Released in 1977, Carolina Dreams is The Marshall Tucker Band's sixth studio album. A salute to the band's home state of South Carolina, it features their biggest hit up to that time - Heard It In a Love Song - which rose to number 14 on the Billboard Hot 100. The album reached numbers 22 and 23 on the Country and Pop charts, respectively.
The band also toured in support of the album in '77, which helped solidify their status as southern rock superstars.
Despite Heard It In A Love Song's up tempo and happy sound, it's really a sad song in disguise. Written by guitarist Toy Caldwell, the song is about a man who has lived on the road going from town to town and affair to affair. He finally finds a good woman, and although he loves her he can't stay with her because the call of the road is too strong. He has to keep moving to stay alive.
Caldwell, who died of heart failure in 1993, was the band's primary songwriter.
I really love this album. It sounds really good, with terrific separation and a tight though not overly heavy bottom end courtesy of Tommy Caldwell (bass) and Paul Riddle (drums). All of the band's original members - except for singer Doug Grey - have since died off, and the sound hasn't survived, either. The current lineup is another band entirely, one that does not have the songwriting skills of Toy Caldwell to rely on and is unrecognizable as the band that put out this record. I think Doug should have laid the band to rest years ago. Back-to-back, the current lineup can't touch the original lineup as far as that Marshall Tucker sound is concerned, which illustrates just how great that lineup and this record was and is.
Opening with a strong Fly Like An Eagle (not the Steve Miller song), the audio bliss continues as the needle goes head first t into Heard It In A Love Song. Only two tunes in and you're already hooked. You just know this is a record you're going to love forever. I also have it on CD, but the record is definitely warmer.
It could be argued that this is a guitar record, and while the guitar work here is stellar - George McCorkle's playing perfectly compliments Toy's dancing fretwork - it's not just the guitar that makes this record rock so well. Toy's younger brother, Tommy Caldwell, is a great rock bassist whose playing, when paired with Paul Riddle's solid timekeeping, provides a foundation for the guitars to soar over. But it also anchors them somewhat, lighting the way back from their flights of fancy.
But Marshall Tucker had something other southern rock bands didn't that set them apart from the rest of the pack: a flautist. It's not often a flute shows up in rock and roll (can you name anyone else other than Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull who plays flute regularly in a rock band?), but Marshall Tucker's Jerry Eubanks makes it work so well it's hard to imagine their music without the flute, especially when it occupies such a beautifully melodic line as in Heard It In A Love Song. It makes the song, which would suffer without it. It would still be a great song, just not as great.
I never get tired of listening to this LP. I was lucky enough to find an original, used copy in VG++ condition while digging through bins in London, Ontario, a while back. I also have it on the remastered CD that arrived with the Marshall Tucker Band box set a few years back, but I'll never get rid of the record. It's just that good!
Released in 1977, Carolina Dreams is The Marshall Tucker Band's sixth studio album. A salute to the band's home state of South Carolina, it features their biggest hit up to that time - Heard It In a Love Song - which rose to number 14 on the Billboard Hot 100. The album reached numbers 22 and 23 on the Country and Pop charts, respectively.
The band also toured in support of the album in '77, which helped solidify their status as southern rock superstars.
Despite Heard It In A Love Song's up tempo and happy sound, it's really a sad song in disguise. Written by guitarist Toy Caldwell, the song is about a man who has lived on the road going from town to town and affair to affair. He finally finds a good woman, and although he loves her he can't stay with her because the call of the road is too strong. He has to keep moving to stay alive.
Caldwell, who died of heart failure in 1993, was the band's primary songwriter.
I really love this album. It sounds really good, with terrific separation and a tight though not overly heavy bottom end courtesy of Tommy Caldwell (bass) and Paul Riddle (drums). All of the band's original members - except for singer Doug Grey - have since died off, and the sound hasn't survived, either. The current lineup is another band entirely, one that does not have the songwriting skills of Toy Caldwell to rely on and is unrecognizable as the band that put out this record. I think Doug should have laid the band to rest years ago. Back-to-back, the current lineup can't touch the original lineup as far as that Marshall Tucker sound is concerned, which illustrates just how great that lineup and this record was and is.
