The Marshall Tucker Band: The Marshall Tucker Band - 1973
An interesting band here. Not named after any member of the band, but after a piano tuner, apparently, they were one of the few groups to be initially classified as "progressive country". Was such a thing possible? The mind boggles at the thought of good ol' boys in cowboy hats freaking out for over ten minutes per track with multiple changes in musical style, singing about wizards and backed by lots of proggy keyboard noodling. Don't worry, it's not quite like that! Not at all.
This was the group's debut, and it is the one that exemplifies the progressive country thing more than any of the subsequent releases.
That said, it sounds far more Southern and bluesy as far as I'm concerned.
Take The Highway opens the album as if The Doobie Brothers, The Flying Burrito Brothers and The Allman Brothers Band have teamed up with (non-brothers) Jethro Tull, found someone to play the Tull-esque flute and add a mid-song guitar solo while still singing harmoniously about takin' the highway. Whatever, it's a really impressive, lively number. It does it for me.
A slower tempo but similar vibe is found on the slightly bluesy Can't You See. Both this and Take The Highway have some prog aspects to them, but more obviously, they are rock songs, with a bluesy country flavour to them. The lyrics have the band singing about a no good woman and taking a freight train down to Georgia from their native South Carolina. This is very Southern stuff.
A more pure country sound is to be found as a pedal steel guitar backs Losing You. The vocal and the song's whole feel is very early seventies country rock. Hey, I thought this was a country prog album? Well, some of that flute returns to join in with the fun yee-haw jam of Hillbilly Band. It is an intriguing number as traditional country good ol' pickin' is nicely augmented by proggy flute and rock out guitar. I can't help but enjoy it.
See You Later, I'm Gone is a robust serving of solid and appealing country rock, with the emphasis on a strong rock sound. Again, it is a track I really like. There is a lot of The Flying Burrito Brothers about it too. The same is true of Ramblin', where the band go full-on Allman Brothers. It is upbeat blues rock, to be honest, not much prog to be found here.
Perhaps typical of the era was the country devotional, easy-going rock of the big-chorused My Jesus Told Me. Both The Doobie Brothers and The Byrds had delivered similarly devout numbers. It has a real freeway diner on a hot afternoon feel about it, somewhere in the Bible Belt.
The album ends with main songwriter Toy Caldwell's short tribute to his wife in the acoustic and tender Ab's Song.
At less than thirty five minutes, this was a typically short early seventies album and it is a much underrated one, for sure. Prog country? Hmmm. I can see why it was labelled so, but it sounds more like country/Southern rock that allowed in a few outside influences to me.
