Blackfoot Sue : rocking from Birmingham

Do you know the story of that group of musicians who wanted to play rock, electric and uncompromising, but were forced to release 45s with an exquisitely pop aftertaste to satisfy the managers and record companies' greed for profit? Of course, it's the leit-motif of the career of Sweet, one of the most horrendously underrated bands in the entire history of rock! And yet, the same plot fits perfectly with the trajectory of Blackfoot Sue, who paradoxically paid a high price, becoming almost slaves to it, for the entry into the noble areas of the charts of their debut single Standing In The Road. Punctually, Jam Records forced brothers Tom and David Farmer - the first bassist/singer and the second drummer - to continuously release other enjoyable but inoffensive singles, which however remained far from the success of their debut: but our guys kept their best cartridges for the albums, even if after NOTHING TO HIDE (1973), the label decided not to finance them any more.

The second, STRANGERS, recorded the following year, was quietly released only in 1977 by Import, an American microlabel, consolidating its Stones influences (for example in the alcoholic ballad Touch The Sky), sudden almost southern rock blasts (Care To Believe), tepid winks to funk (Shoot All Strangers) before reaching the climax in the ambitious 1812, a thunderous arrangement of an overture by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky that competes on equal terms with the symphonic hard of the best Queen.