Released: 1994
Tracks: Mystery Train; Rita; Searching; Night Air; Fever; Rough Ridin’
Best track: hard to pick, Fever is incredible though
Track to skip: none at all
Man, I forgot how great this band was. This is a demo, but this is probably the best sounding demo I’ve ever heard. Excellent quality here. 47 Indians is the ‘brainchild’ of Brent Gorrell and I’m sure they still play around Austin. There have been quite a few different versions of the band, this one being the 2nd main version. Unfortunately I just have the tape itself and there’s no info on who’s actually in the band at this point. So I only know Brent. Brent’s got a good voice and he tends to sound a lot like early Elvis. Not in a cheesy way, he sounds good. The music these guys do is a mix of rockabilly and 50’s sounding rock with good bits of blues and jazz thrown in. I feel stupid because I can’t remember the lead guitarist’s name, but his a great player. He’s got a very fluid style and all his parts on all these songs are great. The whole band is great. 47 Indians were actually the very first live group I ever saw, back when I was like 13 or 14. I started to see them a lot when I went to college in Austin along with my friend Andy. We saw them every chance we got, which was usually weekly.
Since the band is mostly a ‘cover’ band, naturally most of these songs are covers. Rita and Searching are originals and they’re both really good songs. All of the songs are wonderfully done by the band, but the version of Fever is awesome. Nothing against Peggy Lee, but this is my favorite version of the tune. I doubt you could find this demo anywhere, as I was given my copy from the band themselves. I’d always recommend going and checking them out live since they were always one of my favorite bands to see live in Austin. Like I said, the sound quality on this demo is absurdly good. It’s more than a demo; it’s really just a very short album. Great stuff.
Rating: 92
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