Roger Earl and Foghat

By the end of 1970, British blues-rock band Savoy Brown established themselves as a steady presence with US audiences. Though their album sales never reached the levels their founder, guitarist Kim Simmonds, strived for, their hard-working performance and driving blues music strongly connected with audiences. Throughout their existence, Simmonds has worked to keep the music fresh by constantly changing the band's line-up. Following the 1970 tour supporting the album, Looking In, three members of the four-piece band split off. Simmonds found fresh sidemen, and continued on, and a new band was established by singer/guitarist Lonesome Dave Peverett, bassist Tony Stevens, and drummer Roger Earl. The trio were joined by slide guitarist Rod Price from the band Black Cat Bones to form what was to become the powerhouse blues & boogie rockers Foghat.

Because the split was somewhat other than amicable, Harry Simmonds (Kim’s brother and Savoy Brown manager) threatened the trio. Roger Earl says, “Harry said if we left the band we’d never work in England again.” He made good on the threat for a while, Earl with a laugh continued, “We made a pretty good demo, six or seven songs and our manager, Tony Outeda, took the demos to all the major record labels and everyone said no.” Undeterred, Outeda introduced the band to Albert Grossman, who was just forming a new record label called Bearsville Records. Earl continues, “He had a deep voice, and this silver hair, and a ponytail. We played our demos for him at this little club in London.” Imitating Grossman’s deep voice, Earl says, "Afterwards, he says to us, is there anywhere we can get some tea and biscuits?

So we went across the road to a hotel, and Albert ordered tea and biscuits for us and said " (in his Albert voice),Hey, let’s do this.” They signed with Grossman’s label and soon released their self-titled debut album Foghat. The very lead song on the record was a cover of the Willie Dixon blues standard I Just Want to Make Love To You. Beefed up by Foghat’s signature double guitar attack led by Rod Price’s stellar slide work, the song went on to be their first hit. It broke into the hot 100 on the charts and has been a staple of their live set ever since.

By 1975, their shows were becoming must see events for high school and college kids all across the United States. In September of that year, they released the album Fool for the City, which would eventually go double platinum. The song Slow Ride climbed the charts into the top 20 due, in part, to Lonesome Dave’s sexy “slow down, go down, you know the rhythm is right” lyric. This was followed up with the song Fool for the City and their catapult ride from club and theater staples to stadium rockers was complete. They rode the wave of success into the 80’s but dwindling record sales and changing lineups eventually led to their disbanding in 1984.

Reforming in 1994, their music has been a staple on classic-rock radio since the 1980’s. Sadly, Lonesome Dave Peverett passed away in 2000. Earl said, “On stage, he was a great performer, energetic, but off stage, he was quiet. He was a real sweet guy.” The two had played together on and off for over 30 years and while they may not have been besty’s, the respect Earl felt for his band mates' talent was obvious.