May 222020
Last weekend, I got a little bored with my Spotify playlist of about 1000 songs. It was a glorious sunny day here in Vancouver and I decided to expand the music I had by picking an artist I liked but didn’t have much of in the playlist.
Well, the first artist that came up was The Georgia Satellites. So I pulled up their greatest hits, then each individual album. Now maybe it was the two or four extra large Sapporos or the hot weather, but I couldn’t find a song I didn’t love. By the end of an hour of listening to the band exclusively, I had concluded that they were right near the top of GREATEST AMERICAN ROCK BANDS EVER.
So, my question to the newly regathered Rock Town Hall citizens is. “Was it the beer talking or not?”
I had my snarky reply all set (“It was the beer and I’m secure in that answer, being unable to name a single Georgia Satellites song”).
Then I went to check some track listings to see if I knew any and i did recognize “Keep Your Hands To Yourself”. Skipping through the amazon snippets suggests that even if there might be some hyperbole in your assertion, they do deserve further exploration.
If that was the beer talking, have a 6-pack! I could say that the competition for best American rock ‘n roll band is not so strong that the Satellites couldn’t sneak into the Sweet Sixteen, so who knows? For starters, it’s great to have you back in the Hall.
Now, where’s misterioso? And mwall? And Leland Sklar?
Great to see RTH back!
Okay, I may be drunk but I’m not crazy, I guess.
I love “Six Years Gone”, “Battleship Chains”, “Railroad Steel” “Mon Cheri” “Dan Takes Five” and many more….Their greatest hits would do for most, but all three albums are very good.
Feeling emboldened, I am going to suggest this is a top ten American rock and roll band…evah!
Northvancoveman! Good to hear from you again. I saw the Georgia Satellites a few times and they were a great band. Sure, they had the one big novelty song, and Dan Baird’s voice is kind of annoying but they played great old school lunkhead rock and roll. Rick Richards is an excellent classic rock guitar player.
I would add the ramshackle, acoustic Another Chance to that list of cool GS songs. https://youtu.be/w1EtRZXd6wQ
Once when I saw them, Rick Richards was playing a HiWatt amp but he changed the name plate to say “HiY’all”.
Hey, you too cdm! Yeah, forgot about that one. It really shows their Faces influence. Would love to see them live but I wonder if they still got it without Dan Baird…
I always thought it was funny that Satellites bassist Rick Price had been in the Altanta futuristic new wave band The Brains (of Money Changes Everything fame) before he hit the big time as a lunkhead Rawk guy.