Duke Grant Plays Hammond Gold: Duke Grant - Stereo Gold Award 1975

Ah, Mr Grant, we meet again. Those paying attention will remember I've already dealt with one of Duke Grant's albums on these pages and that my review ended with a pledge not to go out of my way to track any of his others down. In my defence, I didn't go out of my way to find 'Hammond Gold', it was there and it was cheap so I thought 'why not'? As I've said before, everybody deserves a second chance, and for 50p I'm happy to give Mr Grant his.

So is my faith in him rewarded? Well yes and no. First, the positives - as suggested by the cover image, 'Hammond Gold' is a slightly more sophisticated affair than 'Hammond Organ Dance Party' was (though a 'nightclub' with balloons and a tin foil covered ceiling is hardly the height of culture). For a start, during the year between releases, Duke and his band actually sound like they've learned from their mistakes and finally got it together to learn their respective parts and to play off rather than against each other. Again, and despite the album title, the Hammond is still only the lead instrument on around half the tracks, but it's less intrusive where it is and less absent where it's not and the other three pull their weight throughout. So that's something at least.

On the other side of the coin though, the 'Hammond Organ Dance Party' title is a touch misleading; a track like 'Y Viva Espana' has potential enough to take the roof off if it's played right, but it isn't. It's dull and it's boring. Even Scott Joplin's 'Maple Leaf Rag' and 'The Entertainer' are shorn of all potential for flight and hobbled by pedestrian arrangements that suck all life and joy out of them like matter through a black hole; if you can't dance to this stuff, then what are you meant to be doing with it? It's not soulful enough to be soul, funky enough to be funk or jazzy enough to be jazz either. It's just 'there'.

I'm not going to slam a cheap and cheerful covers band on a budget label for not sounding like the missing link between Herbie Hancock, James Brown and Al Green, but my beef remains that it simply does not do what it promises on the cover. True, the past references to 'flying fingers', 'pounding pedals' and 'mammoth speakers' have gone, but it still suggests we 'Roll up your carpet and dance to Hammond Gold' when in fact all you get is just the sound of a group of people plodding their way through a series of wildly random tunes in as uncontroversial and polite a way as possible.

Because that's one thing that certainly hasn't changed from the last album - a tracklisting that defies all logic and reason. 'Y Viva Espana' and Scott Joplin are odd enough bedfellows, but they're joined by 'Tie A Yellow Ribbon', 'Bridge Over Troubled Water', Amazing Grace', 'You'll Never Walk Alone' and 'Strangers In The Night'. Whoever put that lot together was drinking something stronger than tea and it only 'works' to the degree it does because Duke and the band ignore the sources of the songs and any heritage they possess and slow everything down to the same pace that gives them a bland identikit sound of a main melody supplemented by some fairly predictable fills,and with a production that leaves acres of space between the instruments the end result is the dull and hollow sound of a barrel being, if not scraped, then certainly investigated. Bottom line - if you want something that will burble away harmlessly while you cook the dinner then this will do the job as well as anything, if you're looking for something deeper though then you'd best look for it elsewhere.