Blackfoot has always been one of my favorite Southern Rock Bands, their songs and sound flat out Rock for me. The history of Blackfoot includes a long list of musicians, this is one band that has seen it’s share of lineup changes over the years. My favorite years of Blackfoot Southern Rock were definitely 1979 through 1981. The Blackfoot albums released during those years were “Strikes”, “Tomcattin'” and “Marauder”. The CD “Blackfoot Greatest Hits”, (pictured here), contains ten songs representing these three albums, which was at Walmart a couple of years ago… for five bucks I bought it without question. Admittedly, I do not own any other Blackfoot albums, so picking up a Greatest Hits of Blackfoot was essential sooner or later. I really get into this Blackfoot CD during the Spring through Autumn months… probably due to the fact I always equate Southern Rock to warmer weather. Go figure. The first track on this CD is “Highway Song”, my favorite Blackfoot tune ever. This CD I played in my car recently, the timing of listening to “Highway Song”, on this particular small road trip, could not have been any better, here is how it all unfolded…
My family wanted to go shopping, (for back to school clothes), at the very large mall… this is the big one, the biggest mall in the area where we live. It is not a problem at all for me to join them… this oversized shopping mecca has a Hot Topic, therefore I can have a store of interest to check out. We embarked on our mall trip at around 5:30 p.m. – rush hour on the highway. I have never been a huge fan of rush hour congestion on the roadway, especially the highway. I spent too many years, like millions of others, wasting away hours on end, inside of a car, due to the rush hour creep. Thank heaven for the inventive mind or minds that decided to put stereo systems into cars decades ago. Having a CD player in the car has become an accepted necessity for me, music can not just entertain during a rush hour debacle, it can get me through psychologically during a highway traffic jam. We sure enough, didn’t even get onto the highway before realization set in… the traffic ahead of us was moving slower than we could walk. Step in “Highway Song”, as this Blackfoot CD played, It finally hit me that this was the best song to have playing, while stuck in a sea of cars moving at 3 mph.
What should have been a fifteen minute trip down a straight highway became a forty minute stop and go. It appeared that there was no traffic accident, no highway construction, nor was there any debris in the roadway causing this delay, nope. The rush hour tie up seemed to be, in my Metal opinion, the one word that traffic reporters have used for many years now… phenomenon. You know, when traffic will slow down to a crawl for no apparent reason at all. It is like a domino affect, once the first car slows down, the rest in line have no choice but to follow suit. I have been involved in many, many, many, worse and longer rush hour scenarios throughout my life, this was definitely not the end of the world. Still, it was cool that the one CD I decided to listen to, even before our car reached the highway, was this Blackfoot Greatest Hits with “Highway Song” just getting started. What were the odds of this moment coming together? My listening to this song and the entire CD on our rush hour adventure to the mall, made the trip feel like the fifteen minutes it usually takes to get there. The bottom line is, Blackfoot and “Highway Song” made this rush hour jam easier to take.
Every time I listen to Molly Hatchet “Greatest Hits” I get positively pumped and put into the best of moods. The Southern Hard Rock crunch of Molly Hatchet coupled with the back roads feel of all their music will never be matched by any band today. Molly Hatchet, in my opinion, was the heaviest Southern Rock band of their day. They treaded the fine line of Metal later in their career with “Satisfied Man” and “Shake The House Down”. Early in Molly Hatchet’s catalog of music, “The Creeper” made it known instantly that this band was playing heavy and for keeps! This song off of their debut album “Molly Hatchet” is bass heavy and the guitar work slams it down! The signature heaviness of Molly Hatchet is also linked to the unique lead vocals. The tough as nails vocals you will hear are from Jimmy Farrar and Danny Joe Brown. Both vocalists were so similar in their attitude and make no mistake Southern Hard Rock vocal delivery. The FM radio hits of the late ’70’s and early ’80’s are all here, with “Flirtin’ With Disaster”, “Beatin’ The Odds”, and the lengthy guitar driven masterpieces “Dreams I’ll Never See” and “Fall Of The Peacemakers”.
Let’s face it, the album artwork on Molly Hatchet album covers are extremely cool. I still find myself, to this day, staring at the artwork like it is my first time ever seeing it. I am from the generation of Metal/Hard Rock fans that would (and still do), sit down with a vinyl album jacket and inspect every speck of art, from front to back, while listening to that respective band’s tunes. I strongly recommend any fan of heavy music to buy this “Greatest Hits” of Molly Hatchet, still, I also recommend any album that this band has ever released, past or present. It is my opinion, that Molly Hatchet truly crossed over many Rock genres during their reign – Rock, Hard Rock, Southern Rock, Southern Hard Rock and eventually a stab at trying to sound like ’80’s Heavy Metal, (with the album “The Deed Is Done” – released in 1984). Call them any genre you wish, I just call Molly Hatchet legends. Long live Molly Hatchet. Keeping in mind, the core of the original Molly Hatchet lineup has changed over the years, this band has still released some current and impressive Southern Hard Rock albums over the last decade.
I have never, ever, heard such incredible, good-old fashioned guitar jamming in my life like I hear with Molly Hatchet on their “Greatest Hits” – intensity is the best adjective. This band legitimized guitar jamming and put it on the map! This is the ultimate “Greatest Hits” you will find from Molly Hatchet. Give the Hatchet a try and you will be hooked for life! The liner notes that come with the re-mastered CD are eight pages. Two pages are devoted to a summary history of Molly Hatchet, along with four cool band photos and song/album credits.
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