ROCK SOLID - Debut Episode Featuring .38 Special

 ROCK SOLID

.38 Special performs during the sixth annual Air Force Materiel Command Freedom's Call Tattoo June 25, 2010, at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. (Photo by Ben Strasser, U.S. Air Force; Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)

Hey, a new feature! ROCK SOLID is going to be the semi-regular music column, but it's overall mission is going to be a little different. Sure, it'll have overlooked stuff, and classic material, and more, but for a while, it's going to be devoted a bit to one idea: in the pursuit of cool music, I think a lot of us become snobs.

We don't mean to do it. Hell, a lot of us gravitated to our music tastes BECAUSE they were outside. It's history, really. Kids gravitated to rock and roll because it was different than what their parents liked. Metal, punk, goth, hip-hop, disco, college rock, alternative, fucking ska . . . there's a bit of that in almost every genre. Music was (and still is to a lot of kids) central to identity.

The downside of that is that we frequently end up rejecting stuff that we previously enjoyed because we (and that's ALL OF US) want on some level to be cool or accepted or to fit in. Now, I'm not saying that I love everything now or something crazy. There are wide swaths of country I can't stand, there are things here and there that I just don't like, and I never, ever liked Imagine Dragons. But am I going to find charitable things to say about acts that have been marginalized or maligned? Sure. Am I going to take up for acts that have just one good song? Sure again. We should always be re-examining or re-evaluating. You might find that something you shied away from is something that you actually like. (But not Imagine fucking Dragons).

In that spirit, we are starting with . . .

.38 SPECIAL.

Background: .38 Special was formed in Florida in 1974. The two founding members were Don Barnes and Donnie Van Zant (younger brother of Ronnie Van Zant of Lynyrd Skynyrd). The band played for a couple of years, at which time Ronnie felt that they had developed enough to connect with his manager, Peter Rudge. Rudge, in addition to Skynyrd, had worked with The Who and The Stones. Rudge did his thing, putting them on tour in front of KISS, Frampton, and Foghat. They got signed to A&M, and their self-titled debut (produced by Dan Hartman, the “I Can Dream About You” guy) hit in 1977. The band has existed in some form ever since; aside from a brief sabbatical from 1988-1991, Barnes has been there the whole time. Donnie Van Zant stayed with the band until 2013, when inner-ear nerve damage forced his retirement.

So, .38 Special. They’re a staple of classic rock radio, and I think that’s one of the things that works against them. Their music (particularly “Hold On Loosely”) has never really left the air, and is perhaps so familiar and pervasive that people who aren’t devoted fans aren’t inclined to sit down and listen. If they did, they would find a strong body of straight-forward rock singles from 1980 to 1988. The band’s first two records were more Southern Rock in the LS vein, yielding singles but no hits. The group moved to a more accessible general rock sound (I’m not going to use the phrase “meat and potatoes rock,” because I fucking hate it, so, straight-forward or solid rock will have to do).

 

The classic line-up is really the 1977-1987 roster that’s built around three guitars and alternating lead vocals. Barnes and Van Zant handled singing and two guitar, while ostensible lead player was Jeff Carlisi. Larry Junstrom held down the bass while the rest of the backline featured two drummers/percussionists in Jack Grondin and Steve Brookins. Steve McCray was in for ’86 and ’87 on keyboards and harmonica. Barnes stepped out of the band to do a solo album (that went unreleased due to the sale of A&M), and returned later. During his absence, Max Carl stepped in to handle the other lead vocals; we’ll address that later.

The songs? The 2003 compilation (which has since been remastered) The Very Best of the A&M Years (1977-1988) is going to cover it for a casual listener. Of the 18 tracks on that, I’m going to pare my main discussion down to six. Let’s go.

