Foghat und Nazareth

The band formed with Dave Peverett on guitar and vocals, Tony Stevens on bass, and Roger Earl on drums. Rod Price on guitar/slide guitar joined after parting ways with the Black Cat Bones in December 1970. Their success was mainly in the US, which is where the band relocated. The new line up was named “Foghat”, which was a nonsense word from a childhood game played by Peverett and his brother. Their 1972 album “Foghat” was produced by Dave Edmunds and had a cover of Willie Dixon’s “I Just Want to Make Love to You” which earned itself a lot of airplay especially on the FM stations. Their sophomore self-titled album was released in March 1973 and known by fans as Rock and Roll because of its cover depicting a rock and bread roll. “Energized” was their third studio album, released in January 1974, and was certified as an RIAA Gold Record in the United States. They released an album every year for until “Return of the Boogie Men”, which was their thirteenth studio album. The 1980’s saw the band go through numerous line up changes, including founding member Dave Peverett leaving in 1984 and returning to England. He was replaced with Earl Burgeson. The band continued performing as Foghat into the early 1990s.

In 1993, due to a request of producer Rick Rubin, the original line-up reunited. Rubin ultimately proved to be unavailable to produce their comeback, the group went ahead to release “Return of the Boogie Men” and then a live album entitled “Road Cases” in 1998.

Tragically, the 2000s saw the deaths of the founding members, Dave Peverett and Rod Price. The 2010 version of Foghat consisted of Roger Earl, Craig MacGregor, Charlie Huhn, and Bryan Bassett. At a concert during the summer of 2010 former Rainbow and Black Sabbath drummer Bobby Rondinelli had temporarily replaced Roger Earl while Roger was recovering from surgery.

The band have never stopped touring and recording. They released a single on July 9th 2013 called “The Word of Rock n’ Roll” a Christmas song on November 5th 2013, and a DVD in December 2013.

The 60’s in Scotland, rock was a dying genre with not much happening on the scene as most bands struggled for individuality and a signature sound. Rising from the ashes of semi-successful local band The Shadettes frontman Dan McCafferty (vocals) accompanied by members of local bands: Manny Charlton (guitar), Pete Agnew (bass) and Darrell Sweet (drums) completed the original line up of Nazareth.

With most of the band members settled in terms of family life, it was in 1971 that Nazareth made the executive decision to move to the big smoke (London) sacrificing their day jobs and moving from familiar surroundings to further the band’s prospects. Moving into a tiny communal flat, Nazareth slaved away to produce their eponymous debut self-titled album later that year. It was the release of their second album “Exercises” released the following year which really catapulted them onto the scene, receiving glowing reviews and led to them securing a support slot on tour with Deep Purple.

1973 was a great year for the band as released their third album “Razamanza” (which reached number 11 in the UK charts) and their fourth album “Loud n’ Proud” which scored them their first top ten album success.

In 1979 Nazareth grew in numbers as they added Zal Cleminson as a second guitarist. With moderate success achieved in the US and Canada during the eighties as the band underwent numerous line-up changes and continued churning out albums one after the other.

In 1984 the band signed a record deal with Vertigo which was followed closely by a pivotal support slot for Status Quo at Milton Keynes Bowl as they released their fourteenth album “The Catch” in the same year.

Apparently after an unfulfilled request of the band playing at Axl Rose’s wedding, in 1993 Guns N Roses paid tribute to the band with their rendition of their classic single “Hair of the Dog”.

This iconic band with a long standing career have traversed the world and inspired some of the most prolific rock bands of this generation as their continue keeping rock well and truly alive.