May 21, 1977 review: The Outlaws and the Stanky Brown Group at the Century Theater

 

Not every night can be a winner.

May 21, 1977

Two Bands Search

For a Real Headliner 

          As a rock concert billing, the combination of the Outlaws and the Stanky Brown Group seems like two warm-up bands in search of a headliner.

          The Outlaws are a Tampa, Fla., quintet with a touch of Allman Brothers in their guitars and a Top 40 hit to their credit – “There Goes Another Love Song” in 1975.

          There’s prospects for more now in their tuneful third album, “Hurry Sundown,” which was produced by the man who produces the Eagles. In other words, the Outlaws have reached that precarious point between the minor leagues and the majors.

          The deciding factor is radio airplay. The show sold out for Harvey & Corky in Pittsburgh, where stations are playing the new album.

          Here they aren’t yet. There were just about enough empty seats in the Century Theater’s orchestra Friday night to hold all the kids in the balcony.

          The Outlaws plug their new album amid the trappings of a headliner. There’s extra lights (some tricky hydraulic towers), extra volume on the PA and a big backdrop with their logo – a rattlesnake and a steer skull.

          Their trick is to crank up the beat over a number of songs until the guitars reach a powerful wail that inspires all the faithful to come rushing the stage.

          The new tunes are agreeable, the solos are properly incredible (Hughie Thomasson’s soaring guitar and Monty Yoho’s boiler-factory drums) and they save their old hit for the encore.

          The sound is not the best, however. Feedback puts a lid on the vocals, treble response is shaky and the bass is muddy. The Outlaws burn through most of it. The Stanky Brown Group gets fogged in.

          Bad sound muddies the New Jersey sextet’s Springsteen sax and British Invasion harmonies all the way to the encore. That’s why the Outlaws come across better as headliners. Headliners get to tune the amps their way.

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IN THE PHOTO: The Outlaws in action in 1977. 

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FOOTNOTE: The mid 1970s were the high water mark for the Outlaws. Founding member Henry Paul, one of the three guitarists, left later in 1977. They strayed from their signature sound in the 1980s, album sales sagged and they reverted to playing club dates. Hughie Thomasson left in 1996, a year after the too-soon deaths of third guitarist Billy Jones (suicide) and bassist Frank O’Keefe (overdose).

          The band revived in 2005 with Henry Paul, Hughie Thomasson, drummers Monte Yoho and David Dix and three new recruits. A heart attack felled Thomasson two years later and Dix bowed out that year, too. Poor health stopped Yoho from touring last year, but Henry Paul is still flying the flag. A new Outlaws album, “Dixie Highway,” hit the shelves right before the pandemic and the band will be part of Royal Caribbean’s Rock Legends Cruise X come February.

          As for the Stanky Brown Group, they put three albums on the Billboard charts on the Sire label and although they don’t rate a page in Wikipedia, their Facebook page is good for a bunch of fond memories of successes and scuffling the 1970s. What they won't post is the 1978 New York Times review of their show in the Bottom Line, which pays more attention to their opening act and observes: “Stanky Brown works in a more faceless idiom, vaguely reminiscent of bands like Foreigner or Styx. … (N)othing sounds very original and the sense of risk that defines real rock is almost entirely absent.”

            The Outlaws setlist from the Century Theater date is spotty on setlist.fm. The one for the next night at the Capitol Theatre in Passaic, N.J., is much more complete, although it doesn’t mention “There Goes Another Love Song”: 

Stick Around for Rock and Roll

South Carolina

Cold and Lonesome

Holiday

Freeborn Man (Keith Allison cover)

Hurry Sundown

Lover Boy

Gunsmoke

Knoxville Girl

Green Grass & High Tides

(encore)

Song in the Breeze 

          In Pittsburgh, the night before Buffalo, the first eight songs are the same (through “Gunsmoke”), but they finish differently, going with  “Green Grass & High Tides,” “There Goes Another Love Song,” “Keep Prayin’” and “Song in the Breeze.”