Shadows of Knight - Dark Sides: The Best of the Shadows of Knight

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Music reviews of Dark Sides: The Best of the Shadows of Knight

Music Review: Review by an insider...
Rating: 5 Stars

The Shadows were not only unappreciated, but scorned locally because we didn't have horns, we weren't "funky" and we didn't have a technical virtuoso as a singer. But after listening to this compilation, you'll agree this was a breakthrough band, far ahead of it's time. In retrospect, Jim Sohns vocals were brilliant in their simplicity, humor, and energy. Listen to Light Bulb Blues and I am the Hunter for classic Sohns, the king of garage-punk vocals...never taking himself seriously. I'll bet he's the same hamburger-and-fries-with-ketchup and musclecar punk today at age 57 that he was back then.

I replaced Ken Turkin, who was the drummer when Woody Woodruff and John Fisher were in the band. Looking back, my hard punk-funk style may have pulled the band too much away from it's roots and into a harder, nastier, funk-psychedelic direction. "Hunter" is an indication of the band's direction in the '70s. The eventual hiring of ex-Edgar Winter bassist Jorge Gonzales and "Hawkeye" Daniels on guitar moved us into even more of an insane/acid/funk instrumental direction, with Jim Sohns screaming harder and harder, trying to fit. After thirty years, I can see we should have eschewed "creativity" and stayed with the formula of good blues-oriented rock 'n' roll with one of the greatest vocal stylists in the history of pop music. (Seriously, click on "Light Bulb Blues" and listen to a bit...)

There are a few clinkers on this CD, but most of the songs by the first Shadows are clean and distinctive, sounding like no one else. The fact that a one-hit-wonder band with a 1966 hit record could have a "best-of" CD that would sell for ten years after it's release in 1994 is an indication that The Shadows of Knight have survived the test of time as one of the greatest garage bands ever.

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