The James Gang - Rides Again

N Product Description

Outstanding

The CD is not too bad recording wise, but the music...oh yea baby. I bought the orignal album way back in the early 70's, but no longer have my turntable setup. Man, you can't beat this music. Great CD... July 5, 2008

70's Rock

Best damn cut of rock n roll you will ever hear! The melodys are stunning and the rythm can not be beat! God had his hand in this somewhere :) May 22, 2008

Classic.....

I absolutely love this album---it never fails to bring back a lot of good memories from my high school days. "Funk #49" is the tune everyone thinks of from this album(and with good reason--great song), but there's so much more here.Joe Walsh's best work prior to going solo. May 6, 2008

MUDDY REMASTER PRECEDED BY AUDIO-SUPERIOR IMPORT SET

In 2000, MCA re-issued all three Walsh-era James Gang albums in remastered format. Unfortunately, the remasters are particularly lackluster, suffering greatly in the clarity department.

However, the previous year, the German Repertoire label released a 2CD "Best Of", with their own dedicated remastering.

Quite simply, the Repertoire set is the James Gang album you literally never knew you really wanted, especially if you own all three MCA CD's. All the muddy sound of the MCA discs is gone; the percussion is clear, the bass thunders and Walsh is there in all his distorted glory, with the dynamic range of the original albums perfectly intact.

Unfortunately, the Repertoire disc has the abbreviated "Bomber Medley", which is an enormous sore point for JG fans. Also, Repertoire allotted a major portion of the set to the non-Walsh JG years; only 14 of the 40 tracks are Walsh-era material. I'm sure many JG fans will have their opinions over excluded tracks, but the selections were made with input from Jim Fox, who contributes a song-by-song synopsis of each track in the booklet. There is also probably the best essay on the history of the band of any JG CD ever released.

It's a shame that Repertoire didn't produce individual editions of the first three JG albums, because they would have blown away the lackluster MCA discs. But, I've heard just about every other JG "best of", plus the BGO discs, and the Repertoire set towers above them all. While less than half of the Walsh-JG tracks are contained on the Repertoire set, no true JG's fan's collection is complete without it. April 28, 2008

keep on riding down my CD player

This is one ride I hope never ends. It's a mystery to me why radio stations insist on playing only two James Gang songs all the time- "Funk #49" and "Walk Away". Granted, those are two very good songs, but you and I both know those aren't the ONLY good songs. The band was capable of some of the best hard rock jamming ever put on tape.

This album is probably their best of the classic period, even though I personally like "Bang" a lot more (sorry, I'm a big Tommy Bolin fan). You really should check out this album, or better yet, the live album that contains a very perfect track selection released around the same time called "Live in Concert". That's a fantastic live record. Buy it now, or buy Rides Again. You win either way.

Maybe one day radio will understand how important it is to have a huge variety of music selections instead of the same two songs over and over again. To have memories you need to build some memories, and starting here is a fine introduction. January 31, 2008

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