The Marshall Tucker Band: Searchin' For A Rainbow - 1975

This was the most country album from the Marshall Tucker Band. It was country infused with rock, however, leading to some people claiming that it is a "progressive rock album". No. I'm not having that, despite the proggy artwork on the cover. It is country. Inventive country but still country.

Fire On The Mountain is a melodious serving of typically-seventies country rock, augmented with some winsome flute along side the pedal steel guitar. Similarly country is the Pure Prairie League meets Firefall meets The Ozark Mountain Daredevils strains of the title track. It's The Allman Brothers Band's Dickey Betts on guitar, by the way.

Walkin' And Talkin' is an absolute joy of bar-room pickin', this time enhanced with some intoxicating saxophone. This was something MTB did really well - integrating non-traditional country instruments such as saxophone and flute into country songs.

Virginia is a big, powerful country rock ballad. Check out that killer guitar solo too. Bob Away My Blues has a lovely loose country blues swing to it. There are touches of The Band in there too, for me. Keeps Me From All Wrong is an archetypal cry into my beer country number. There was a lot of this stuff around in 1975, wasn't there?

Totally different to what has come before, Bound And Determined introduces a jazzy, slightly funky vibe that has the group sounding like The Doobie Brothers. Get a load of that Doobies-style riff. There's some great saxophone in there too. It's a really good cut. 

The album ends with a lengthy live number, Can't You See. It is another track that sees flute used most impressively. Listen to the flute followed by guitar of the intro before the excellent vocal comes in. It is seriously good stuff, as indeed is the whole song. It was, of course, originally included in studio form on the band's 1973 debut album. 

The album is a good listen and has excellent sound quality too, warm and robust.

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