Song of the Week Revisited – Hero to Zero, Savoy Brown

Ignored             Obscured              Restored

For the second time this week, I’m posting an extra SotW.  This time it is to pay tribute to Savoy Brown guitarist Kim Simmonds.  He died on December 13th at the age of 75.  His full obituary can be read here:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/20/arts/music/kim-simmonds-dead.html

I believe Simmonds was one of the most underrated (or at least unheralded) rock guitarists ever.  So check out this SotW post I originally published on March 21, 2009.

In 1975 my college roommate, Dabinsky, recorded this cool radio broadcast of a Savoy Brown concert on this little, high quality cassette deck he owned (was it a Wollensak?).  “Back in the day” that was the primary vehicle for collecting and sharing bootleg recordings.  We played that tape an awful lot.  The broadcast was eventually “officially” released in 1998 as an album called Live at the Record Plant.  The highlight of that tape, for me, was the number “Hero to Zero” – the song of the week.  I’ve attached the studio version from the album Wire Fire.

Savoy Brown was a blues based rock band led by the (sadly) under recognized lead guitarist Kim Simmonds.  Savoy Brown had several albums that charted in the U.S., including Raw Sienna (1969), Looking In (great cover, [looking in cover] 1970), Street Corner Talking (1971) and Hellbound Train (1972).

If you like blues based rock guitar, you’re really going to like this one.

Enjoy, until next week…

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