The 1981 Listening Post - The Kingbees - The Big Rock

 The Kingbees - The Big Rock

#700

1981 Housekeeping

The Kingbees

The Big Rock

Genre: Straight up rock. 

4 out of 5

Highlights:

The Big Rock

She Can’t “Make-Up” Her Mind

Let Yourself Go

Everything I read about this band talks about how they could have made it if their record label, the doomed RSO records didn’t put out Sgt. Pepper’s movie soundtrack and die before the Kingbees got their chance and you know what? It might be true. 

Like the Stray Cats and The Beat Farmers this is the kind of record that every college dorm should’ve been cranking in the early 80s. 

Why Setzer and not James? Who knows? There’s no reason that “Let Myself Go” couldn’t have been a hit in 1981.

Jamie James played in Steppenwolf for a while and then started a band with Dennis Quaid. I think he could’ve been bigger. 

https://music.apple.com/us/album/the-big-rock/1529879817

The 1980 Listening Post - The Kingbees - The Kingbees

 The Kingbees - The Kingbees

1980 Housekeeping

The Kingbees

The Kingbees

Genre: Garage Rockabilly

3.5 out of 5

Blah blah blah, before the Stray Cats….blah blah blah…before the nostalgia explosion….

Look, we all know that The Kingbees were there first. But, as I’ve said so many times, Brian Setzer brought something extra to the Rockabilly nostalgia game and no one else matched it. 

The Kingbees are very good at it and they diverge into Garage Rock more than a few times on this record. I can’t go higher in the rating because, well, nothing really stabbed me in the Stratocaster.  The Peter Gunny “My Mistake” is fine but, that riff is too familiar and it’s just not something that can be bettered. 

https://music.apple.com/us/album/the-kingbees/1530139875