Lonesome Crow

Occupation

• Vocals: Klaus Meine
• Rhythm Guitar: Rudolf Schenker
• Lead Guitar: Michael Schenker
• Bass: Lothar Heimberg
• Drums: Wolfgang Dziony

Lonesome Crow is the first studio album by the German hard rock band Scorpions and the only one with Lothar Heimberg on bass and Wolfgang Dziony on drums. In addition, it is also the only album with Michael Schenker, the brother of Rudolf Schenker, as " full-fledged " guitarist and composer. The album was produced in just one week and published in 1972.

Origin, characteristics and importance

Production history

After guitarist Rudolf Schenker in 1965, the band Scorpions founded, it took several years to get together found himself in the cast, under the ultimately this debut album was recorded. So had stepped eg Harald Grosskopf only in 1967 as the drummer of the band in appearance. As 1969 singer Klaus Meine and Schenker 's brother Michael came to the band, wrote the five band members their songs from the outset to be in the English language, as it the objective pursued from the beginning, not only as a German Krautrock band known, but later the whole world with "Hard Rock - Made in Germany" to conquer. In 1971 the band signed their first recording contract, one year later, finally came the debut album of the band, led by Conny Plank, the band met through work on the anti-drug film The cold paradise. Singer Klaus Meine later recalled, when he told the producer that the band would one day play in England and " Plank just smiled " ( Metal Hammer interview, 1984). "You have no chance, there are so many good musicians there, you will never play there. Forget it! " Plank is still cited. Mine is the producer but to this day grateful for these words, that they presented to him a further boost motivation to achieve the goal set also.

Musical Style

Lonesome Crow emphasizes that the Scorpions were unique just at this time not only because of their language text by German standards. So this album contains some elements from the then little fresh progressive rock. In particular, the title track, which is the longest piece of tape with a playing time of thirteen and a half minutes, is marked by this style. The album processed partly light elements from jazz and is also the only album of the band, which also could assign the so-called Krautrock, with Lonesome Crow is much harder overall compared to other pieces of this style and therefore - as of the band intended - trying to withdraw from this kind of music.

Songwriting and features of texts

Because of its objective, the band was pretty clear early on that their texts should be written in English. Especially at the beginning of their career they noticed this probably a little heavy. So the songs consist mainly of instrumental passages, instead of choruses and verses long, was scarce to make the lyrics dar. This should have been the successor Fly to the Rainbow ( 1974) change. Lonesome Crow is the only album the band on which matches the authorship of all the songs. In all seven songs, the two Schenker Brothers for the music and the other three band members were responsible for writing the texts. In the follow-up album, Rudolf Schenker and Klaus Meine crystallized out, however, as the main composer of the band, and later, for example, with the help of drummer Herman Rare Bell.

Album Title

Although the debut album by the Scorpions, officially named Lonesome Crow, there was a wide variety of Alternative title at the many different publications. So the album was released, for example on the label carousel under the title Action on CD. On the cover of this issue a group photo from the later 80's can be seen on the only Klaus Meine and Rudolf Schenker can be seen by the group members who participated in Lonesome Crow. This title, however, was already used for an LP release in 1980. In addition, the album was released in 1976 as Gold Rock and 1978 under the title Star Light, all with completely different cover designs.

Album Cover

Due to the high age of the album and the changing media music storage Lonesome Crow was published several times and has been newly published accordingly over time under slightly different cover designs. The main basic motif of the album shows an outstretched left hand over a Scorpio male. On the index finger and on the scorpion's tail blood is seen, which in turn means that the man has been stung by the scorpion in the finger. A cover idea rarely used shows a bright, wintry landscape, in the background the outline of a scorpion can be seen. This cover design was used, for example for the French release of the album.

Tour

The release of the album was followed by a tour of Germany as a support band with Rory Gallagher, Uriah Heep, Atomic Rooster and UFO. However, this cost the band's guitarist, because after Michael Schenker of UFO band helped out with some of the concerts together, he eventually became permanently employed by the band and left so that the Scorpions, which led to a temporary breakup of the band. Overall, the Scorpions played over 130 concerts in 1972.

Criticism and sale

Barry Weber wrote to the album on allmusic.com following:. " As a feature of the Scorpions Lonesome Crow is focused on deep and dark melodies that sounds like a bad combination of Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones Although Michael Schenker some strong contributes guitar melodies, the album succeeds not win genuine interest. Klaus my voice, which otherwise usually reaches the tenor stage is flat and insipid. spite of harmony Lonesome Crow is one of the weaker Scorpions publications. " ( translated)

The album was also released from a local record company in Chicago, USA, where it sold about 25,000 times. Worldwide sold to date, over one million copies of the album.

Title list

Live Recordings

On their first live album Tokyo Tapes Scorpions released the 1978 live recording of the song In Search of the Peace of Mind, which, however, presents somewhat shorter than the original album version.