Steppenwolf

Steppenwolf were the band who invented the term ‘Heavy Metal’, although they had it as meaning a roaring Harley Davidson bike.
With the mighty vocals of John kay to the fore and Goldy McJohn supplying a fat Hammond organ sound plus Michael Monarch on guitar, they had a powerful hard rock sound backed up by Jerry Edmonton on drums and Rushton Moreve on bass.

This boxed set contains all eight of the albums they released on ABC/Dunhill in the 1967-71 period – complete with the original covers - and they really reflect much of the underside of the Hippie counterculture that thrived in LA & San Francisco in those years.

Right from the off, their first album contains two massive hits in ‘Born To Be Wild’ and ‘The Pusher’, famous for their inclusion in the cult movie ‘Easy Rider’, but all the other tracks feature the same qualities and it is no big surprise that they were one of the biggest live draws in the West Coast through those years and there are two live albums included here – ‘Early Steppenwolf – Live at the Matrix San Francisco 14th May 1967’ and ‘Steppenwolf Live’ which has tracks culled from a number of performances around 1969. The ‘Matrix’ show really has the heart of the early sound on Steppenwolf, including a 22 minute version, heavily trippy, of ’The Pusher’ – all very rough but remarkably honest.

The lineups changed fairly regularly through the period, the only constant being John Kay, but the standard was pretty consistent and there is a wealth of great early hard rock contained in these 8 albums.

As usual with Esoteric, the remastering is top notch and the packaging is excellent with a terrific booklet that includes breakdowns of personnel and content for all the albums as well as an excellent article on the band’s history. There are plenty of bonus tracks and the whole thing has a feel of being put together properly.