Atlanta Rhythm Section

Atlanta Rhythm Section - Dog Days - 1975 - Polydor (U.S)

The Atlanta Rhythm Section released their first self titled album in 1972, and during the seventies they made a big impact on the Top 40 charts with hits such as, "Spooky," "So Into You," and "Imaginary Lover." They earned gold and two platinum albums, which assured them a spot as one of the great rock bands. In 1996 ARS was deservedly inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame. "Dog Days" is not as strong an album as most of the ARS output, but it's still a great example of the best in Southern boogie rock. For better examples of the ARS music, buy their marvellous "Champagne Jam" album and listen to their great "Rock and Roll Alternative" album. [ N.B : Link here will only be around for 7 days, so ....... ] This one's for you prin/c...although I'm sure you have album

TRACKS / COMPOSERS

A1.Crazy - Buie , Daughtry , Nix
A2.Boogie Smoogie - Bailey , Buie , Nix
A3.Cuban Crisis - Buie , Cobb , Nix
A4.It Just Ain't Your Moon - Buie , Daughtry , Nix

B1.Dog Days - Buie , Daughtry , Nix
B2.Bless My Soul (Instrumental) - J. R. Cobb
B3.Silent Treatment - Bailey , Buie , Nix
B4.All Night Rain - McRee , Buie , Daughtry , Nix

BAND

Barry Bailey - guitar
J.R. Cobb - guitar, background vocals
Dean Daughtry - keyboards
Paul Goddard - bass
Ronnie Hammond - vocals, background vocals
Robert Nix - percussion, drums, background vocals

ALBUM / TRACK INFO [ © Copyright 2002-2003 - Rolling Storm Communications Corporation - All Rights Reserved ]

Dog Days was ARS first masterpiece and an album that still stands with their best. It showcases a band that has found its groove and is taking its music to a new level. Featuring another fine collection of songs about themselves and the South, the band displays a growing array of musical styles and approaches that are very different from where the rest of Southern Rock was headed. Overall, it's a faster paced album that what had come before, featuring six uptempo songs and two beautiful ballads-all originals. It opens on some high notes with the rocking Crazy leading into the buildup blues and breakout jam of Boogie Smoogie. A couple of lighter tunes lead into a ballad that is ballad that is a beautiful evocation of the South Dog Days. For the second album in a row they show off their chops with an instrumental Bless My Soul. The album closed with another classic ballad of Souther images All Night Rain. While other bands were striving to claim the mantle of kings of Southern rock, ARS had started making music no other Southern band has ever been able to duplicate.

1. Crazy (Buie/Nix/Daughtry)-3:07
The album starts off in overdrive with a guitar solo leading into meditations on the times. Vocals, keyboards and guitars build into a musical crescendo rocking harder than anything ARS had recorded before, with Ronnie Hammond's vocal expressing the band's disdain for those who "powder your nose and paste on your glitter."

2. Boogie Smoogie (Buie/Nix/Bailey)-7:57
Their first longer recorded work, this begins as a slow guitar-and-harmonica blues that recounts ARS' frustration with audiences who "just want to boogie." It then accelerates into a roadhouse stomp that boogies as well as anything to come out of the South, but with an emphasis on melody and tone seldom matched elsewhere.

3. Cuban Crisis (Buie/Nix/Cobb)-3:50
The mood lightens up with this lilting, uptempo remembrance of a Saturday night on the town in Ybor City, FL and the characters encountered there.

4. It Just Ain't Your Moon (Buie/Nix/Daughtry)-4:50
The rocking rolls on with track that drives home the notion that some things are not meant to be, and incorporates some of ARS' classic tempo changes to beautiful effect..

5. Dog Days (Buie/Nix/Daughtry)-3:35
A classic. Dean Daughtry's keyboard leads Hammond's vocals through a melody that rises and falls, with lyrics that capture images of life in the South during the heat of summer. At the end of the second chorus, the song suddenly and dramatically changes tempo, and guitarist Barry Bailey takes over, leading the band into a driving musical interlude before returning to a closing keyboard coda.

6. Bless My Soul (Cobb)-4:00
An instrumental blues shuffle, featuring solid ensemble playing and some great guitar soloing.

7. Silent Treatment (Buie/Nix/Bailey)-6:15
A subdued but intense rocker about a mysterious woman and a pickup in a "loud Hotlanta honkytonk." Tempo changes are again used to great effect both to create mood and build a sophisticated musical framework.

8. All Night Rain (Buie/Nix/Daughtry/McRee)-3:10
The album closes on a lighter note with this ballad featuring guitars, piano and Hammond's conversational vocal. Again, Southern summer scenes are evoked both in words and sounds. "Can't you hear the thunder, see the lightning cross the sky?"

BIO

Often described as a more radio-friendly version of Lynyrd Skynyrd or the Allman Brothers, the Atlanta Rhythm Section was one of many Southern rock bands to hit the upper reaches of the charts during the late '70s. Hailing from the small town of Doraville, Georgia, the beginning of the Atlanta Rhythm Section can be traced back to 1970. It was then that a local recording studio was opened, Studio One, and the remnants of two groups (the Candymen and the Classics Four), became the studio's house band. One of the facility's head figures, Buddy Buie, soon began assembling the session band -- singer Rodney Justo, guitarist Barry Bailey, bassist Paul Goddard, keyboardist Dean Daughtry, and drummer Robert Nix. After playing on several artists' recordings, it was decided to take the band a step further and make the group of players a real band, leading to the formation of the Atlanta Rhythm Section. Buie soon became an invisible fifth member of the fledgling band; he served as their manager and producer, in addition to providing a major hand in the songwriting department. Finding time between sessions to record their own original material (which was initially, entirely instrumental), an early demo wound up landing the band a record deal. The group's first few albums failed to generate much chart action (1972's Atlanta Rhythm Section, 1973's Back Up Against the Wall, 1974's Third Annual Pipe Dream, 1975's Dog Days, and 1976's Red Tape), but it was during this time that Justo was replaced with newcomer Ronnie Hammond, which would eventually pay dividends for the group. Although they had gained quite a bit of radio airplay down south, their record company began to put pressure on the quintet to deliver a single that would break them nationally. The demand worked -- the Atlanta Rhythm Section scored a Top Ten single, "So Into You," on their next release, 1976's A Rock and Roll Alternative, which was the group's first album to reach gold certification. But this wouldn't be the group's commercial peak, as they scored the highest charting album of their career in 1978, the Top Ten Champagne Jam, which spawned two hit singles -- "I'm Not Gonna Let It Bother Me Tonight" and "Imaginary Lover." To keep up their high profile, the Atlanta Rhythm Section soon became one of the hardest touring bands of the entire Southern rock genre (including a performance at the White House for then-president Jimmy Carter). But the group's commercial success would be fleeting -- it appeared as soon as mainstream rock fans embraced the Atlanta Rhythm Section, they just as quickly forgot about them. Each subsequent album -- 1979's Underdog and live set Are You Ready, 1980s The Boys from Doraville, and 1981's Quinella -- sold less than the previous one, resulting in the band's split shortly thereafter. In the wake of their split, the Atlanta Rhythm Section has reunited sporadically for tours (although only a few original members would be present), and issued their first all-new studio album in more than a decade in 1999, Eufala. Additionally, some of country-rock's biggest names have gone on to record Atlanta Rhythm Section covers -- Travis Tritt, Wynonna Judd, and Charlie Daniels, among others. © Greg Prato, All Music Guide