ALBUM: Rock Your Sox Off (1976)
MVC Rating: 4.0/$$$$
Southern fried blues rock at its best. While Bobby Whitlock is best known for his work as a band member or side musician, he has done some fine solo work as well.
The credentials are impressive for this husky voiced pianist.
He tasted his first piece of success as a member of Delaney and Bonnie where he met Eric Clapton who was in his band-hopping stage.
He then played, as did Clapton, on George Harrison’s magnum opus ‘All Things Must Pass.’
One of the best songs on Rock Your Sox off is ‘Why Does Love Got to Be So Sad’ with its onslaught of guitar rock/blues. The song was originally recorded by Derek and the Dominos, which included Whitlock, Clapton, Jim Gordon, Carl Radle and Duane Allman. Penned by Whitlock and Clapton, the song was one of the highlights on one of the best all time albums, ‘Layla’ by Derek and the Dominos.
Whitlock reinterprets the song a bit but remains mostly faithful to the original.
Four guitarists played on this Whitlock-Clapton penned-cut: Jimmy Nalls, lead guitar; Dru Lombar, electric guitar; Larry Howard, acoustic guitar; Ricky Hirsch, slide guitar.
Nalls, a prolific and respected guitarist, died of complications from Parkinson’s disease in 2017 at the age of 66; he died following a fall at home, according to his website.
Birmingham native Chuck Leavell (Allman Bros., Sea Level) sits in on keyboards on three of the album’s eight tracks.
In a footnote, Whitlock recently has been on social media blasting the re-mastering job for ‘All Things Must Pass.” It’s stirred up a hornet’s nest of an internet debate which of the re-mix is the best. There’s the original mix, the 30th Anniversary mix and the 50th anniversary mix.
I just bought the 50th Anniversary edition and it sounds very fine to me, if not a little smoothed over. But it’s clean, and I think the voices have been pushed up in some songs.
The producer’s and engineers, including Harrison’s son, Dhani Harrison, pushed back Phil Spector’s original ‘wall of sound’ version. I’ve never had this album so I don’t really have anything to compare with. Check back in a year or so and I’ll let you know.