THE
OLD MAN SPRINGS A BONER - Mitch Ryder, featuring Engerling (BushFunk)
If you think that Mitch Ryder's career died with the Detroit Wheels - and you might be excused for thinking so if you're on this side of the world
(Australia)
- you're wrong. If you're from Europe - specifically Germany - you'll know different.
The original blues shouter and veritable godfather of the Michigan '60s scene
("Devil With a Blue Dress", "Jenny Take a Ride", "Sock it to Me Baby") has been
an attraction in Germany since his first visit in 1978. This live album is culled
from a 2002 tour. Ryder takes guitarist Robert Gillespie in tow (Rob Tyner Band, Torpedos, Motor City Rockers, Scott Morgan's Powertrane) and tags with local veterans Engerling for 10 tracks, culled from eight different shows.
I never heard Mitch's '70s and '80s albums, even the one that John Cougar-Mellencamp produced, and I never spent much time listening to Eric Burdon's '80s efforts either. But both Burdon and Ryder are solid testament to the home truth that the worth of a great artist does not decline with increasing durability or a failure to "move units". Both have undoubtedly made career blunders. Both dip into their bulging back catalogues in the live context (although none of Mitch's big hits from his heyday made it to the final track selection on this disc.) Neither is regarded as especially "cool" (whatever that means). Bottom line is, however, that both deliver the goods and in doing so they serve up an object lesson to many of the pampered pretenders you can name.
No idea of Engerling's status in Germany, but I do know that in 30 years they've dished up a dozen or so albums, all of them emblazoned with their name in the sort of Teutonic typeface that Euro metal bands love so much. Keyboards, bass, guitar and drums, they dish up a rock solid base for Mitch to do his thing. They're all obviously great players with a solid grounding in the blues-rock genre. While much of the original material is in the "grown-up rock" category (like the Eastern melody line in "Terrorist"), Engerling are capable of rocking out, too. Witness the scorching cover of "Gimme Shelter". Much of the time, it's not clear whether it's Heiner Witte or Robert Gillespie in the guitar spotlight, such is the sympathetic nature of their playing. Tonally, though, that's more than likely Gillespie doing the driving in "Gimme Shelter" and it's 9min20s of supreme power, on all fronts.
Ryder showcases his voice on some choice covers. On an extended version of the Jagger-Richard classic, "Heart of Stone", he gives flight to a range that's lost nothing over the years. His explosive re-entry into the song after some dizzying vocal gymnastics is breathtaking for its power too. Dylan's "Wicked Messenger" gets an airing (Mitch singing it way better than Bob croaks it these days) while the closing cover of the Doors' "Soul Kitchen" (a song he self-released as a single in the late '70s) is a tour de force. Ryder swings the mood up and down with the deft control that only someone with a Master's Degree in Real Rock can bring, again matched by some amazingly fluid guitarwork from Herr Witte and Mr Gillespie.
It's a superbly produced disc, with every instrument perfectly positoned in a transparent mix.
A Ryder tune that achieved some European success, "Ain't Nobody White (Can Sing the Blues)", nestles nicely a third of the way through the album. It (and the rest of the disc) prooves that the title's a paradox. - The Barman
