10" on Sleazy Records.
Side A:
Cool Daddy In A Cadillac
Last Man Left Alive
Seance For Lux
Running From The Reaper
Side B:
Take Me To Your Leader
Waxahanchie Warrior
Pretty Baby
You Don't Love Me Anymore
What we have here is an eight-track mini-album from Boz Boorer and it’s a belter. Boz really needs no introduction, but for the sake of the truly introverted, he is the guitarist from early 1980s’ rockabilly giants the Polecats. For the past thirty years Boz has been Morrissey’s right-and man and co-writer, whilst also running his own studio, periodically releasing solo albums as well as producing many other artists.
The first track on the record is an inspired cover of the Elvis Hitler classic ‘Cool Daddy In A Cadillac’. The vocals on this track are handled in masterful fashion by head Space Waster Mick Lammond. The song is propelled along by the duelling guitars of Boz and James Walbourne of the Pretenders - it is a joy to behold.
The next track is co-written by Boz. ‘The Last Man Left Alive’’, sees the pace slowed markedly on this rather melancholy track, that tells quite a lyrical story citing John Donne’s ‘no man is an island’ along the way – a sort of intellectubilly if you will. The story based on the Twilight Zone episode ‘Enough Time At Last’ tells the story of Henry Bemis, a bank teller and a very bookish man, who has to read at work because his wife at home won’t let him read. Henry goes to the bank vault on his lunch break and while there an H bomb goes off. Henry then emerges from the rubble whereupon he is on the cusp of suicide until he discovers the ruins of a public library replete with the complete works of Dickens and George Bernard Shaw. He is visibly cheered by having the time to read all the great works of literature. Having sorted all of the books into piles, he then drops his pebble lenses which fall to the floor and shatter - a ‘cruel irony’ indeed!
The next track quickens the pace with a cracking version of ‘Pretty Baby’, a song recorded in 1958 on the Perspective label by the Vibes featuring Ronnie Franklin on vocals and also featuring David Gates who went on to have an enormous hit record in the 1970s with Bread and in particular with the song ‘Baby I’m A Want You’ With pumping piano, reverb-drenched vocals, and some tasty guitar solos, it sounds remarkably like the sadly departed Cavan Grogan.
‘Running From The Reaper’ begins like a Screamin’Lord Sutch number, but then reverts to a similar style to the ‘Last Man Left Alive’’ with a very rootsy feel to it. ‘Séance for Lux’ is part glam rock, part psychobilly it’s a cracker with the rhythm being pounded out on the floor tom and the multi-tracked vocal chorus – it is quite sublime.
The lyricist on ‘Séance For Lux’, ‘The Last Man Left Alive’, ‘Running From The Reaper’ and ‘Take Me To Your Leader’ was an old mate of Boz, Anthony Brown, who used to be the singer in Sheffield indie band the Anklestar.
‘Take Me to Your Leader’ has a terrific groove to it and is another Boz original, once again with a psychobilly smell to it. The final track Waxahatchie Warrior has a real Ronnie Dawson feel about it; so, it comes as little surprise to hear from Boz that ‘it’s a tribute to Ronnie’ Waxahatchie being the place from where Ronnie came.
This is a classy slab of varied rockabilly from a giant on the scene who shows absolutely no signs of slowing down and on evidence such as this, why on earth should he?
Nick Kemp UK Rock & Roll Magazine
