Warner Brothers Presents... Montrose!
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Warner Brothers Presents... Montrose! is the third album of the band Montrose.
It is the first Montrose album to feature singer Bob James and keyboardist Jim Alcivar. The album was critically praised and also noted for its movie-poster cover giving the impression that Warner Brothers was presenting a rock band like a big budget Hollywood production. Ronnie Montrose produced the album.
The album starts off with the hard rocker "Matriarch" followed by "All I Need" which alternates between soft acoustic sounds and electric guitar crunch. A hard rock cover of Eddie Cochran's rockabilly "Twenty Flight Rock" follows. Ronnie's acoustic guitar makes room for Novi Novog's viola on the track "Whaler" who a year earlier added the same on the Doobie Brothers hit, "Black Water".
The second half of the disc rounds out with rockers "Dancin' Feet" and "Clown Woman", Jim Alcivar’s keyboard driven cover of "O Lucky Man!" and Ronnie’s acoustic solo "One and A Half". The final song is a cover of a song that was never released. In 1971, Kendall Kardt, late of the band Rig, recorded a solo album, Buddy Bolden[1] with guests Jerry Garcia and Ronnie Montrose, both on the songs "Buddy Bolden" and "Black Train". "Black Train"[2] is written about a friend of Rig guitarist, Arthur Richards, who died of a heroin overdose. The original song has a country sound with Garcia on pedal steel guitar and Montrose on lead guitar and Hawaiian lap steel. A shakeup at Capitol resulted in Kardt’s contract being dropped and the album abandoned. Montrose rescued the song from obscurity with a hard rock version with the best guitar solo on the album.
Track listing
- "Matriarch"(Alcivar/Carmassi/Fitzgerald/James/Montrose) 4:33
- "All I Need"(Alcivar/Carmassi/Fitzgerald/James/Montrose) 4:21
- "Twenty Flight Rock" (Ned Fairchild) 2:43
- "Whaler"(Alcivar/Carmassi/Fitzgerald/James/Montrose) 6:54
- "Dancin' Feet"(Montrose/James) 4:05
- "O Lucky Man" (Alan Price) 3:11
- "One And a Half" (Montrose) 1:36
- "Clown Woman" (Montrose) 4:21
- "Black Train" (Kendall Kardt/Arthur Richards/Fried) 4:34
Personnel
Band
Additional musicians
Production
- Produced by Ronnie Montrose
- Engineered by Charles Faris
References
- Montrose; "Warner Brothers Presents... Montrose!" liner notes; Warner Brothers Records 1975
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