Former Jimi Hendrix Experience bassist Noel Redding's second attempt to lead a group (following Fat Mattress), the Noel Redding Band were more of a cooperative effort than their name would suggest. Redding may have been the organizing principal behind the unit, but David Clarke wrote or co-wrote almost all the material as well as singing lead vocals, while Eric Bell played lead guitar. Whoever dominated the band, however, their debut LP, Clonakilty Cowboys, was very much a British rock album of its time. There were hints here of the Faces and there of Mott the Hoople in a mainstream rock sound that seemed utterly familiar in the mid-'70s, but didn't much remind you of Redding's work with Hendrix. When Bell took off on his solo, for example, at the end of Eight Nights a Week (a paean to being a rock roll star), his high-pitched work was out of Rock Guitar 101, but it had none of Hendrix's inventiveness. Maybe it's not fair to make such a comparison, but one falls into comparisons in discussing the music because it had little distinctive character of its own. As singers, neither Clarke nor Redding made it out of the rusty-voiced ranks of generic rock vocalists. Clonakilty Cowboys didn't make any noise on the charts and it didn't deserve to. Redding and company had made a fairly typical album for their time, but hadn't done anything that distinguished them from the pack. ~ William Ruhlmann, Rovi

1		There's a Light
2		Throw Me a Buoy
3		After All
4		Roller Coaster Kids
5		Eight Nights a Week
6		Clonakilty Cowboys
7		Snowstorm
8		Born to His Name
9		If I Had
10		Got to Move Away

	Like us on Facebook
	@SoundHound	Follow