Many of you asked for Rock Candy Records reissues to complete collections, so here’s one more featured for the first time here: REO SPEEDWAGON 1978’s “You Can Tune A Piano, But You Can’t Tuna Fish“, with a wonderful fully remastered sound and a 16 page full color booklet including a new interview with Kevin Cronin, enhanced artwork and rare photos.
The amusingly titled ”You Can Tune A Piano, But You Can t Tune A Fish”, originally released in 1978, is the band’s seventh studio album and was their first to boast a slightly more polished sound. The songs too were tighter and more precise, leaving little room for the bar room extemporisation that had been their mainstay previously.
In fact, the album contained a number of tracks that would later go on to define REO’s clean cut but aggressive style such as ‘Roll With The Changes’, ‘Time For Me To Fly’ and ‘Say You Love Me Or Say Goodnight’.
While there’s other remastered versions of ‘You Can Tune A Piano… this Rock Candy treatment is fabulous discovering a lot of sonic nuances, showcasing how well the album was produced at the time. The CD has become scarce since released, not listed at RC website anymore.
Named after a a flatbed truck, REO Speedwagon muscled their way to ever increasing popularity during the 1970s, releasing album after album until the tide of their persistence eventually turned into a gigantic tsunami wave.
The 1980 album Hi-Infidelity elevated the band to superstar status, with new fans convinced that they were an overnight success. Nothing however could have been further from the truth.
Part of this new found blossoming of creativity and melodic delivery was due to the innate combustibility of the relationship between vocalist Kevin Cronin and guitarist Gary Richrath, two men who would, at this time, define the band s sound. New bassist Bruce Hall, Cronin’s unique vocal style and Richrath s raunchy guitar work was starting to make a unique combination. Truly one of their finest rocking-melodic albums.
01 – Roll With The Changes
02 – Time For Me To Fly
03 – Runnin’ Blind
04 – Blazin’ Your Own Trail Again
05 – Sing To Me
06 – Lucky For You
07 – Do You Know Where Your Woman Is Tonight?
08 – The Unidentified Flying Tuna Trot
09 – Say You Love Me Or Say Goodnight
Kevin Cronin – lead and backing vocals, rhythm guitar, piano
Gary Richrath – lead and rhythm guitars
Neal Doughty – piano, Hammond organ, Moog synthesizer
Bruce Hall – bass
Alan Gratzer – drums
with:
Angelle Trosclair, Denise McCall, Denny Henson, Tom Kelly – backing vocals