Sammy Hagar’s career as a solo act was not immediately
\nsuccessful after his departure from Montrose in 1974. In fact, he
\ndidn’t chart a single song or album in the ’70s. What he did,
\ninstead, was to build a cult following via relentless touring and a
\nreputation for putting on electric live shows, featuring highlights
\nfrom both his nascent solo career and his tenure as lead singer for
\na band whose name still inspired lighter-snapping reverence from
\nlegions of hard rock fans. While he would taste chart success in
\nthe ’80s via a series of increasingly poppy singles (his first big
\nhit was the cheesy 1982 fast-cars-and-girls two-fer “Your Love Is
\nDriving Me Crazy”), his ’70s following received a significant boost
\nfrom
\nAll Night Long<\/i>, his fourth solo album and first live
\ndisc.<\/p>\n
The strength of this album is simple: seven tracks covering all
\nhis best early material, no filler whatsoever, and high energy all
\nthe way.<\/p>\n
The solo tracks are the best material Hagar ever put out,
\npounding, raucous, celebratory tunes like “Reckless,” “Turn Up The
\nMusic” and “Rock And Roll Weekend.” It’s obvious from song titles
\nlike those that depth and subtlety were never Hagar’s strong suit,
\nbut here he doesn’t even try, which frees the songs from any
\npretense and allows them to just flat-out rock. And really, when
\nsomeone has the balls to write and record a ringing, pounding,
\nshout-it-out-loud anthem to their favorite color (“Red”), what can
\nyou do but plant a goofy smile on your face and sing along?<\/p>\n
This album also has the good fortune to capture Hagar’s
\nsupporting band at its strongest. By 1978 Ronnie Montrose had
\nbroken up his namesake band, enabling Hagar to sweep up the entire
\nsupporting cast from those first two classic Montrose albums – Bill
\nChurch on bass, Denny Carmassi on drums, even Alan “Fitz”
\nFitzgerald on keyboards. The only “new guy” was Gary Pihl, a
\nguitarist whose long tenure with Hagar was marked by an emphasis on
\nspeed over feel and a willingness to play the role of the hired gun
\nsideman to the hilt – in other words, just what Hagar was looking
\nfor after his experience with Montrose.<\/p>\n
Part of the fun here is getting one of the few officially
\nrecorded glimpses on record of what the live Montrose experience
\nmust have been like. While the Hagar-penned “Make It Last” and “Bad
\nMotor Scooter” do miss the uniquely rich guitar tone of Ronnie
\nMontrose in this incarnation, Hagar and the Montrose rhythm section
\nstill give this thundering pair of rockers a very respectable
\nairing.<\/p>\n
(Note: There is also a U.K. edition of this album called
\nLoud And Clear<\/i> that includes
\nAll Night Long<\/i> in its entirety and adds a 1979 live
\nperformance of the Montrose nugget “Space Station #5.” Don’t be
\nfooled into spending big dollars for it on eBay. Whatever magic is
\npresent on
\nAll Night Long<\/i>, it doesn’t carry over to the latter track,
\non which a tired, sloppy Hagar and band butcher a great song,
\nreducing it to a barely-listenable mess.)<\/p>\n
For fans of Hagar’s ’70s output, this album is required
\nlistening, a set of incendiary live performances that helped make
\nthe “Red Rocker” rep he’s been living off of ever since. For fans
\nof high-energy guitar rock,
\nAll Night Long<\/i> is the light beer you’ve been looking for –
\nless filling and it tastes great.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":26279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5845],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-37503","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-sammy-hagar","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37503","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\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37503\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37503"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}