Classic Rock Bottom

ALBUM OF THE WEEK # 234 THE FABULOUS THUNDERBIRDS - TUFF ENUFF (1986)

Artist: The Fabulous Thunderbirds

Genre: Blues/Rock

Country Of Origin: United States

Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame Member: No

Album: Tuff Enuff

Producer: Dave Edmunds

Release Date: January 1986

Running Time: 32:26

RJ's Top 5 Songs: 1. Wrap It Up...2. Tuff Enuff...3. Two Time My Lovin'...4. Look At That, Look At That...5. I Don't Care

Disclaimer: All info that does not reside in my brain is gathered from wikipedia.com (mostly because Jon can't stand it). 

Well, we tackled some Blues Rock last week, let's do the same this week. Tuff Enuff by The Fabulous Thunderbirds is your Album Of The Week.  First, a few nuggets:

  • Tuff Enuff and Wrap It Up were both released as singles and received a lot of airplay.
  • Tuff Enuff is still the band's only Top 40 single.
  • It reached number 10 on the Billboard Hot 100.
  • Jimmy Vaughan was the band's guitarist.  He is the brother of Stevie Ray Vaughan.

That's it, that's all of the nuggets I can find for you.  Let's face it, if you were a radio listener in the mid 80's, you are familiar with Wrap It Up and Tuff Enuff.  Both are excellent songs.  As far as this album goes, I never owned it back then.  I just bought this recently and listened to it for the first time this week.  I'll say...it's okay.  The two hits, like I said before, are fantastic.  Everything else is okay, nothing great.  But I did enjoy Jimmy Vaughan's guitar playing.

What about you?  Do you own the album?  What do you think of it?

1. Tuff Enuff

2. Tell Me

3. Look At That, Look At That

4. Two Time My Lovin'

5. Amnesia

6. Wrap It Up

7. True Love

8. Why Get Up

9. I Don't Care

10. Down At Antone's

 

 

 

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I also have never heard this album outside of the 2 radio hits.  I never really liked either of those 2 songs to want to hear anymore from them.  Found their videos annoying as well...  But it wouldn't unprecedented for an album I didn't care about in the 80's turn out to be a fine listen in 2014.

We shall see....

Lucky you, Rjhog. At least he listens to your posts.

I owe you half of Ziltoid still...  I didn't forget

Well, that's good. Too bad it wasn't posted in 2013 like something else.

Like most everyone else, I remember the two hits. Have not heard the rest. It's not bad at all, but just not something I would spin a lot. Kind of like "rock-a-billy" to me, and that whole musical genre is kind of repetitious to me. This certainly has a much bigger blues element than most rock-a-billy, and that makes it better for me.

  • Tuff Enuff - its too soon, the overplaying of this still hasn't worn off...
  • Tell Me - The song wants to know what I'm looking for, how about an interesting rocking song, don't you have SRV's bro in the band?  And this is what we get?  Yuck...
  • Look At That, Look at That - Must be nice cause you told me twice!  This is 50'd rock-a-billy dressed up with minimal blues riffs.  And the geetar solo from a Vaughn is highly disappointing.  Gotta say, not for me.
  • Two Time My Lovin' - Vocally its not very interesting either. Actually his voice is kinda annoying.  And another disappointing piece of geetar work.  Hmmm....

....

Not sure a song by song review is worth it at this rate...  This isn't blues, this is Louisiana Cajun backwood rock-a-billy and not very interesting at all.  Why Get Up kinda summarizes this album, its fallen and why get up?  No offense but its just not for me.

Best thing I can say is that it wasn't time wasted, certainly time well spent, but not wasted.  Now a second listen would be time wasted.  Nice variety Boss!

A lot of the songs remind me of Rockpile, which should come as no surprise considering who the producer is. I really don't consider this blues rock, though. It's more like a 50's R&R flashback album, hey, kinda like Rockpile. But rock is based in blues so maybe it is blues rock. But I don't think it is. 

There's three songs I heard on the radio and/or MTV, #'s 1, 6 & 3. Song #1 was ok the first time I heard it, but then it got boring fast. The other two aren't that bad, probably because they weren't played as much as #1.

All in all, this really isn't that bad of an album. It would make a nice companion piece to "Seconds Of Pleasure", but that album is so classic, it really doesn't need a companion piece.

Nice pick. Note that I wrote about 100x more in this post than you did for your BusBoys post. Just sayin'.

Your post was so good that I was practically speechless.  I was without speech.  And that is atypical of the stuff you post.

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