Shane’s Rock Challenge: JASON & THE SCORCHERS – 1985 – Lost & Found

Shane | 14 June 2014 | Reply

Shane’s Rock Challenge: JASON & THE SCORCHERS – 1985 – Lost & Found
By Shane Pinnegar
10/10

Back in the 80’s the lines were very clearly delineated: rock was rock, country was country, and the two simply didn’t mix. Until Jason Ringenberg and The Scorchers came swaggering out of the barn, cowboy boots crunching on the dirty floor of the nearest dive bar.

Read my 2013 interview with guitarist Warner E Hodges for a bit of background into their formation and demise.

Up until JATS debut I was adamant, telling anyone that I liked a little bit of everything – ‘except country or opera’!

I never developed a taste for opera, but JATS opened my eyes to some rocking country music and, over time, I began to see how it and bluegrass also influenced the Blues and, in turn, rock n’ roll itself.

Lost & Found is – no exaggeration – one of THE rock n’ roll albums of all time. It pulses with a rocking heart, Ringenberg spouting supercharged yee-haa poetry with a Western twang, while the late Perry Baggs and Jeff Johnson lay down the rhythm with locomotive force.

Hodges’ slashing guitar over the top of this lit stick of dynamite fuses AC/DC rhythmic propulsion with metal flash and country feel. It’s revelatory – was ANYONE else playing like this back then? They sure are now.

Sadly Shop It Around and the excellent White Lies would only be minor hits, and the band remain to this day cult favourites, never enjoying the sales or crossover acclaim they deserve.

You can’t go wrong with a single track on this album – pure class from one to ten.

For proof, If Money Talks and Blanket Of Sorrow cover the more genteel country side of the line, while Broken Whiskey Glass is pure psychobilly years ahead of the genre, which perfectly sums up JATS – forever ahead of their time.

My copy is a reissue including their Fervor EP, which takes Dylan’s Absolutely Sweet Marie once around the Helter Skelter ride and delivers time after time with Help There’s A Fire, Hot Nights In Georgia and the fiery Both Sides Of The Line (co-written with Michael Stipe of REM)

A band still on my bucket list, as soon as I win the lottery I’m financing a festival Down under with Jason & The Scorchers one of the main headliners!