, the good feeling that makes Tucker one ot the easiest-to-listen-to musical groups what makes records, never mind about whether theyre Southern or not.

The title might be a key to the --i---aintention of the record. Toy Caldwell says that its just something “weve wanted to do for a long time." But the ease with which the songs are presented, especially the liberal use of Jerry Eubanks flute and horn talents, represents nothing better than that Carolina dream—the wistful look back at a romanticized home. The kind of stuff that works as well in Frankfurt as in Frankfort.

“Our first two albums," Toy says, “they generally appealed to people that were a little younger. Now weve got older people listenin to us too, we dont depend entirely on any one kind of audience or radio format, we just play our music. Weve got a little more experience, but were still playing the kind of music we believe in. And I think people can tell that."

“I feel like were just starting again," says George McCorkle. “This record is a good representation of what were thinking about right now." Carolina Dreams. You really cant blame them. As one more person who likes where he is, I say; play on!