05. Aerosmith Get Your Wings 1974 (Columbia)
Hard Rock
The lord of the thighs oozes his way into your .....
Overview
Aerosmith aka ‘The Bad Boys from Boston’ were formed around the 1970-1971 period from a combination of two local Boston bands and one of these bands included Steven Tyler as a drummer! The pivotal line-up was formed around this time and included Steven Tyler-Vocals, Joe Perry-Guitar, Brad Whitford-Rhythm, Tom Hamilton-Bass and Joey Kramer-Drums and this line-up would go onto become one of the biggest bands of their generation. They would be a name that was synonymous to everything that was essential to the hard rock genre. Aerosmith’s sound was essentially basic and built around a blues meets hard rock melange (as so many bands had already done) Their sound was promoted as a heavier version of the Rolling Stones aimed at American kids, but it quickly became apparent that the band offered a lot more than this. Steven Tyler was born with a mouth designed for singing and it quickly became apparent that as soon as he sung, we had before us one of the greatest vocalists in the history of rock! Guitarists like Joe Perry, Brad Whitford and Tom Hamilton would be influential on all manner of future artists as well. The band quickly embraced the ‘sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll’ lifestyle, but most importantly they were able to put out a sound that was instantly recognizable due to Steven Tyler’s voice and Joe Perry’s riffs, and it became apparent that the band were capable of writing songs with a real swagger! In fact the only other band that had that swagger were Led Zeppelin, but the difference here was that Aerosmith were distinctly American in both sound and feel! Their debut album had been a raw and fresh effort, and came out around the same sort of time as the New York Dolls and Kiss debuts, and as an album was certainly comparable in style to those two debuts, despite not being as strong as either of those two albums. The Aerosmith debut which is featured on my “Albums that missed the cut……..” section for 1973 still featured some of the band’s timeless essentials such as “Mama Kin” the raw and punchy “Make It” and the timeless ballad “Dream On” the album was a raw effort that showed potential rather than formulated ideas. Within the space of a year, the band were able to brush up in terms of songwriting, whilst keeping their essential raw and punchy edge that would be vital to the band. Their second album
Get Your Wings, would see this future American legend forge their most important partnership and that would be with producer Jack Douglas, even though he is shared on the credits with Ray Colcord and even Alice Cooper’s buddy Bob Ezrin gets mentioned as well! The legend may have started on the debut, but the substance for that legend would really start on
Get Your Wings.
Steven Tyler-Vocals
Joe Perry-Guitar
Brad Whitford-Rhythm
Tom Hamilton-Bass
Joey Kramer- Drums
Production- Jack Douglas
Album
Same Old Song- This would become a typical Aerosmith type track, with its Joe Perry riff and Joey Kramer’s great rhythmic drumming, followed up by Steve Tyler’s dominant vocal style. The Brecker brothers feature on both sax and trumpet on the song as well.
Lord of the Thighs- One of the most amazing intros ever into a song with Joey Kramer again on drums to lead in, as the song just seems to pass over a freeway at speed and then hits us with Steven Tyler’s singing, which is full of exaggerated attitude and then the song beats itself away. Amazingly this song was a last minute addition……as they were struggling to find more material.
Spaced- A great album track that has that instant feel and features a great hazy sounding melody throughout, before the song starts to mix itself up again. The song also features co-producer Ray Colcord on keyboards.
Woman of the World- An old song used for this album and probably the weakest song on the whole album.
S.O.S (Too Bad)- The b-side kicks off with an upbeat almost punky sounding track, that has a pulsating riff that carries the song through and then features some great guitar work as the song goes on, a really quality track.
Train Kept A-Rollin- A great choice of cover of the Tiny Bradshaw R&B track, that sounds like it easily could’ve been written by the band themselves and it’s one of the most solid tracks on the album, it features a live performance section as well.
Seasons of Wither- With its sorrowful breezy intro, this is often regarded as one of the great Aerosmith songs from their early period and it’s another solo Steven Tyler composition as well.
Pandora’s Box- The album closer is a raw rock ‘n’ roll track written by Tyler and Kramer and is probably best known as the name given to the band’s excellent box set released many years later.
Verdict
From the word go, we are served up with the “Same Old Song” and the bluesy swagger of the band never gets any more evident than on a song like this, and that swagger is served up equally well much later on in the album, with one of the best covers the band ever put out in “Train Kept A-Rollin” and these two songs really give the album its backbone. But it’s songs like “Lord of the Thighs” that really set this album alight and when the intro to this song is played loud, it always makes my temperature rise, as the song just seems to breeze in with consummate ease and then we’re treated to the some of the raunchiest singing that Steven Tyler ever did, and with so much attitude to go with it. The same could be said for the intro to “Seasons of Wither” with its eerie and mournful feel and it’s the nearest the band get to a ballad on the album, again the song has another great riff. But what is so great about the song though, is that whilst being mournful the song can also be seen as being quite heart-warming in an strange kind of way! So just how good is
Get Your Wings as an album? The lion’s share of the material on the album is penned by Steven Tyler, the rest of the band gradually got a bit more writing time on the future albums that the band put out, but I think it’s fair to say that Steven Tyler may well have had control over the type of material that the band were putting out overall.
Get Your Wings is a big fan favourite, but it quite often gets ignored largely due to the two mammoth albums that followed it
Toys in the Attic and
Rocks, and quality wise it doesn’t compete with either of those two albums! But what it does achieve, is to bridge the gap between the raw debut and the focused hard rock delights of
Toys in the Attic and
Rocks. I’m not going to say that if
Get Your Wings hadn’t been recorded, then the band would never have made either
Toys in the Attic and
Rocks, but
Get Your Wings really did set the stall out for those two releases. In just a few years, Aerosmith would record the material that would laud them the future title of ‘America’s Greatest Ever Rock and Roll Band’ and it’s obvious that the roots of that label were planted on the debut and then they started to sprout on
Get Your Wings, in fact get your wings is an appropriate name for the album in every aspect.