BATON ROUGE – Baton Rouge [third album feat Jack Ponti] *HQ*
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While the most known BATON ROUGE albums are their two released by major labels in 1990 and 1991, the band has another record, this self-titled “Baton Rouge” released 997 in Europe by MTM Music and then in Japan the following year.
The album is in fact based in some old songs / demos from the early ’90s with Baton Rouge’s producer Jack Ponti as the driving force. In the mid-Nineties Ponti contacted singer Kelly Keeling to re-work these songs again, and taking the role of guitarist as well, Ponti used basic tracks already taped back in the day and with the help of session musicians completed the songs.
And these are terrific tunes. All are written or co-written Jack Ponti, a couple – the wonderful ‘Hands Of Time’ and ‘Didn’t I’ – with Stan Bush. There’s also a version of ‘Love’s A Loaded Gun’ previously recorded by Alice Copper for his album Hey Stoopid, a great cut penned by Cooper, Ponti, & Vic Pepe.
While production isn’t in the major level of the first 2 Baton Rouge albums, the crucial thing on this record are the fantastic songs such as ‘I Know Better Than You Do’, ‘Shelter’, ‘The Ghost of You’, ‘Love Takes’, and the mentioned above – all classic melodic hard rockers with an ’80s feeling.
Years after this release Keeling said he didn’t considered “Baton Rouge” as the band’s third album, but more a Jack Ponti project. Anyway, Ponti convinced the singer to use the Baton Rouge moniker as he wrote many of the songs with the band in mind.
A really good CD with ‘that magic’ intact, still relevant today.
Highly Recommended
01. Didn’t I
02. The Ghost of You
03. You Can Jump Alone
04. Shelter
05. Victims of the Night
06. Hands of Time
07. Love By the Numbers
08. Not in the Mood for a Heartache
09. I Know Better Than You Do
10. Love’s A Loaded Gun
11. Love Takes
12. Back Under Fire
Kelly Keeling – vocals, guitars
Jack Ponti – guitars, keyboards, vocals
Camus Celli – drums, percussion
Guy Daniel – keyboards, bass
Pat Schick – bass
out of print
