Innocent Man – Slow Nights

I can’t think of a better way to start an album than nodding to the old home state (in this case, Idaho) and sounding like an extension of the old Mission Mountain Wood Band or maybe later Cat Mother on one of their twang kicks. I’d been awaiting this album for a couple of years, having picked up a copy of Innocent Man’s first album, Home Grown, and fallen in love with their straightforward seventies style groove way of playing. A couple tracks from that album convinced me that the band was on its way to better times and Slow Nights isn’t convincing me otherwise. There are bits of early Cowboy and Delanie & Bonnie in their style as well of that of Cat Mother and maybe even Whispering Pines when they set about jamming. No, it didn’t take me long to get into this one (and even less to get into Home Grown— read my review here). I love that sound. If they were pot roast, I would say they would put meat on your bones.

This band, in fact, reminds me so much of the early seventies that I am feeling the urge to listen to my early Allman Brothers and later Cat Mother albums to feed the hunger. So few bands have that loose tightness (or would it be tight looseness) that so many did back then. Widespread Panic did on their first two albums. The Allmans did on Idlewild South. Notary Sojac had it on some songs, though few outside of the Pacific Northwest had the chance to hear them, as excellent as they were. All I know is, whenever I hear it drags me back to exciting times for me. Of wide open music. Of bands playing in the midst of fields on flatbed trucks. Of long hair and patchouli oil. What can I say? I’m a dinosaur. Those were wonderful days for me.

I love these guys if for no other reason than they have a Hammond B-3 organ, or at least a keyboard which sounds like one. Since my early days I have been captivated by that sound, especially when played through the wavering Leslie speakers developed for that instrument. There is no better instrument to stand up to a solid electric guitar and make it go wild or maybe just misbehave. If you want to talk about jams, the best involve guitars and the Hammond. And sometimes all the Hammond has to do is show up.

Innocent Man jams a bit on Slow Nights In Idaho. Enough, I suppose. Which is a good thing. They are versatile enough to not have to rely on it. The fiddle gives them a little more room and the guitars work extremely well together. What they play isn’t country. It’s more of a back-to-the-earth rock ‘n roll style, one which can carry you away at the right moments. It is a rock style pretty much forgotten except by bands which built their reputations on it— a bedrock of rhythm with melodic and sometimes blistering guitar leads, sometimes dual. 

There is nothing better if you grew up with it. The younger set has pretty much ignored it, I understand, but there will be a time they also feel the urge, if you will. I can feel it. Kids get bored pretty easily these days and are always looking for something to grab their ‘nads. Innocent Man will have their day soon. I just know it.