Stampede

About

Stampede showed the band diversifying elements of their sound more than ever before, combining elements of their old sound as well as country-rock, funk and folk music. Many guest musicians contributed on the album including Maria Muldaur, Ry Cooder and Curtis Mayfield. The first and most successful single released from this album was "Take Me in Your Arms (Rock Me a Little While)" on April 23, 1975, a classic Motown tune written by the legendary songwriting trio of Holland-Dozier-Holland. Tom Johnston had wanted to record the song for several year. "I thought that would be a killer track to cover," he said. "It's probably one of my favorite songs of all time. I thought our version came out great." The next single, released on July 8, 1975, was "Sweet Maxine" which was more akin to the Doobie Brothers' earlier hits style-wise. "Pat wrote the music to this and I wrote the word, " Johnston recalled. "And Billy Payne had a lot to do with the sound of the song, because of his incredible keyboard playing." The track stalled at #40 on the Billboard chart. The third and final single was Patrick Simmons' "I Cheat the Hangman", released November 12, 1975. It is a somber outlaw ballad that was inspired by the story An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce. "It's about a ghost returning to his home after the Civil War and not realizing he's dead," said Simmons about the song. The album version of the song is a progressive rock-style composition ending in a twisted collage of string, horns and synthesizers made to sound like ghostly wail. "We'd cut the track, and we kicked around how to develop the ending-I thought about synthesizers and guitar solo. Ted got to thinking about it, and he ran it past Nick DeCaro for some orchestration idea. 'Night on Bald Mountain' by Mussorgsky really inspired the wildness of the string, and Nick came up with the chorale thing at the end." The ambitious "I Cheat the Hangman" only managed to reach #60 on the music chart. "Neal's Fandango", inspired by the Santa Cruz mountain, was occasionally played on San Francisco Bay Area classic rock station KFOX "K-FOX" (that means KUFX) because of the Doobie Brothers' South Bay root. .

via Last.fm

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