'Hot Tuna' Hot Tuna

Reviewed by Patrick O'Dea

Hot Tuna have been hanging on for over four years now, always in the hope of that break that would bring them some semblance of mass acceptance. As far back as I can remember they've played second siring to the Airplane, but though the roae's been rough their music hasn't suffered. While so many of their contemporaries have forsaken the blues-rock roots that launched them, Hot Tuna, a live album recorded during the group's formative years at the Chateau Liberte, deep in the Santa Cruz mountains, is an excellent representation of what Hot Tuan is about. Seven tough, tight and together tunes encompassing blues, blues-rock and just a bit of the old acid boogie fire. The songs' structures are both simple and true to classic forms. However, while they are unable to create the vocal timbres of the black blues, they compensate by boosting the instrumental energy levels making the material more intense.

Comparisons with the early, middle-period Airplane are inevitable, though I find their work equally compatible with some of John Mayall's finest hours. 'Want You To Know' is a solid, blues-based riff-rocker that could easily have been a part of Mayall's Decca material. And the guitar work of Jorma Kaukonen on 'Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning' is more than faintly reminiscent of Peter Green's contributions to Mayall's fare. Throughout the album, Kaukonen proves himself a well-versed, if not particularly innovative guitarist, and the contributions of his comrades (bassist Jack Casady, violinist John Creach, harpist Will Scarlett and Sammy Piazza, drums) leave no cause for complaint.

But as solid, well-rooted and energy-laden as it may be. Hot Tuna will still be lucky indeed to sell a couple of hundred copies in New Zealand. A crying shame if you ask me, for this is exactly what several ex-blues bands turned rock and roll heavies ought now to be sounding like.