Opening with a strong Fly Like An Eagle (not the Steve Miller song), the audio bliss continues as the needle goes head first t into Heard It In A Love Song. Only two tunes in and you're already hooked. You just know this is a record you're going to love forever. I also have it on CD, but the record is definitely warmer.
It could be argued that this is a guitar record, and while the guitar work here is stellar - George McCorkle's playing perfectly compliments Toy's dancing fretwork - it's not just the guitar that makes this record rock so well. Toy's younger brother, Tommy Caldwell, is a great rock bassist whose playing, when paired with Paul Riddle's solid timekeeping, provides a foundation for the guitars to soar over. But it also anchors them somewhat, lighting the way back from their flights of fancy.
But Marshall Tucker had something other southern rock bands didn't that set them apart from the rest of the pack: a flautist. It's not often a flute shows up in rock and roll (can you name anyone else other than Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull who plays flute regularly in a rock band?), but Marshall Tucker's Jerry Eubanks makes it work so well it's hard to imagine their music without the flute, especially when it occupies such a beautifully melodic line as in Heard It In A Love Song. It makes the song, which would suffer without it. It would still be a great song, just not as great.
I never get tired of listening to this LP. I was lucky enough to find an original, used copy in VG++ condition while digging through bins in London, Ontario, a while back. I also have it on the remastered CD that arrived with the Marshall Tucker Band box set a few years back, but I'll never get rid of the record. It's just that good!
BONUS TRACK
Marshall Tucker Band founding member and singer, Doug Gray - the only original member still onboard - recalls touring with the band in 1977 in support of Carolina Dreams. One of those shows, on September 3rd, in Englishtown. NJ, was recorded and released in 2014 .
Titled Live! Englishtown, N.J. September 3, 1977, the set documents one of the biggest concert crowds the group ever performed in front of - 150,000 people!
They shared the bill that day with the Grateful Dead and New Riders Of The Purple Sage. Gray recalls being woken up out of sound sleep at 7:00 a.m. "I think I went to bed at about 4:30 or five. We had no idea - here we were just in another town in New Jersey, and it was like the perfect storm, the perfect day, and all of the magic things happened. The reason they woke us up was the promoters had rented helicopters to get the musicians in and out. And I'm thinking, well, there's only three bands - what's the problem? And 150,000 people decided to show up. We couldn't believe it. It was a sea of people. It was peace, love and Marshall Tucker."
Gray decided to release the tapes when Ramblin' Records renewed their deal with Sony/RED Distribution. "It's the original band, it sounded great, it had so much energy flying off of the stage," he said.
If you want to hear what the band sounded like at the height of their popularity and fame, around the time Carolina Dreams was released, you owe it to yourself to check out this record!
MORE MARSHALL TUCKER
Marshall Tucker Band founding member and singer, Doug Gray - the only original member still onboard - recalls touring with the band in 1977 in support of Carolina Dreams. One of those shows, on September 3rd, in Englishtown. NJ, was recorded and released in 2014 .
Titled Live! Englishtown, N.J. September 3, 1977, the set documents one of the biggest concert crowds the group ever performed in front of - 150,000 people!
They shared the bill that day with the Grateful Dead and New Riders Of The Purple Sage. Gray recalls being woken up out of sound sleep at 7:00 a.m. "I think I went to bed at about 4:30 or five. We had no idea - here we were just in another town in New Jersey, and it was like the perfect storm, the perfect day, and all of the magic things happened. The reason they woke us up was the promoters had rented helicopters to get the musicians in and out. And I'm thinking, well, there's only three bands - what's the problem? And 150,000 people decided to show up. We couldn't believe it. It was a sea of people. It was peace, love and Marshall Tucker."
Gray decided to release the tapes when Ramblin' Records renewed their deal with Sony/RED Distribution. "It's the original band, it sounded great, it had so much energy flying off of the stage," he said.
If you want to hear what the band sounded like at the height of their popularity and fame, around the time Carolina Dreams was released, you owe it to yourself to check out this record!
MORE MARSHALL TUCKER
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