One of my favorite bands, one that many have never heard.

@bdp24 

I can see how your liking for Garth Hudson dovetails with NRBQ. 

For the uninitiated, Lou Ann live:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBo0z7mFEgE&list=PLAI-4-sucob_Mm5e9yXXaiLWGRfHKl_3e&index=5

Man @stuartk, that’s Lou Ann when she was much younger!

By the way, Lou Ann was the singer in an Austin band named Triple Threat, which featured a young guitar player named Stevie Ray Vaughan. Lou Ann tours regularly with Stevie’s older brother Jimmie. She strikes me as being "one of the boys", in both drinking and, ahem, carousing.

Her debut album on Asylum Records (entitled Old Enough) was produced by Jerry Wexler, and features the fantastic Muscle Shoals studio band known as The Swampers. A musically great album, and it sounds better than do many of Wexler’s other productions (Aretha Franklin for one), perhaps because it was co-produced by Glenn Frey.

NRBQ is one the great rock n’ roll bands and I think that the best edition was with Al Anderson on guitar and Tom Ardolino on bass.   Along with Joey Spampinato and Terry Adams these monster musicians created killer grooves with a reckless energy reminiscent of 1st gen rock ‘n roll and R&B.  Live shows were legendary and I was fortunate to see them several times in the late 70’s and early ‘80s.

If Thelonious Monk and Jerry Lee Lewis could some how produce a child it would be NRBQ keyboardist Terry Adams.

I’ve never owned many of their recordings but I recently picked up an LP of “all hopped up” that I’ve been enjoying.

They also wrote some great tunes such as “Me and the Boys” and “Green Light” covered by Bonnie Raitt and Dave Edmonds among others.

Amazing band!  Al Anderson is one of my singer/songwriter/guitarists ever.   Joey’s got a younger brother named Johnny who’s an incredible singer/songwriter and guitar player - he played with the Incredible Casuals up in Cape Cod.  NRBQ has one unheard of hit after another.

Agree with you on your every point @pdspiegel. But Tom Ardolino was on drums, not bass (that’s Joey’s instrument). I saw the line-up you cite twice live at The Roxy Theater on Sunset Blvd in the 80’s and 90’s, and more recently at a club in Portland Oregon. Though Terry is now the sole remaining member of that line-up (Al Anderson left the band in 1994, moving to Nashville to concentrate on songwriting. Tom died in 2012, and Joey has been receiving treatment for cancer for many years, incapacitating him), they are still great! Apparently Terry is a key element in their sound and style, but the new members more than hold their own.

NRBQ made a lot of records (I have 20 on LP, a bunch more on CD), many available used at very low prices. But live performance is where they really come alive. Other peers of the band that love ’em include John Hiatt, Nick Lowe, Elvis Costello, Richard Thompson, and Los Lobos.