I remember when I obtained this on vinyl back in the midst of time. A friend called Joe McGee mercilessly took the piss out of the rather large mouthful that is Danny Joe Brown and the Danny Joe Brown Band. He had a point – I’m sure they couldn’t have come up with a better name. Despite that, this remains a lost classic of the Southern Rock genre. It also had and indeed still has, an absolutely terrible cover hiding some tremendous songs and fantastic southern-tinged performances, not least from the late Molly Hatchet front man and all round legend; Danny Joe Brown. 

Released originally in 1981, this was much more like the band Brown had just left who were beginning their drift towards metaldom that continues today. Sundown has more than a whiff of Hatchet’s Whisky Man about it andThe Alamo is one of the great Southern Rock songs with its mythical take on a South that probably never existed whilst Two Days Home features the kind of country/bluegrass influenced guitar work that led to Hatchet being compared favourably to the almighty Lynyrd Skynyrd themselves. 

Without a doubt the key song on this record is Edge of Sundown which features the kind of narrative usually found in Spaghetti Westerns but is propelled along by the delightful keyboard runs of John Galvin who joined the Hatchet ranks in 1983 and remains there today, before the guitars kick and it becomes the band’s equivalent of Free Bird.  It should be very much noted that as was de rigour at the time, the band had three – count ‘em, three guitarists and the remastering in 2008 really shows how intricate both Danny Joe Brown and ... as well as other Southern Rock bands were. In places, like Beggar Man, for instance, it could be argued that there is a certain formula at work but that’s not a real problem – in the same song, for example, just when you expect the guitars to play on seemingly forever, they just stop. 

Perhaps the main strength of this album are the sheer quality of the songs which make it all the more sad that it remains the only work ever unleashed by the group although in the suitably revisionist liner notes Bobby Ingram claims he may make the tentative recordings for a second album public one day. Here’s hoping...  With an extensive and informative essay by Malcolm Dome including the Bobby Ingram version (make of that what you will) of history, Rock Candy has done the world a great service by making this excellent record available again. The only (minor) quibble is the lack of bonus songs – over to you Mr Ingram.

Simon Bray