Scraps

NRBQ: Joey Spampinato (vocals, acoustic guitar, bass); Terry Adams (vocals, harmonica, piano, Clavinet); Frank Gadler (vocals); Al Anderson (acoustic & electric guitars); Tom Staley (drums). Additional personnel: Kenny Sheehan, Steve Ferguson (guitar); Donn Adams (trombone); Doug & Link Wray (background vocals). Recorded at Columbia Studios, New York, New York in July 1970 and in Mount Vernon, New York in December 1971. Includes liner notes by John DeAngelis. All tracks are digitally remastered. Album number three marks the first personnel shifts in NRBQ. Founding guitarist Steve Ferguson left and was replaced by Al Anderson (who stuck around for the next 23 years!). After the confident sprawl of their debut Columbia records, unsure of what to do with this hard-to-classify ensemble, paired them with Carl Perkins and subsequently dropped them both. SCRAPS was then, and remains now, an easy entrance into a band who make no secret for their love of any music that moves them. From rockabilly to Beatle-ish pop to jump blues, swing and fractured commentaries--they find a common denominator in all of it. Nothing ever sounds out of place because this band has the skills and taste to make it all flow believably out of them. This is an album filled with wonderful songs like "Magnet," which has one of the warmest piano tones ever committed to tape. Other highlights include the front porch lilt of "Boys In The City" and the concert favorite "Howard Johnson's Got his Hojo Workin'" (which also affords a glimpse of another aspect of their endearing personality: humor).