Blackfoot - Tomcattin'
#277
by Michael Faherty
June 1980
Blackfoot
Tomcattin’
Allen’s Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Michael’s Rating: 3.75 out of 5
Highlights:
In The Night
Gimme Gimme Gimme
On The Run.
by Michael Faherty
Tomcattin’ (1980) is the fourth album by Blackfoot, the southern hard rock band led by the once and future Lynyrd Skynyrd member Rickey Medlocke. The album marked the beginning of a downward commercial slope for the band, which the previous year had released the platinum-selling Strikes and were opening dates for The Who. It’s not shocking that the album became a fan favorite, yet failed to expand the band’s reach. While Blackfoot retained their southern-rock roots, they were a much heavier and more abrasive band than Skynyrd, and they never rocked harder than on Tomcattin’. And while the band was probably too “roosty” to appeal to fans of rising pop-metal acts like Van Halen and Scorpions, they also lacked the softer pop hooks that would soon bring other southern bands like .38 Special to prominence. Despite these “neither fish nor fowl” issues that might have slowed the band’s momentum, Tomcattin’ certainly rocks. Medlocke makes up for his lack of a distinctive singing voice, and lyrics that tend towards run-of-the-mill odes to hard-living, with everyman conviction and balls-out intensity. Despite the sometimes stilted production (reminiscent of UFO studio albums from the period), the album has plenty of pleasingly dirty riffs, which often jab in between big mid-tempo drums, revealing an AC/DC influence. And you can hear elements in the band’s overall sleazy sound that would find more commercial rewards with the emergence of Guns N’ Roses later in the decade. It’s also easy to imagine members of later-forming southern bands like Blackberry Smoke listening to Tomcattin’ in their knee pants and taking copious notes. Stand-out tunes on Tomcattin’ include the urgent swagger of “In The Night,” the Skynyrd-friendly party rush of “Gimme Gimme Gimme” and the ornery slow-paced growl of “On The Run.” On the downside, songs like “Reckless Abandoner” at times weigh the album down with a somewhat generic and hookless presence. Ultimately, however, it’s hard to listen to Tomcattin’ without getting a bit of Medlocke & crew’s sweat and blood on you.
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