Teenage Licks (Remastered) Stone The Crows

• 1Big Jim Salter04:34
• 2Faces04:42
• 3Mr Wizard05:29
• 4Don't Think Twice, It's Alright05:01
• 5Keep on Rollin'03:49
• 6Ailen Mochree00:25
• 7One Five Eight06:28
• 8I May Be Right I May Be Wrong05:03
• 9Seven Lakes03:02
• Total Runtime38:33

Info for Teenage Licks (Remastered)

At the start of the 1970s, creativity was flourishing like never before and musicians were being encouraged to “think outside of the box”. “We used a Stylophone (toy keyboard) in the studio recalls vocalist MAGGIE BELL “And Leslie (guitarist LES HARVEY) used both a fiddle bow and a vibrator to get sounds from his guitar!” Having recorded and released no less than two albums (Stone The Crows and Ode To John Law) in the space of 12 months a new look STC showed their paces with 1971’s “Teenage Licks”.

The band though were dealt a massive blow on May 3rd 1972 when Les Harvey was electrocuted onstage at The Swansea Top Rank and died. The band elected to try and carry on and JIMMY McCULLOCH (THUNDERCLAP NEWMAN) joined and finished off the recording parts for the band’s new album “Ontinuous Performance”. The album charted in the UK at number 33 but as Maggie said “The fire had gone out of us. When Les died we lost something so in 1973 we split”.

"This third album from Scotland's Stone the Crows was as close to hitting on all cylinders as they ever came in the studio. With some personnel changes following Ode to John Law (a new bassist and keyboard player), they powered through the disc, with "Big Jim Salter," "I May Be Right I May Be Wrong," and their version of Dylan's "Don't Think Twice" being the absolute standouts. The figureheads of vocalist Maggie Bell and guitarist Les Harvey had never sounded better as they worked in a pure rock vein, abandoning the blues aspect of their sound (Indeed, "Aileen Mochree" took them into Gaelic, a pleasant, brief side track) -- check "Mr. Wizard" to get a good picture of where they were really headed. Of course, it wasn't a one-dimensional sound; the keyboard-dominated "Seven Lakes" was full of pseudo-classical portentousness, almost de rigeur for the period. But it was when they rocked that Stone the Crows were at their best, and with this album they seemed truly poised to move up to the big time." (Chris Nickson, AMG)

Maggie Bell, vocals
Steve Thompson, bass
Les Harvey, guitar, recorder
Ronnie Leahy, keyboards
Colin Allen, percussion

Produced by Mark London

Digitally remastered

Stone the Crows
was a tough-luck, working class, progressive soul band that came out of the pubs of Scotland in the early '70s. They had everything going for them at the start: not one, but two gritty singers, a talented guitarist, a rhythm section that had played with John Mayall, and the name recognition of having Led Zeppelin manager Peter Grant as their producer. Despite favorable reviews by the critics, however, they never managed to sell their hybridized soul music to a large audience. In addition, they lost two of their key members early on, one of whom was tragically electrocuted, and the group broke up after four albums.

Their biggest contribution to rock was the immense vocal talent of one Maggie Bell. Winner of several Top Girl Singer awards in Britain, Bell had a raunchy, gutbucket voice that, although it fell short of the naked emotion and range of Janis Joplin's, came probably closer to her style than any other female singer. She first attracted notice when she jumped up on stage at a show in Glasgow to wail with Alex Harvey of the Sensational Alex Harvey Band. Impressed by her talent (and audacity), Harvey hooked her up with his guitar-playing younger brother Les, then fronting a local band called the Kinning Park Ramblers. After playing army bases in Europe for several years as Power, Bell, Harvey, bassist Jim Dewar, keyboardist Jon McGinnis, and drummer Colin Allen (who had played with future bass player Steve Thompson in John Mayall's band), came to the attention of Peter Grant and they changed their name to Stone the Crows, which supposedly is a Scottish variation of "the hell with it."

Both of their first two albums received good reviews upon release, but sold very meagerly. Then bassist/vocalist Jim Dewar quit the band to join Robin Trower's fledgling group, to be replaced by the non-singing Steve Thompson. Shortly after releasing Teenage Licks, guitarist Les Harvey was electrocuted onstage during a gig at Swansea University. This appeared to end the band, but they carried on, recruiting young Jimmy McCulloch from Thunderclap Newman and released "'Ontinuous Performance." Although the rock press lauded the singing of Bell, her group couldn't seem to emerge from the shadows and they broke up after this last album, with McCulloch flying away to join Paul McCartney in Wings. (Peter Kurtz, AMG)

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