Dixon House Band - Fighting Alone (Uk) [CD]

Dixon House Band is a worthy representative of the USA and Canadian bands that played melodious hard and heavy rock in the late 70s and early 80s. The roots of American hard rock, since conveyed with catchy, heady melodies, are a precious source for new generations to understand rock. Released on the Infinity label, founded by former Epic vice-president Ron Alexenberg, Dixon House Band's only album attracted a great deal of attention, given that Infinity's speciality was to release albums of American progressive hard rock, far removed from the disco or AOR in vogue at the time. The label had made a name for itself producing Screams and New England. Surfing on the emergence of bands such as Journey, Kansas, Styx, Toto, Foreigner and Boston, the signing of the House Dixon Band made perfect sense. House Dixon Band is first and foremost the band of Edward Dixon House, singer and keyboardist who formed Song Bird before joining Heart with Howard Leese. It's a family affair, since Song Bird's producer, Michael Fricker, was also Heart's producer! So, in 1978, Dixon House was joined by Chuck Gardner (guitars), Canadian BigHorn alumni James Kenfield (bass) and Fred Zeufeldt (drums, percussion) and the only female guitarist, the technically gifted Chrissy Shefts. Recording began at the beginning of the year and took a year to complete. Dixon House composes all the songs and handles the vocals, assisted by Chrissy most of the time. The key to this album is Dixon House's keyboard, and while it has a catchy edge, a dramatic sensibility emerges that makes this record a pinnacle of American progressive hard rock. Sooner or Later, which opens with Fighting Alone, sets the scene. We sail on the ocean of Styx's layers, from vocal harmonies to cutting guitars. Crusader is theatrical, with a song divided into three parts, and is one of the highlights of the album. Angela moves closer to Toto. Howard Leese lends a hand on Who's Gonna Love You Tonight. You can tell that Mike Flicker's production has studied the work of the great names of the American scene. In addition to his productions for Heart, this producer has worked with TKO (Let it Roll), Poco, Randy Meismer and Al Stewart. How could a work of this magnitude not be as successful as Kansas or Styx? Probably because of Infinity's closure after only two years of existence, and a distinct lack of promotion. After the Dixon House Band split up, Dixon House continued a very brief solo career with the release of Masked Madness in 1981, where he was joined by Howard Leese. Chrissy Shefts wrote for Sheena Easton (Best Kept Man), appeared on Heart's Bebe Le Strange album and joined the House Of Schock band.