SOLID GALENA COUNTRY BAND VINYL LP
Review from Slipcue.com
(Produced by Jim Rowland, John Green & Ray Edwards)
A hard-working mainstream country band from Galena, Kansas, a little postage-stamp town in the southeast end of the state, just across the border from Joplin, Missouri. Indeed, these fellas worked a nightclub in Joplin called the Gold Dust Lounge -- according to the liner notes, they weren't just the house band, they actually owned the place! The SGB was formed in 1974 by lead singers John Green and Jim Rowland (the guys who bought the bar) and played steadily throughout Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri. They had a working relationship with Tom T. Hall and his band the Storytellers, who helped them in the studio for this album, while Tom T. himself contributed to the liner notes, and seems to have promoted them in Nashville. The disc is impressively packed with original material, most of it penned by Jim Rowland, and got a big writeup in Billboard when it came out. The band included Alan Abbott (drums), Mike Bartlett (guitar), John Green (bass) Tyler Ogle (keyboards) and Jim Rowland on rhythm guitar... I'm not sure what became of these guys -- from their vantage point in Joplin, they were well situated to break into the Branson scene, but that's just speculation on my part. (By the way, I can't resist going into the history of their bar, which seems to have changed hands many times over the years... According to a 2011 news story in The Joplin Globe the bar opened in the late 1940s as the Freeway Cafe, and over the years was known as Dan's Branding Iron, The Wells Fargo, The Stampede, The Gold Dust Lounge, The Paint Stallion, The Horse Shoe Saloon and was slated to reopen as The Crazy Town Rockin' Saloon at press time in 2011, soon to be renamed The Blue Rose. Phew! Personally I like the Blue Rose best of all, but Lord knows what's there now. Probably a Starbucks.) Solid Gold Band also put out a few singles, including a western swing ditty, "Cherokee Country," which apparently hit the national charts in '82, but is not included on this album.
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