Donnie Van Zant and 38 Special might be a band who have not
\nexactly kept a high profile in the last decade – I can only see two
\nalbums released in the ’90s, and I wasn’t even aware of 1997’s
\nResolution<\/i>, their most recent studio effort.<\/p>\n
Yet this is the kind of band who, when you listen to them, make
\nyou wonder why you stopped listening to them in the first place.
\nWhy they ever fell out of the public’s good graces I don’t know,
\nbut their most recent effort,
\nLive At Sturgis<\/i>, should be more than sufficient to get them
\nback into our midst.<\/p>\n
Recorded at a biker festival in South Dakota – probably the last
\nplace in the universe you’d want to utter the phrase “redneck,”
\neven if you are Jeff Foxworthy – Van Zant and Don Barnes lead the
\ncrowd through some old favorites. What you’re left with is actually
\na very entertaining live disc.<\/p>\n
Oh, sure, there’s a little hesitancy in the crowd when 38
\nSpecial whips one newer track, “Fade To Blue,” on them – prompting
\nBarnes to say to the audience, “So I guess you want to hear an old
\none now, huh?” In the band’s defense, this track sounds like it
\ncould have come from their glory period; it has all the nuances and
\nhooks that their radio hits had as well. But the candle just isn’t
\nlit on this one for the crowd, and the band goes back to the career
\nretrospective. Oh, well – the crowd’s loss.<\/p>\n
When you listen to
\nLive At Sturgis<\/i>, don’t be surprised to find yourself saying,
\n“I didn’t realize that 38 Special did that song” – or, “Man, I
\nhaven’t heard
\nthat<\/i> one in years!” Songs like “If I’d Been The One,”
\n“Fantasy Girl” and “Rebel To Rebel” (dedicated to Van Zant’s
\nbrother Ronnie, the late lead singer of Lynyrd Skynyrd) are as
\nrefreshing as a glass of ice water on a summer day. Go ahead; crank
\nup the volume and sing along with these full blast. And let’s not
\nforget about their best track that you probably don’t know about –
\n“Rockin’ Into The Night”.<\/p>\n
Of course, the big hits are here in the guise of live versions
\nof “Caught Up In You” and “Hold On Loosely”. (If you want to hear
\n“Teacher Teacher,” you’re gonna have to invest in the DVD version –
\nand, in my case, re-invest in a DVD drive.) While the band might
\nnot still be heard outside of the oldies stations, these tracks
\ndemonstrate that 38 Special have lost none of their fire.<\/p>\n
The one stumbling point comes on the one new track, “Just One
\nGirl”. For some reason, this track just seems out of place with the
\nlively nature of the others – and it’s not because this is the lone
\nstudio track. It just is not up to the same caliber (please, no gun
\njokes) as the other tracks – though there’s a chance it would have
\nstood out on its own in a different setting.<\/p>\n
\nLive At Sturgis<\/i> might be the kind of disc that could
\ndislodge the best-of collection
\nFlashback<\/i> from regular rotation in your CD library. 38
\nSpecial is the kind of band who were driven from fame for no good
\nreason, and through no major faults of their own.
\nLive At Sturgis<\/i> reminds us that it’s time to give these guys
\nanother chance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25345,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6547],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-36551","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-38-special","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36551"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36551"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}