Chas & Dave - Country Pies, Black Claws & Oily Rags

Pre-rockney rebels’ country-rockney

Before their post-punk cache of Cockney-accented singalong hits, Chas Hodges and Dave Peacock had each been in the business for nigh on 20 years, the former coming closest to success as one of Cliff Bennett’s Rebel Rousers. By the early 70s, the two had teamed up as Black Claw who, trading in country-rock, recorded the budget label LP that fills the opening 21 tracks of this retrospective. From titles such as Country Pie, Hillbilly Fever and Grits Ain’t Groceries, you’d guess correctly that Black Claw made a derivative if unpretentious sound. Released only overseas, an eponymous 1974 collection attributed to Oily Rags betrayed stronger gor-blimey hints of what was to come, most conspicuously in two self-penned tunes, heard here as demos and destined for selection on the maiden Chas & Dave album, One Fing’n’Anuvver, and a Boiled Beef & Carrots that bears a relationship to the music hall standard that parallels Vanilla Fudge’s slowed-down overhaul of The Supremes’ You Keep Me Hangin’ On.

Sanctuary | CMQCD 1562

Reviewed by Alan Clayson
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