The Amboy Dukes - The Amboy Dukes [1967]

Nutter Nugent

This eponymous debut album of 1967 is well before bad Nutter Nugent [redneck pro-gun politics] and just before good Nutter Nugent [psyche/concept album excellence of 1970’s Marriage On The Rocks – Rock Bottom, a big favourite and reviewed on this blog]. Detroit’s The Amboy Dukes present their dynamic mix of psyche and garage with refreshing immediacy, and Nugent’s guitar work is already blistering, especially on the opening track.

The album begins with the Big Jim Evans’ classic Baby Please Don’t Go, made pop-famous by Them, and that notable starting bass and guitar riff is introduced by wailing feedback to herald this psyched-up guitar version. Nugent shrieks and shreds brilliantly [and still does today in live performances of this favourite], and it even contains a brief Hendrix sample. This is followed by an uncertain cover of Cream’s I Feel Free, doubtful because it is quite faithful to the original and therefore at odds with the ownership of the opening cover – perhaps the covering time gaps are significant factors.  Next Young Love is a regular pop-garage track but with more gritty Nugent guitar work. Fourth Psalms of Aftermath picks up the psychedelic trend with requisite sitar and requisite thoughtful lyrics like where’s goodness and mercy on which life is based as hatred and envy have taken its place – it is sung beautifully by John Drake. Sixth Colors is a gorgeous psychedelic 60s song with moaning guitar breaking into crisp riffs, ending on a pre-Hendrix mocking of the national anthem. Seventh is a glorious and rousing version of Let’s Go Get Stoned [Ashford, Simpson, Armstead] with great vocal harmonies that deliver a wonderfully upbeat celebration of the song’s theme.

Eighth Down On Phillip’s Escalator has the sound of early Pink Floyd and is lyrically as playfully obtuse – this is the song that dates the album , but dates it so enjoyably. This is followed by a similarly psychedelic The Lovely Lady, reminding me of Clear Light and Love, especially on Drake’s strong, clear vocal. Tenth, The Who’s  It’s Not True, even plays with incipient West Coast harmonies in a rather jaunty style, very much the pop song on the album. The original album ends on the garage sprint of Gimme Love.

Ted Nugent would move on to play a more hard rock sound and become a hard nut politically, but this first album is a superbly fresh and exhilarating snapshot of its time.