[font=Century Gothic][size=6][b][color=SeaGreen]Status Quo - Ma Kelly's Greasy Spoon[/color][/b][/size]
[size=3]Recorded in October 1970
Originally released on Pye Records NSPL 18344 in November 1970
[b]CD issued on Castle CLACD 169 (France) in December 1989[/b][/size][/font]

[font=Century Gothic][size=3]This album is the starting point for a shift in style from their earlier psychedelic stuff to down-home rock! The year is 1970, the Quo had grown their hair long, did away with the acid dippy reverb effects to their music and opted for a harder, twin guitar driven blues approach. Heralded by the wonderful single "Down The Dustpipe," the album featured none of the psychedelic restraint of their previous offerings.[/size]

[img=http://i.exigomusic.org/image/11882.jpg]

[size=2][b]After the traditional 12 bar opening of "Spinning Wheel Blues," you'd think all the band did was mellow down. But no!! Here comes "Daughter" with a menacing lead guitar lick and a gritty rhythm guitar backing ensemble which then became their signature thrash-a-boogie style! "Daughter can't you answer for yoursellllf?" screams the vocals and you can't help but start swaying to the groove! "(April) Spring, Summer and Wednesdays" is another gritty dish of seventies hard rock! with a very cool start-stop power chording style and a tongue in cheek clever chorus. But the absolute standout track on this album is "Is It Really Me." Talk about a mean seventies hard rock tune! Perfect sountrack song to some grimy long haired bellbottomed gearhead souping up the engine to his 1970 Gran Torino in his garage as his Daisy Duked honey is handing him tools and sharing a beer. The perfect new beginning to the Quo saga![/size][/font]

[size=2][color=SeaGreen]Francis Rossi[/color] - guitar, vocals
[color=SeaGreen]Rick Parfitt[/color] - guitar, keyboards, vocals
[color=SeaGreen]Alan Lancaster[/color] - bass, guitar, vocals
[color=SeaGreen]John Coghlan[/color] - drums, percussion[/size]

[font=Century Gothic][size=4]01. Spinning Wheel Blues[/size][/b] [size=3][color=SeaGreen](Rossi, Young)[/color] 3:21[/size]
[b][size=4]02. Daughter[/size][/b] [size=3][color=SeaGreen](Lancaster)[/color] 3:01[/size]
[b][size=4]03. Everything[/size][/b] [size=3][color=SeaGreen](Rossi, Parfitt)[/color] 2:36[/size]
[b][size=4]04. Shy Fly[/size][/b] [size=3][color=SeaGreen](Rossi, Young)[/color] 3:49[/size]
[b][size=4]05. (April) Spring, Summer and Wednesdays[/size][/b] [size=3][color=SeaGreen](Rossi, Young)[/color] 4:12[/size]
[b][size=4]06. Junior's Wailing[/size][/b] [size=3][color=SeaGreen](White, Pugh)[/color] 3:33[/size]
[b][size=4]07. Lakky Lady[/size][/b] [size=3][color=SeaGreen](Rossi, Parfitt)[/color] 3:14[/size]
[b][size=4]08. Need Your Love[/size][/b] [size=3][color=SeaGreen](Rossi, Young)[/color] 4:46[/size]
[b][size=4]09. Lazy Poker Blues[/size][/b] [size=3][color=SeaGreen](Green, Adams)[/color] 3:39[/size]
[b][size=4]10. Is It Really Me/Gotta Go Home[/size][/b] [size=3][color=SeaGreen](Lancaster)[/color] 9:34[/size][/font]

[center][img=http://i.exigomusic.org/image/11880.jpg] [img=http://i.exigomusic.org/image/11881.jpg][/center]
[quote][size=2]Woe betide the psychedelic groover who picked up the third album by Status Quo, dreaming of further picturesque matchstick messages! A mere three hits in a long three years had completely exhausted the bandmembers' patience with the whimsy of yore, and their ears had long since turned in other directions. It was the age, after all, of Canned Heat's relentless boogie and Black Sabbath's blistered blues, and [b]when the Quo's first new single of 1970, the lazy throb of "Down the Dustpipe," proved that the record-buying public wasn't averse to a bit more down-home rocking, their future course was set[/b]. 'Ma Kelly's Greasy Spoon' allies one of the most evocative titles in rock album history to one of the most familiar sights in a rock band's iconography, the cheap roadside café — crusty ketchup, leafy tea, an overflowing ashtray, and Ma Kelly herself, cigarette clenched between unsmiling lips and a face that has seen it all and didn't like any of it. Neither do the album's contents disturb her glowering visage. From the opening trundle of "Spinning Wheel Blues" and onto the closing, lurching medley of "Is It Really Me"/"Gotta Go Home," the most underrated disc in Status Quo's entire early catalog eschewed the slightest nod in the direction of the band's past.[/size][/quote]
[quote][size=2]From their rock'n'roll beginnings through psych-pop to the uneasy "Spare Parts" LP, Quo had a strange 1960s, and by 1970 had distilled it into a monster. [b]"Kelly" is a schizophrenic mix of straight blues boogies, early-Purple-gone-mad rockouts, bizarre cello arrangements on dreadful acoustic ballads, and one or two absolutely stunning tracks.[/b]

"(April), Spring, Summer And Wednesdays" is one of the greatest unsung rock tracks of its era. And then there is "Is It Really Me?/Gotta Go Home", a brain-numbing onslaught of all that was right and/or wrong about early 70s rock with one-chord wildness from a guitarist who clearly didn't know what he was doing. The song is about 9 minutes long. Naturally it was at least twice as long live, and was prog as all hell.[/size][/quote]