It seems like it would be the perfect meeting of two Southern
\nRock powers, pairing Johnny Van Zant (Lynyrd Skynyrd) and his
\nbrother Donnie (38 Special) together. It’s already been done once,
\non
\nBrother To Brother<\/i> a few years ago – one of the few discs
\nout of the CMC stable I haven’t checked out.<\/p>\n
Now the brothers meet again for
\nVan Zant II<\/i>, a disc that tries not to be either Skynyrd or
\n38 Special – and the end result is near chaos.<\/p>\n
Mind you, I’m not against the brothers Van Zant doing albums
\ntogether; both have incredible voices and are talented singers in
\ntheir own right. But it sometimes feels like they’re trying to
\nleave their musical roots behind and step out onto a path that is
\nless familiar to them. Oh, sure, had they made an album that
\nsounded like Lynyrd Skynyrd or 38 Special, someone would have
\ncomplained that they were resting on their laurels. After hearing
\nthe bulk of
\nVan Zant II<\/i>, I know that’s exactly where I’d prefer them to
\nbe.<\/p>\n
Right from the get-go, you can tell this is a troubled album.
\nPart of the problem is that both Van Zants are so good that it’s
\nhard to know when each individual singer should be in the driver’s
\nseat. Having both sing at the same time, especially when harmony
\nvocals are eschewed, is merely a recipe for disaster, as “Oklahoma”
\nproves.<\/p>\n
But part of the problem is also in the songwriting, something
\nboth Van Zant brothers and producer Robert White Johnson can share
\nthe blame for. Many of the songs on
\nVan Zant II<\/i> don’t even sound like the “B” material for
\neither of their respected groups. Instead, tracks such as “At Least
\nI’m Free,” “Imagination,” “Get What You Got Comin'” and “Baby Get
\nBlue” all sound like they were written for someone else and tackled
\nby the Van Zants. Had both Johnny and Donnie Van Zant not been
\nsongwriters for all 10 tracks (though Donnie Van Zant seems to be
\nthe main songwriter of the two), I’d think that was the case. Even
\nthe guitar talents of Kenny Wayne Shepherd on two tracks seems
\nwasted.<\/p>\n
This isn’t to say that all of
\nVan Zant II<\/i> is a waste. There is a light of hope held out
\nearly on with the track “Heart Of An Angel,” a song which
\nadmittedly has to grow on you a bit. But the real fireworks are
\nsaved for the closing tracks of the album. “What’s The World Coming
\nTo” begins to have the feel of a classic Southern Rock band
\n(reminding me a little bit of the solo work of Warren Haynes),
\nwhile “Alive” (the only track co-written with Jim Peterik) shows
\nthe potential the Van Zants and their backing band had throughout
\nthis disc. “Wildside” is a lesser track of the three, but still
\nstands out among the carnage.<\/p>\n
It’s surprising that Johnny and Donnie Van Zant would miss the
\ntarget as they did on
\nVan Zant II<\/i>. I’m told that
\nBrother To Brother<\/i> was an amazing disc – and it makes me
\nwonder if it’s just impossible to recreate that initial magic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28048,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7603],"rating":[11205],"class_list":["post-39441","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-van-zant","rating-rating-d-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39441","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=39441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39441\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39441"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}