BLUE STEEL: No More Lonely Nights LP PROMO ONLY 1979. Southern Bluesy Rock (ZZ Top, Lynyrd Skynyrd) Check audio

Description

Year: 1979
Style: Southern Bluesy Rock
Similar Bands: Ace, ZZ Top, Lynyrd Skynyrd
Based Out Of: Texas, U.S.A

No More Lonely Nights (3:51)
Bulldog (3:18)
Guitar Song (3:19)
Baby, You Can’t Dance (3:42)
Twist One Up (4:43)/
Shark (2:20)
I Should Be Sleeping (2:27)
Honey Dew (3:02)
Take Me (3:09)
Willie & Waylon (3:11)
Hoo-Doo-Voo-Doo (3:11)
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Leonard Arnold – Guitar (Lavender Hill Express)
Richard Bowden – Guitar (Austin Lounge Lizards, Pinkard & Bowden, Shiloh, Cold Steel, Maines Brothers Band)
Howard Burke – Guitar
Marc Durham – Bass (Buckwheat)
Mickey McGee – Drums
Michael Huey – Drums (The Swingin’ Medallions)

A one-hit wonder from 1979 that missed Billboards Hot 100 chart. Blue Steel took this song to #110 on Billboards Bubbling Under Hot 100 chart. This slice of AOR Rock deserved a much better chart fate.

It is a solid southern rock album.
The album starts off like Foreigner: Cold as Ice; Loud guitar and powerful driving drums & bass. The chorus is remarkably similar to Journeys “Separate Ways.” The lead guitar echoes the vocals at the end of every line of the verse, extending the melody in its own direction. The next song “Bulldog” is a swampy, sticky trek through the muck of southern rock. A slow, swaggering tempo makes this song stumble along. You can hear the three guitars all at once at some points, but it does not sound thick or chaotic. Toward the end, the tempo picks up, shaking the stagger off, and the song fades. “Guitar Song” is a more driving southern rock. It occasionally harmonizes the last word of a lyric as well as the one word choruses. It ends with a whammy guitar wind down. “Baby You Cant Dance” is a jagged bluesy, somewhat funky bass driven song. Supposedly a dance song, it proclaims that if you can’t dance to this, then you can’t dance. “Twist One Up” is another slow, staggering southern rocker. The song is how I imagine lazy and carefree summer days in the South, full of heat and a sweaty sun. The tempo picks up to a full on honky tonk dance contest at 3 minutes, and continues to the end, through one last return to the chorus.
“Shark” is a sly, bass heavy, driving song. It has an oldies rock n’ roll style translated through southern rock. The chorus is repetitive and catchy “I’m a shark in the dark.” “I Should Be Sleeping” sounds the bastard child of ZZ Top and the Beach Boys. There is even a Beach Boys harmonizing “Ewwwee-Eeee-Oooh” in the background. The slow, trekking “Honey Dew” is next, which creates the image of a crippled stalker who means well, but still pursues the girl who broke his heart. Fuzz-honky-tonk guitar begins “Take Me.” The chorus is an urgent, desperate gruff, yet harmonized chanting of ‘take me.’ The tempo is not quite slow nor is it fast. “Willie And Waylon” is a start/stop oldie ala Chuck Berry. A typical rock guitar solo bridges the verses, and the verse, chorus instrumental construction makes it an easy to follow song. “Hoo-Doo-Voo-Doo” is a slow paced, wide stepping march. The bass is dark, and the lyrical imagery is that of the southern bayous mystery.

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“Twist One Up” and “Baby You Can’t Dance” got a lot of airplay.Anyway, that song, “Twist One Up,” silly though it is, has always stuck with me, word for word, note for note. And my memory sucks (I wonder why?)!
I have many fond memories of this album. I spent the summer of “79” twisting them up and burning them down. I bought the album and listened to it a lot while riding in my jeep with the top off.I got to see the band live while they toured with the Eagles on their Long Run Tour….What a concert. I still pull it off the rack from time to time and listen to it and it always takes me back to a more simple time.

1. Wow! I remember this album fondly from the summer of ’79, though I never owned it myself. “Twist One Up” and “Baby You Can’t Dance” got a lot of airplay on my favorite station back in central Ohio.
   Anyway, that song, “Twist One Up,” silly though it is, has always stuck with me, word for word, note for note. And my memory sucks (I wonder why?)! I tried tracking it down just a couple years ago, but my despite my best Google-Fu there was no sign to be found.

   My wife just read aloud to me an article about a bull jumping a fence and mauling the crowd at a rodeo in Redding, CA last weekend.

   The name of the bull?

   Blue Steel.

   So I started singing “Twist One Up” and she just looked at me like I was out of my mind. Which I guess I might be.
   Reckon I’ll just go twist one up right now. Don’t let them suits get you down!
2. I have many fond memories of this album. I spent the summer of “79” twisting them up and burning them down. I bought the album and listened to it a lot while riding in my jeep with the top off. Oh to be 19 again.

   I got to see the band live while they toured with the Eagles on their Long Run Tour….What a concert.

   I still pull it off the rack from time to time and listen to it and it always takes me back to a more simple time.

3. I too remember this song as it got airplay on QFM96. Awesome and I dont even smoke dope!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

4. I bought the album just for “Twist One Up”, back in the day when i did just that. I still have the album in xcellent condition, played it the other day. Like the above post, i need to somehow get the album converted to a digital format.

   

   This is Blue Steel’s first album, released in 1979, and quite a nice rocking little album. Hailed from Texas, this is nothing like ZZ Top. Instead you get a tight, sometimes slightly Poppy but very pleasing slice of vinyl (courtesy of Luc and cleaned up by yours truly). It’s not so much the songs that shout out Southern Rock. The playing very much is, though. There’s Rock, Pop, Rock & Roll, and a nice hats off to Waylon & Willie. But I love the playing, especially the guitars accompanying these tracks. Everything else is quite ion order as well. I might not take this with me if I had to spend the rest of my life on a deserted island, but this is hardly punishment to the ears. If you like your songs short and sweet, well-written and well-performed, then this might be your cup of tea. If not, there’s always one or two songs on this record that would make for a nice addition to your own Southern Rock compilation.