Album
Dog Soldier
Dog Soldier
Esoteric (label)
28 February 2011 (released)
08 May 2011
Not to be confused with Dogsoldier, a band from Charleston South Carolina or Dog Soldiers, Neil Marshall’s UK horror flick, this was the only album by a band Keef Hartley put together in the mid-70’s after the demise of his Little Big Band.
The band was formed by Miller Anderson and Keef Hartley and also featured Paul Bliss on bass, Mel Simpson on keyboards and Derek Griffiths on lead guitar. They were a sort of supergroup of the time as Griffiths had started his career with the Artwoods (led by Ronnie Woods brother Art and featuring Keef Hartley on drums and Jon Lord on keys) and Mel Simpson and Paul Bliss were two of the most popular session men of the time.
Unfortunately, timing is everything and they were competing against the last vestiges of Prog, massive bands like Zeppelin and Thin Lizzy and the first stirrings of the punk movement and pub-rock scenes – their long term future was not helped by losing Miller Anderson to hospitalisation with Peritonitis when the band was first due to gig in support of the album and a schism between the old-stagers and the youngsters (Bliss & Simpson) when they did finally hit the road..
A shame really because the album features some superb playing from Anderson and Hartley as well as an excellent set of songs with contributions from the whole band.
‘Pillar To Post’ is a big bruiser of a riff with some fine guitar work while ‘Several People’ has an almost Traffic-like fluidity and is very reminiscent of the Overdog period, ‘Long & Lonely Night’ is a pleading and passionate heartfelt plea and ‘Giving As Good As You Get’ is classic mid-70’s rock with big chorus, organ fills and some terrific guitar work. The big number on the original album was the mammoth ‘Looks Like Rain’ which sounds brilliant in its original incarnation but the bonus track of an alternate version is even better.
If you are into rock of the period then this is a sadly underrated album that needed to be re-issued if only to replace all those dog-eared original copies but iof you are coming fresh to the genre then this will be a very pleasant and unexpected addition to the classic albums of the time.
‘Like’ our Award Winning facebook page and be entered into a draw to win 1000 CDs including rare, signed and promotional copies here!
The band was formed by Miller Anderson and Keef Hartley and also featured Paul Bliss on bass, Mel Simpson on keyboards and Derek Griffiths on lead guitar. They were a sort of supergroup of the time as Griffiths had started his career with the Artwoods (led by Ronnie Woods brother Art and featuring Keef Hartley on drums and Jon Lord on keys) and Mel Simpson and Paul Bliss were two of the most popular session men of the time.
Unfortunately, timing is everything and they were competing against the last vestiges of Prog, massive bands like Zeppelin and Thin Lizzy and the first stirrings of the punk movement and pub-rock scenes – their long term future was not helped by losing Miller Anderson to hospitalisation with Peritonitis when the band was first due to gig in support of the album and a schism between the old-stagers and the youngsters (Bliss & Simpson) when they did finally hit the road..
A shame really because the album features some superb playing from Anderson and Hartley as well as an excellent set of songs with contributions from the whole band.
‘Pillar To Post’ is a big bruiser of a riff with some fine guitar work while ‘Several People’ has an almost Traffic-like fluidity and is very reminiscent of the Overdog period, ‘Long & Lonely Night’ is a pleading and passionate heartfelt plea and ‘Giving As Good As You Get’ is classic mid-70’s rock with big chorus, organ fills and some terrific guitar work. The big number on the original album was the mammoth ‘Looks Like Rain’ which sounds brilliant in its original incarnation but the bonus track of an alternate version is even better.
If you are into rock of the period then this is a sadly underrated album that needed to be re-issued if only to replace all those dog-eared original copies but iof you are coming fresh to the genre then this will be a very pleasant and unexpected addition to the classic albums of the time.
‘Like’ our Award Winning facebook page and be entered into a draw to win 1000 CDs including rare, signed and promotional copies here!