I'll Be Loving You
Love Is A Mystery
Singing Rhymes
Dream Lover
Everybody Needs Somebody
Change Is Gonna Come
Asking Too Much Of You
| Together Forever I'll Be Loving You | |
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by Don Stevens In 1978 the Marshall Tucker Band released Together Forever, their final album on Capricorn Records. It reached #22 on the Bilboard charts and earned the band its fifth gold album.
Recorded at Criteria Studio in Miami, Florida, Together Forever was the first Tucker album without long-time producer Paul Hornsby, and was the first recording session the band had made outside the Capricorn Studios in Macon, Georgia. As the first of two albums produced by Paul Levine, it was also the first release to feature an album-cover photo of the band.
"We were really united," recalls drummer Paul T. Riddle, on The Capricorn Years liner notes.� "You can tell we were very determined to be together forever.� That wasn't some trite thing on our part.� We really felt like that then."
The music from Together Forever expresses the Marshall Tucker Band's trademark continuity. Performing the material themselves, without accompaniment of studio or guest musicians, the album captures a versitile mix of the band's southern rock and jazz influences.
In the opening track, "I'll Be Loving You," Doug Gray's blues-inspired lead is matched by a signature guitar solo from Toy Caldwell, worthy of Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction. The masterpiece of Together Forever may be the seven-minute soulful rendition on track two, "Love Is A Mystery", an interplay of the band's best talent. Anchored by Tommy's driving bass and Gray's strong, emotional lead vocals, this song captures the soul of the Marshall Tucker Band.
The third song on the album, "Singing Rhymes," is a Tucker gem stone even despite its short, three-minute ten-second length. As the only Gray-Caldwell duet ever released by the band, this tune seems to float along in a love inspired funk before exploding with Gray's vocal pledge, "I'll always be singing rhymes about love!"
While Together Forever is certainly not a concept album by definition, its theme is, without question, devoted to love. "Dream Lover, "the follow up hit to 1977's "Heard It In A Love Song," displays the band's ability to craft a a catchy tune while featuring solo performances from each of the members in the group. On "Everybody Needs Somebody", The Marshall Tucker Band reveals its country-blues roots, with Toy on both steel and lead guitars in a wistful, lovesick-blues song about the hardships of long-distance relationships and life on the road.
Tommy Caldwell's "Change Is Gonna Come" is a classic Marshall Tucker jazz tune, with an all-out jam session that features Jerry Eubanks' saxaphone at its best. Together Forever also features "Asking Too Much Of You" with Tommy Caldwell on acoustic guitar.
toycaldwell.com [Toy Page] [Scrapbook] [MTB Bio] [Discography] [Links] [Email]
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