LAMONT’S MUSIC NOTES-MAY 3, 2020…ON MAY 3 1976 AEROSMITH RELEASED ARGUABLY THEIR BEST ALBUM. IT WAS THE GROUP’S 4TH STUDIO ALBUM AND CAME ON THE HEELS OF THEIR BIGGEST SUCCESS UP TO THAT POINT ‘TOYS IN THE ATTIC’.
THE GROUP RECORDED THIS ALBUM A LITTLE DIFFERENTLY. INSTEAD OF GOING INTO A RECORDING STUDIO THEY USED A MOBILE RECORDING UNIT AND BACKED IT UP TO THEIR WAREHOUSE PRACTICE PLACE IN AN EFFORT TO CAPTURE MORE OF A LIVE FEEL TO THE RECORD. IT FREAKIN’ WORKED. ‘ROCKS’ SMASHED THROUGH THE TOP TEN ALBUM CHARTS, PEAKING AT # 3. THE ALBUM WAS DRIVEN BY 4 TOP 40 SINGLES, ‘BACK IN THE SADDLE’ ‘HOME TONIGHT’ ‘LAST CHILD’ AND ‘SICK AS A DOG’.
BRAD WHITFORD HAD THIS TO SAY ABOUT THE ALBUM: “That’s probably my favorite Aerosmith record,I liked it because it was basically live and very little production or overdubs on it. It was just Aerosmith kind of in the raw, and that’s the way I always wanted Aerosmith to do it, but of course we got involved in some pretty serious production and stuff like that, which I wasn’t a big fan of. You know, some of it’s cool. But Aerosmith, just on its own, is such a powerhouse. I always thought that’s how it should be. That’s how I thought it should be done, just like Rocks.”
ACCORDING TO JOE PERRY: “The cover showed five diamonds, one for each of us. We saw the record as a jewel, the culmination of all our angst and anger and excitement and joy as go-for-broke rock and rollers. Rocks was the ultimate soundtrack to the party we were throwing for our fans at every one of our live shows.”
’ROCKS’ IS ONE OF AEROSMITH’S BEST ALBUMS, AND IT HAS GONE ON TO SELL CLOSE TO 8 MILLION COPIES WORLDWIDE. HERE’S A LIVE VERSION OF ‘BACK IN THE SADDLE’