Rockin’ Into The Night (1980)

“Rockin” was written by Jim Peterik, Frank Sullivan, and Gary Smith, aka the core of Survivor in 1979. They didn’t think it fit the first record, so they passed it along to the Special. Barnes sang lead. The song exists in an interesting space that’s somewhere between The Eagles’ “Heartache Tonight” from 1979 and another 1980 tune, Judas Priest’s “Living After Midnight.” It leans in to exactly what was popular at the time; the vocals bring in the Southern Rock part, and the guitar crunch, especially in the intro, makes it a little heavier. It’s also part of the fun tradition of rock songs that very clearly interpolates rockin’ for, well, fucking.

Hold On Loosely (1981)

The band’s first Top 40 hit, and a classic rock radio staple ever since, “Loosely” was written by Barnes and Peterik. If the combined forces of .38 Special and Survivor weren’t enough, guitarist Jeff Carlisi claims to have based the central riff on “Just What I Needed” by The Cars. Barnes cites this as an autobiographical tune about his own strained marriage. And right there is probably why it connects like it does: a familiar chord structure underlying a tune about the fear of losing someone. It’s a literal freaking example of three chords and the truth.

Fantasy Girl (1981)
This is one of those songs that almost stays in ballad territory, but leans into the riffs at the :33 second mark. It’s thematically similar to “Hold On Loosely,” and again co-written by Peterik, this time with Carlisi. The tune is also a reminder that Carlisi is kind of an unsung hero of the group; he has some real soaring leads of the Schon/Richrath variety.

Caught Up in You (1982)

I know you’re going to be surprised by this . . . but Peterik, Barnes, and Carlisi wrote it. This took the band to Top Ten Pop and #1 Mainstream Rock. By this point, you should be able to really identify The Sound of The Band. It’s a fairly strong hybridization of pop sentiments with a solid fundament of rock guitar underneath. You get the sense that they could have been super-heavy, but that was never their lean. I’ll also point out the rhythm section, too; even with two drummers, they’re never overpowering. Frankly, this is just a great straight-forward rock song. There’s no way around it.

Back Where You Belong (1983)

I mention this one partially because of the video. .38 Special are swell guys, but, well, and I mean this in the nicest way, they look like a bar band of 1980s dads. They are not, say, Rick Springfield or Duran Duran. But they appear to have fun, and they leaned into it with this video that’s based a bit on Hill Street Blues. The guys are detectives trying to find an elusive lady, and the first line of the chorus, “I know that love/It don’t come easy” might as well be the mission statement for the lyrical ethos of the band.

Like No Other Night (1986)

“Like No Other Night” was another huge song for the band, hitting #14 on the Hot 100 and #4 Mainstream Rock. Written by Barnes, Carlisi, drummer Jim Vallance, and John Bettis (who wrote “Crazy for You” for Madonna, “Human Nature” for Michael Jackson, and a bunch of songs for The Carpenters), this is my other favorite song by the band. I joke a bit about the video, where all the guys appear to have gotten new sport jackets, but damn. It encapsulates all the things that they’ve been building on the whole time. I also think that the bridge is truly great, spinning into a completely different rhythm structure before locking back into the chorus at the end.

Obviously, the band had other tunes, even other hits. "If I'd Been the One" is pretty great, and features the original Mrs. Bruce Springsteen in the video. "Teacher Teacher" is good. However, I have to admit that I don’t like “Second Chance” at all. It was a big hit, but it’s really toothless ballad. Max Carl sings lead (this was during the Barnes absence) and frankly, it bores me. The band’s other lover’s lament tunes all Rocked, capital-R. You can drink beer to them, or cry to them after too many beers. But they, again, Rocked. I feel like “Second Chance” was chart pandering. It was also the band’s last hit, as the next album had the misfortune of dropping in July of 1991, just in time to get absolutely hammered by chart-shaking years for Guns ‘N’ Roses and Metallica, coupled with the chart explosions of alternative, hip-hop, and new country.

As I mentioned, the band continues with Barnes up front. Carlisi left in the late ‘90s, citing endless touring, and has remained active in other groups. I don’t think that there will ever be a big critical re-evaluation, but I do think that it’s all right to say, “Hey, these are good songs. You should listen to them.” And that’s why they’re Rock Solid.