Status Quo - Rockin' All Over The World (1977) [FLAC] {2005 reissue, bonus track}

Track listing:

1. Hard Time (4:45)
2. Can't Give You More (4:17)
3. Let's Ride (3:04)
4. Baby Boy (3:13)
5. You Don't Own Me (3:04)
6. Rockers Rollin' (4:18)
7. Rockin' All Over The World (3:37)
8. Who Am I (4:31)
9. Too Far Gone (3:08)
10. For You (3:01)
11. Dirty Water (3:52)
12. Hold You Back (4:31)
13. Getting Better [bonus track] (2:22)

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Presentation by Garry Fielding (from the CD sleeve):

After a run of eight hit singles and six chart albums, Status Quo decided in 1977 that it was time to broaden their sound and recruited the services of an outsider producer. With the exception of their "Wild Side Of Life" single, all of the band's recordings from 1972 had been self produced. After briefly considering using an American producer, Pip Williams was picked to produce material for what would become the "Rockin' All Over The World" album. Francis Rossi set out the band's thinking in an interview with 'Sounds' music magazine: "We just felt that after so many albums together we could do with some new ideas. We were getting very set in our ways and we wanted to clean up the sound a bit more without losing the hardness".

The year had started well for the band with a headline appearance at the Daily Mirror Pop Awards Festival in Stafford in January. Quo had been voted top 'hard rock band' by the newspaper's readers. This had been followed by a tour on the continent and the release of the "Status Quo Live!" album in March. After a break of a few months the band booked into a recording studio in Dublin, Ireland, to start work on their next album. The sessions had to be abandoned when drummer John Coghlan was rushed to hospital with appendicitis. Work on the album resumed in the summer at a studio in Sweden.

In September the dates for Quo's UK tour - together with the news that a new, as yet untitled, album had been recorded - were announced in the music press. The last song recorded at the album sessions, "Rockin' All Over The World", a cover of a song by John Fogerty (of Credence Clearwater Revival) gave the band a theme for the album and tour - as well as giving the band their biggest hit single so far. "I heard John Fogerty's original on the car radio and thought that it was a perfect song for us to cover. At first everybody was a bit reluctant to record it but in the end the whole campaign was put around it" recalls Rick Parfitt.

The title song of the album was issued as a single on the 30th September 1977 and reached the number three position in the UK charts. "Ring Of A Change" (from the "Blue For You" album) was the B-side. The single spent over three months in the chart and became the 17th best selling single of the year. The success was repeated throughout Europe and even in Australia. Even today, "Rockin' All Over The World" is still possibly Quo's best known song.

The album was released on the 11th November with original copies coming with a picture inner bag. Music press reviews were generally positive and the consensus of opinion was that Pip Williams had helped the band achieve a clearer, fresher sound. The album entered the UK charts on the 26th November at the No. 5 position and achieved a chart run of fifteen weeks.

The UK leg of the "Rockin' All Over The World" tour kicked off on the 13th November and ran through to the 21st December with the last concert being at the Lewisham Odeon in London. The new live set included five songs from the latest album and it was the longest and most successful UK tour that the band had completed.

The second stage of the tour began on 6th January 1978 in France – with concerts in Sweden, Holland, Germany, Austria and Switzerland to follow. In June, Vertigo in Germany, France, Belgium and Holland (but not the UK arm of the record company) issued "Rockers Rollin'" with "Hold You Back" (both from the "Rockin' All Over The World" album) as a single. The single reached Number 8 in the Dutch charts, No. 15 in Belgium and No. 30 in Germany.

By the summer of 1978 the band were back in the studios - recording songs for their next album "If You Can't Stand The Heat".