Craig in Indy
Your cool Uncle
REO Speedwagon Website
Original REO Speedwagon UK Website
REO Albums:
R.E.O. Speedwagon (1971)
R.E.O./T.W.O. (1972)
Ridin' the Storm Out (1973)
Lost in a Dream (1974)
This Time We Mean It (1975)
R.E.O. (1976)
Live: You Get What You Play For (1977)
You Can Tune a Piano but You Can't Tuna Fish (1978)
Nine Lives (1979)
Hi Infidelity (1980)
Good Trouble (1982)
Wheels Are Turnin' (1984)
Life as We Know It (1987)
The Earth, a Small Man, His Dog and a Chicken (1990)
Building the Bridge (1996)
Find Your Own Way Home (2007)
All of my old LPs have been transferred to CD for a few weeks now, but I'm still in the process of migrating those CDs to the hard drive. Last night I pulled out an old one I hadn't listened to in a long, long time - REO Speedwagon's self-titled first LP, released in 1971 on Epic Records:
Now at the risk of offending some folks here, I should say I was never a big fan of the latter-day REO, the band that became such a major arena-rock attraction. Something about that whole power-ballad thing just never appealed to me. But this album was back when their sound was different, when they were not much more than a college band with a distinct talent for blending rock with boogie-woogie.
The sound is much more raw and immediate, and not nearly as slick as it was to later become. Vocals were handled by the original singer, Terry Luttrell, who lasted only one album and really sounded nothing like Kevin Cronin, the band's 2nd and 4th singer and the one whose voice is most identified with the band.
Founding member Neil Doughty's piano is featured just as prominently as Gary Richrath's guitar, which really lends a rollicking, boogie feel to the music, and makes it easy to imagine these guys rocking a smoky college bar.
The songs are nothing really profound, though they're perfectly servicable. There are only one or two stabs at lyric relavence that end up being a little embarrassing, including the questionable "Prison Women," though to be fair there are also one or two that are pretty timeless, like "Anti-Establishment Man." You can hear more than a few hints of Richrath's scorching guitar talents which would come to serve the band so well throughout the years, particularly as an antidote to Cronin's somewhat saccharin balladry.
One curiousity is an LP-cover "thank you" credit to Dan Fogelberg, whose music is nothing like this, though it's not hard to imagine them knowing one another, as they were all central Illinois boys at some point. Fogelberg was from Peoria - where I grew up - and REO got together 90 miles away at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. In fact, when I was a senior in high school REO played a gig in our gym, and the cover of their 2nd album R.E.O. T.W.O. (also mostly forgotten, just like their first) was shot in Vriner's Confectionary, an old drug-store/diner/candy store in downtown Champaign.
Anyway, REO Speedwagon is a fun album of rollicking good-time rock/boogie that I'd recommend to anyone looking for a 40-minute escape from today's drudgeries.
Last edited by a moderator:
) and although every song might not be remarkable, there are most certainly several highlights, imo. Terry Luttrell had a unique sound to his voice, I don't know if I'd say it was 'bluesy', but at least to me, a natural fit to the music that they were playing at that time. Also, if I'm not mistaken, REO had been playing for some time in the midwest and were known to some, as well as liked, in those areas of the country before becoming more widely known, then touring more extensively across the country, too.
