Six-Gun Sound Is My Claim to Fame

Album: Bad Company, 10 from 6, 1985




Acquired: 1986, but danged if I could say where

Best Track: "Bad Company," but everything is relative



Lasting Memory: For some reason, every time I hear any BC song, I flash back to a very vivid recollection of driving west down Hampton Blvd. in Norfolk toward Old Dominion University in the early spring of 1988. I can see all the other cars and feel the slight rush of taking that S-curve right after the bridge a little too fast. I can also feel the breeze through the windows of the baby blue Ford Fairmont we'd been handed down from Grandma and Grandpa Lamb, and I can practically smell the azaleas as they reached their full bloom. What I can't remember, even if you were to torture me for days, is why I was going to ODU that day.



My friend and former grad school classmate Mark flabbergastedly (and with mighty poor punctuation) cautioned me against revisiting my lone Bad Company tape. I probably should have heeded his advice.

This music sure sounded a whole better when I was younger and didn't know so much about what I considered quality musical entertainment. I used to absolutely love "Rock 'n Roll Fantasy," for instance, especially the first part that goes

Here come the jesters, 1, 2, 3
It's all part of my fantasy
I love the music
And I love to see the crowd
Dancing in the aisles
And singin' out loud, yeah

Here come the dancers, one by one
Your mama's calling
But you're having fun

To a teenage boy, there could not possibly be anything cooler than the idea of someday becoming a rock star/feudal lord who has clowns and strippers at his command, and his mom can't say a damn thing about it. Hell, that's still what I want to grow up to be. Not for nothing does the official BC Web site claim, "England's Bad Company has put its indelible stamp on rock 'n' roll with a straight-ahead, no-frills musical approach that has resulted in the creation of some of the most timeless rock anthems ever."

(Yep. Two posts in a row with "timeless." I guess it's too bad I don't own and can't reflect on the Hank Williams Sr. for-charity tribute covers album Timeless. That would be a lot of decontextualized music.)

What makes the BC bio claim true, of course, is that the band was either formed or heavy handedly shaped into the stereotypical American-radio-friendly arena rock heavy blues band. Formed in England in 1973, BC took a little bit of Allman Brothers, a little bit of Led Zepplin (whose Swan Song label BC was on in the 1970s), a little bit of Who, and a little bit Grand Funk Railroad, sanded off the edges of each, ahem, influence, and rocked your U.S. town.

The appeal of BC is undeniable simply because it is unavoidable. It is in a word "serviceable." It is also calculated in that BC gives you all the stuff you like, and none of what you don't.

Credit where it's due, Paul Rodgers does have one of the great all-time blues rock voices. But why, exactly, should the best song by a band from England be about a rogue unit of the army of the Confederate States of America? England had its own civil wars. Let Rodgers & Co. sing about those.

I'll still find myself singing along to "Can't Get Enough" and "Shooting Star" and all the rest when I hear them while driving around, but it will be a warm day in Virginia Beach before I enjoy that despite what I know.

Unless I'm in a very foul mood, I should have no "yeah, but" statements about the profile subject slated for Monday. I'm a sucker for good, honest, often dour singer-songwriter fare.

Up Next: David Baerwald, Bedtime Stories, 1990

Word Count to Date: 2,940