Boxer - Below The Belt - 1975 gdmonline.info

Let me say first that I do like this band, Boxer played a high powered blues based hard rock that sounds fantastic cranked up to eleven even with a questionable mix.

Written by: Eric

ARTIST: Boxer
ALBUM: Below The Belt
LABEL: Virgin
SERIAL: V 2049
YEAR: 1975
CD REISSUE: Discogs Reissue List
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: England

LINEUP: Mike Patto – lead vocals, keyboards * Ollie Halsall – guitar, keyboards * Keith Ellis – bass * Tony Newman – drums

TRACK LISTING: 01 Shooting Star * 02 All The Time In The World * 03 California Calling * 04 Hip Kiss * 05 More Than Meets The Eye * 06 Waiting For A Miracle * 07 Loony Ali * 08 Save Me * 09 Gonna Work Out Fine * 10 Town Drunk

WEBLINKS: Site Link

Table of Contents

Background

Featuring one of the more infamous album covers of the 1970’s, Boxer were a British super group with a lot of potential and relatively little success. A quick rundown, Mike Patto spent some time with Spooky Tooth and fronting the self named Patto with guitarist extraordinaire Ollie Halsall who was previously heard with Timebox, Kevin Ayers and Tempest.

Drummer Tony Newman’s extensive background included Jeff Beck, David Bowie and May Blitz while bass player Keith Ellis weaved his way through forgotten hard rockers Juicy Lucy and dark prog favourites Van Der Graaf Generator. Impressed? The British press certainly was when Patto announced the formation of Boxer and with resumes as thick as a bible, how could they fail?

The Songs

Let me say first that I do like this band. Boxer played a high powered blues based hard rock that sounds fantastic cranked up to eleven even with a questionable mix.

Patto, one of the great, yet sadly forgotten vocalists of the 70’s sounded like a cross between Paul Rodgers and Ian Lloyd which combined with Halsall’s clever guitar licks was a force to be reckoned with.

Unfortunately, with the exception of the wonderful ‘Waiting For A Miracle’ which was a reworked Tempest tune, there are no surprises on ‘Below The Belt’. It’s all very standard rock, well done but lacking anything original. ‘More Than Meets The Eye’, the single ‘All The Time In The World’ and ‘Loony Ali’ are just basic tunes with stellar talent.

The Faces and Free did this type of thing so much better, yet despite Boxer’s failings there is something about this band and album that leads me to give it a spin every so often, naturally with beer in hand.

In Summary

Boxer would tour Britain extensively with Ace, Brand X, Widowmaker and others as well as recording another album ‘Bloodletting’ which strangely wouldn’t see release until 1979.

With a new line-up including early Steve Perry supporter and former Vanilla Fudge and later Pipedream bassist Tim Bogert, the group released ‘Absolutely’ in 1977 followed by a three band UK tour headlined by Boxer with Crawler and Moon.

Obviously it was not enough to hold the group together and the band split a short time later. For those of you looking for the original album with the cover shown above, good luck since it’s very difficult to find these days. In the U.S. ‘Below The Belt’ featured a rather awful picture of the band on the cover and the stateside version of ‘Absolutely’ with a coloured eyeball was altered substandard in comparison as well which I will never understand. What fun is that?