Black Oak Arkansas - Street Party (1974)

The fifth album from this US band.

The band was a sextet with a lineup of drums, bass, keyboards, guitars and vocals. Both male and female vocals, in fact.

This album is not a live album although the art-work indicates it. The music here is made in a studio.

The album title more than alludes to what kind of music we can expect here. A street party. A street party who opens with the evergreen Tamla Motown classic "Dancing In The Street". A song covered by a lot of artists. A song that really opens up a street party..... any street party.

The original material is not exactly soul. We are again somewhere in the southern rock land. Yes, there are some soul here..... but pretty well hidden soul.

The main theme is hard rock lead by the raspy, raunchy vocals of James Mangrum and the heavy drums of Tommy Aldridge.

The music is pretty colourful.... and dated. There is some fairly decent to good songs here which fans of the 1970 hard rock scene will like.

The end result is a forty minutes long decent album which may be of interest to rock fans.

2 points