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It was released in 1975 and that riff blared out of radios everywhere, and seared itself into the consciousness of record buyers, sending the album into the Top 20, giving the band the biggest album of their career. The ring of the cowbell and the driving guitar riff made for a winning combination, and to this day, it remains the band’s signature song. Nazareth formed in Scotland in late 1968, taking their name from a line in The Band’s debut album, Music from Big Pink, released earlier that year. All four members of this group, led by Charlton and lead vocalist Dan McCafferty were members of the group The Shadettes, dating back as far as 1961. In 1970, the band relocated to London, which soon brought them a recording contract, starting with their self-titled debut album in 1971 and the country-rock flavored Exercises in 1972.
“Hair of the Dog” That Bit You
I'm going to keep this on rotation and look out for the vinyl. Nice one and another brilliant CRAOTW, filling in another musical gap in my pre 80s record buying hey day. Maybe I stopped spinning it because of McCafferty’s gargling Dran-O after swallowing razor blades vocal delivery. Listening this week, I was surprised to find it didn’t (completely) bother me, especially considering that influence on Axl Rose is so obvious (the majority of the time, I can’t stand Axl’s voice).
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This is also the first song on album where Pete Agnew‘s bass has a real presence, with McCafferty’s soft-edged and emotive vocals making this arrangement a true group effort. The best part of this Top 10 hit is the slow, sustained guitar lead, which reaches for the Heavens sonically. I really enjoyed this, the band are supremely tight and the textures varied from crunching hard rock (pretty heavy for 75 I'd guess?) to tender balladry, country (Scotland loves a bit o country!) and excursions into prog /psych territory. Whilst as a band they don't have the out and out virtuosity brandished by the likes of Purple and Zeppelin, they in my mind align more with Uriah Heep in bringing to bear a breadth of other influences fastidiously and imaginatively woven together.
Original Version
You've gotta love these 'end of the line' success stories, and that's exactly what this album was/is. The power-ballad treatment of another cover song, Boudleaux Bryant’s Love Hurts (left off the European edition until becoming an ‘extra track’ in Eagle Records’ 2001 catalogue revamp) propelled the album’s worldwide sales to two million. You can trust Louder Our experienced team has worked for some of the biggest brands in music.
From testing headphones to reviewing albums, our experts aim to create reviews you can trust. Maybe the reason music like this doesn't find a bigger audience these days is because it's not as obvious as much of today's rock. When it quietens down it really quietens down and doesn't just pretend to by slowing the tempo. That allows the different textures of Whiskey Drinking Woman and Please Don't Judas Me to really stand out from the chest-beating warp and weft woven elsewhere.
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I don't remember the original having this level of power and clarity ( I might have been a fan of it did). The live tracks on that version (alongside the banter) are well worth a listen as well. This album bursts that misconception as they deliver a mixture of high energy rock, blues and ok 'that' ballad.
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The guitar centred outro just makes me wanna get out on the highway. Stand out tracks are Hair Of The Dog, Changing Times, and Beggars Day. Guilty does nothing for me and Judas doesn't justify its length but the other tracks are more than filler. I had the impression that they were a bar-room boogie band that occasionally did ballads. Even the band are unsure what Dave Roe was trying to achieve with the sleeve art of a bat-like creature with vicious teeth.
The middle eastern melodies and mood are interesting, but 10 minutes is a bit too much. Rose in the Heather just resolves Beggars Day so perfectly that both songs should just be one long song. And then Changing Times comes back in right after the ballad and gets the party going again.
The album was first reissued on CD in the USA in 1984; the disc was manufactured in Japan with the inserts printed in Japan. There are also remastered editions released since 1997 with different sets of bonus tracks. We kick off with the double boot in the knackers ( to keep the vaguely testicular motif going ) of the title track and Miss Misery before the cigarette lighters come out for the sublime cover of Randy Newman's Guilty. This is 12 inch vinyl put together in the most perfect fashion for the 70's rocker. All the players are magnificent on this album, with the guitar playing being especially impressive.
The band was booked into what they described as a ultra low budget studio, and they were expected to bang out what would be their last record, on the cheap. Every week, Album of the Week Club listens to and discusses the album in question, votes on how good it is, and publishes our findings, with the aim of giving people reliable reviews and the wider rock community the chance to contribute. I can think of a few perfectly acceptable bands today who could come on by leaps and bounds if they had the courage to adopt Nazareth's approach.
“Beggars Day” is a fine blend of hard rock, which falls somewhere on the spectrum between Aerosmith and AC/DC. Charlton supplies great electric guitar blends, riffs between the vocal lines and a good sense of melody and rock intensity throughout, with the guitar lead continuing the use of multiple bluesy guitars, giving it a thick atmosphere of pure rock ambiance. "Hair of the Dog" is a song by Scottish rock band Nazareth, released on their 1975 studio album, Hair of the Dog.[2] The song, alongside "Love Hurts", remains their most successful and popular. As a standalone song, it only charted in Germany, where it peaked at #44. The song and album Hair of the Dog was originally derived from the hook “Son of a Bitch” as “Heir of the Dog”, but changed as a compromise with the record label, using a popular phrase describing a folk hangover cure. The first song recorded for the sessions was a cover of the Everly Brothers’ “Love Hurts”, intended as a single-only release.
The pure, unrelenting, unambiguous title track commences with the cow-bell laden drum beat of Darrell Sweet, soon accompanied by the crisp guitar riff of Charlton. McCafferty’s rough but melodic vocals provide the indelible hook along with the middle talk-box lead, all making for a song filled with infectious rock elements, which helped Nazareth become a staple of classic rock radio for decades to come. “Miss Misery” follows as a more serious hard rock counterpart to the almost celebratory opening track. This track reaches into the very heart of the album, which is mainly negative in lyrical tone but in no way meek in delivery. As a bonus, Charlton’s slide guitar lead gives it all a blues legitimacy that brings the song to a higher level, especially with his odd but satisfying guitar chime section to end the track. The one that most everyone knows from the guys.“Hair of the Dog” is the title track of Nazareth’s album Hair of the Dog.
The album itself was slated to include an electric piano and slide guitar fueled cover of Randy Newman’s “Guilty”, but a last minute switch was made after A&M Records co-founder Jerry Moss heard the recording of “Love Hurts”. Nazareth's record label wasn't about to let them name the project Son of a Bitch. Thus, Hair of the Dog was selected as a compromise, putting the finishing touches on a career-defining release.[4]The album title is often considered to be a shortened form of the phrase describing a folk hangover cure, "the hair of the dog that bit you". The Scottish expression “hair of the dog that bit you” was based on a superstition that claimed if one applied the hair of the rabid animal that attacked them it would help in the healing process.
But that was not to be so, because when 70s headbangers like myself heard the opening salvo of the opening tune, a war cry went forth, causing millions more to hear the merits of this fantastic album... As recorded in the pages of Classic Rock magazine, this was intended to be the last record in the Nazareth boys' record contract. The band had never caught fire, as the record company had hoped they would.
The world has changed since 1975 and today that outward looking attitude and lightness of touch would sadly leave the band loosing out in a world where brand not band wins. Something that strikes me listening now isn't just what they play but what they don't play. The only pratfall to the album is possibly the duration of Please Don't Judas Me.
“He was recommended to us by Storm Thorgerson [of Hipgnosis] but he wouldn’t let us see it ’til it was finished,” bassist Pete Agnew Agnew says. All songs written by Manny Charlton, Dan McCafferty, Pete Agnew, Darrell Sweet, except where noted. The album cover art was designed by David Fairbrother-Roe.
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