The third album in the first phase of Legs Diamond’s recording career was 1979’s ‘Firepower’, despite the ignorance of label, media and the general public, ‘Firepower’ still had a few great moments to prevent it from being a total whitewash. This was the only album that Legs Diamond released for Cream Records.
Written by: gdmonline
ARTIST: Legs Diamond
ALBUM: Firepower
LABEL: Cream Records
SERIAL: CR 1010
YEAR: 1979
CD REISSUE: Discogs Reissue List
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: USA
LINEUP: Rick Sanford – vocals * Roger Romeo – guitars * Michael Diamond – bass * Mike Prince – keyboards, guitars * Jeff Poole – drums
TRACK LISTING: 01 Underworld King * 02 More Than Meets The Eye * 03 You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling * 04 Remember My Name * 05 Chicago * 06 Midnight Lady * 07 Help Wanted * 08 Come With Me * 09 Tragedy * 10 Man At The Top
WEBLINKS: Site Link
Background
The third album in the first phase of Legs Diamond’s recording career was 1979’s ‘Firepower’. By this stage of their history, the band had put themselves offside with their original label Mercury/Polygram, and had been picked up by indie label Cream Records.
It was a case of label not having a clue how to work with the band, and the band themselves being totally disillusioned with their progress. It’s common knowledge that the Legs Diamond boys were not happy with the final result, but for posterity’s sake, there are a few moments worth looking at.
The Songs
Opener ‘Underworld King’ is a fan favourite and appeared on LD’s live setlist for many years later. The hypnotic synths on this one still sound great when listening to this. Their cover of The Righteous Brothers ‘You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling’ found favor with many, though for me, a cover song on this album was at the expense of one of their own songs.
Much better is the emotional ‘Remember My Name’, which juices out raw emotion and power on a bed of organ and acoustic guitar. Lovely stuff. Reverting to a barroom boogie sound is ‘Chicago’, while ‘Midnight Lady’ swaps over to a raucous blues laced rocker with a bit of slide guitar a la Foghat towards the end of the track.
Another of the moody semi rockers is ‘Come With Me’, with Mike Prince again leading the way with some keyboard magic added for colour. ‘Tragedy’ is a laid back affair, perhaps not unlike what fellow rockers Angel were trying to achieve at the same stage of their career. Finishing with ‘Man At The Top’, this one is perhaps the pompiest affair on offer, with a load of keyboards, stinging guitars and of course, Rick Sanford is in fine form!
In Summary
Despite the ignorance of label, media and the general public, ‘Firepower’ still had a few great moments to prevent it from being a total whitewash. This was the only album that Legs Diamond released for Cream Records, the label instead seemed to putting all of its resources toward promoting the second Snail album ‘Flow’ during this time frame.
The feedback from the band toward the label was unflattering in the least, and by years end the band were on their own. 1980 saw a slew of material, which was posthumously released 19 years later as the album ‘Uncut Diamond’. You can read more about their history during this timeframe in that review (click on LD tag below).
Legs Diamond on Video
Click to go to YTM album page.
