Nils Lofgren - I Came To Dance

 

I had no idea who Nils Lofgren was at the time "I Came To Dance" was released in 1977. I was unaware that he had been a member of Neil Young's Crazy Horse, nor that his two previous solo albums had been well received by the critics.

Nils appeared to have plenty of credit with the UK music press, with a couple of writers at the NME and Sounds being sad that on his UK Tour he was regularly being blown away by his support act, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

Three songs from the LP were regularly featured on the late night radio stations I listened too. I liked "Home Is Where The Hurt Is", thought "I Came To Dance" was fantastic but found "Code Of The Road" to be a little dull. Anyway, I bought the album but overall thought it was disappointing, and not really the sort of music I was into at the time. 

With a couple of exceptions it was too similar to bland US acts like JJ Cale, Boz Scaggs, Little Feet etc whose music I generally tried to avoid. It was only a lot later that I found out that the gospel/soul style backing singers included Patti Austin and Luther Vandross both of whom went on to have their own individual careers.

Looking at the track list the only songs I could recollect were the three mentioned above plus the cover of the Rolling Stones "Happy". The rest drew a blank.

Listening again to the album, none of my views have changed. "I Came To Dance" is still glorious but perhaps where Nils sings "Well, my manager kept telling me if I want to be great, I better wise up and sing my songs straight" maybe he should have listened !

The slightly slower "Home Is Where The Hurt Is" has a nice mellow tune and chorus, and still sounds very good. I particularly like the the rising middle section "And I'm taking a train, and its a long train"

"Rock Me At Home" has a jazzy/blues rock flavour and whilst "Code Of The Road" is reckoned to be one of the classic tracks in the Nils Lofgren catalogue, I think it is boring.

I'm not sure of the point of covering "Happy". Nils and the band appear to be trying to have fun but it all comes across as a little forced.

Of the rest, whilst the quality of musicianship is first rate, the horns make a nice sound and the piano pleasant enough, it was overall just too slick and smooth for my liking. Part of the problem is that the songs are simply not strong enough, so whilst innocuous, they are mostly forgettable. Thirty minutes after listening to the album, I was unable to remember how the first three of the songs on side two went, nor did I have any desire to play them again.

 

Track Listing :

Side One :

1. I Came To Dance
2. Rock Me At Home
3. Home Is Where The Hurt Is
4. Code Of The Road

Side Two :

1. Happy Ending Kids
2. Goin' South
3. To Be A Dreamer
4. Jealous Gun
5. Happy

Released 1977
UK Chart Position : 30

Singles :

I Came To Dance ( - 1977 )