Afer leaving Randy Bachman's band, Frank put together a band which initially included Dave Johnson on drums but later, John Cody, Rick Enns on bass, Mike Rhealt on keyboards, and Scotty Hall on guitar. Scotty went on to play with "Idle Eyes" It is this band who are on 4 tracks of "It's About Time." The songs were recorded at Water St. Sound as part of their recording engineering classes (so it was free). The songs were essentially "live off the floor" and I decided to include them as a capsule in time, especially when I discovered that Scotti had recently passed away after a battle with cancer. The band opened for Steppenwolf at the Commodore and I still remember owner Drew Burns saying how great they were. Unfortunately, without a recording contract there weren't enough venues to keep us going without solid representation and the band voted to fold rather than see the energy watered down by playing the club scene where we were under pressure to do more covers. On the new cd, piano parts have been replaced and some overdubs added but most tracks are original.
"Beam Me Up Scotti" I had recorded this song with Randy who let me have the tracks. A local record store "Neptoon Records" helped press it onto a '45. We used to close with an extended version which went into other songs with the same chord progression, including "Lee Michael's Heidi Hey, Hieidi Hi, the Beatles "Hey Jude" and Traffic's "Dear Mr. Fantasy"..etc. One night we actually played it for 20 minutes past "last call" for a total of about 30 minutes on the one song..there were no complaints.
Invitation:
This song (recorded by Union) became our opening song. I brought a few of the vocal lines down in range in the verses but essentially it was performed the same. It our way of saying hello and our desire to entertain.
SHELLSHOCKED
recorded at Water St. Sound..got omitted from the "It's About Time" cd...sorry about the hum on the guitar..but it's real - 1 take...I hadn't finished the last lyric lines so was repeating earlier lines but ad libing a different melody in hopes of making up for the lack of words.
Held Up at the Border
also recorded at Water St. Sound (please see Musicians: Mike Rhealt to get the backstory and hear the song.
Next Stop London - Frank Ludwig Band live - features the late Scotty Hall on guitar..although the lighting and sound is pretty raw on this footage, I include it here in honour of Scotty.
Somewhere, Sometime - another song from the Ironhorse days performed by the FL Band..again, the quality is poor because the sound is just off the camera, but it's another chance to see Scotty soloing and the vocals in the last chorus come out reasonably well