"Lonesome" Dave Peverett - vocals, guitar; Roger Earl - drums; Rod Price - lead guitar, slide guitar, vocals; "Tone " Stevens - bass guitar, vocals
This show documents the end of the period when the original line-up of Foghat was thriving in rock music. Recorded in New Haven in 1974 for the King Biscuit Flower Hour, the show came only one year after the Biscuit began its long-running show of international radio broadcasts, and is the only known recording of the original lineup to appear on the broadcast. Portions of this show, along with a recording of the band made with its second line-up in 1976, would later appear on the Live on the King Biscuit Flower Hour album in 1999.
The group formed in 1971 when three-fourths of the very popular Savoy Brown (guitarist Dave Peverett, drummer Roger Earl, and bassist Tony "Tone" Stevens) were suddenly out of work when band leader Kim Simmonds fired the entire group and decided to form a new lineup. Savoy Brown had been kicking around the UK blues scene for years, but it was the band's Looking In album in 1970, an FM radio favorite, that made it appear as though Savoy would soon break big in America.
Though the success was moving closer every gig, Simmonds suddenly had reservations about the "hard rock" direction of the band. Unexpectedly, he cleaned house and alone decided to rebuild Savoy Brown from scratch. Peverett, Earl, and Stevens already had a great musical chemistry, and had built up a sizable fanbase from the work they did while in Savoy Brown. They connected with guitarist and background vocalist Rod Price, and almost overnight, Foghat was born.
The group signed with the Bearsville label, which was owned by former Dylan, Band, and Janis Joplin manager, Albert Grossman, and distributed by Warner Brothers. Delivering a beefed-up contemporary take on Chicago blues and boogie, Foghat fit perfectly on the FM playlists that were already playing groups like Zeppelin, Cactus, and Eric Clapton. The band's version of "I Just Want To Make Love To You," heard in this show and originally written by blues icon Willie Dixon, is a good example of the blues-on-steroids approach that Foghat has presented to its fans over the years.
Sadly, singer and guitarist Lonesome Dave Perevette died 2000, and Rod Price in 2005. The band continues to play today, with Roger Earl as the only original member of Foghat still in the band.