Aerosmith: When the Lightening Strikes  

       Aerosmith burst onto the music scene in 1973 with their very strong self titled debut album.  It charted the songs Make It, Mama Kin, and Dream On.  Mama Kin is still a concert staple for the band and is extremely popular with every high school guitar band that ever turned their amps up to 11.  The rock classic Dream On is considered by fans and critics to be one of the greatest songs recorded by anyone anywhere ever.  It is still one of the bands featured, must play, songs at every concert.  

The Toxic Twins Tyler & Perry

       They followed their debut with 4 more really great albums, including 1975's blockbuster Toys In the Attic featuring the song Walk This Way.  By 1978 the band was easily one of the most popular bands in the world and could be heard regularly on rock radio. Unfortunately drug use had started hampering their studio creativity and effecting their live shows.  Despite the developing issues within the band, they returned to the studio and started recording 1979's Night In the Ruts album.  
      Complicating the already difficult situation was the record labels push to get the band back out on the road to generate revenue.  After 5 successful studio albums and 21 singles Aerosmith was broke.  In an attempt to satisfy their commitments to Columbia Records and with a tenuous grip on their careers the band hurried to finish the album and then set out on the forced march concert tour.  Very quickly they reached their breaking point when guitarist Joe Perry walked out. The record reflected the band's current state of existence with disjointed & uninspired songs & their stage show wasn't any better.  I saw the band during this period and to be honest I thought they were terrible.  The poor stage performances panned by the press and with the album also a critical and commercial failure Aerosmith found themselves between a rock and a hard place.

Aerosmith today

       The band would eventually return to the heights of popularity and financial success.  Eventually they started making new and strongly creative albums as well as a return to exciting and inspired stage shows.  This re-birth started when rap artists Run-DMC asked Perry and singer Steven Tyler to join them on their cover of the song Walk This Way.  This fueled commercial interest and a creative resurgence within the band. They capitalized on this with the album Permanent Vacation which spawned the hits Dude Looks Like a Lady, Jamie's Got a Gun, Rag Doll, & Angel.  But this was still 7 years in the future from the desperate times the band faced after the Night in the Ruts failure and Perry's exit.
       Without Perry the band returned to the studio and put together an album ironically called Rock and a Hard Place. Perry was replaced by Jimmy Crespo whose excellent guitar work can be heard on records by Meatloaf, Stevie Nicks, and Billy Squier.  As the recording progressed the writing was on the wall as guitar player Brad Whitford reached his breaking point and he to left the band. Whitford is listed as a "contributing musician" in the album credits.  His place was taken by guitarist Rick Dufay who was known to Aerosmith through producer Jack Douglas.  As to be expected, without Perry & Whitford, and the band being led by a less than 100% Steven Tyler they created an even more disjointed and less successful record than the Night in the Ruts disaster. 

       The album did however, include one true gem and it's the song I've chosen to feature here.  The song is called When the Lightening Strikes and it is a surprisingly strong offering from a band that, by 1980, had thoroughly lost it's way.  The song  reached #21 on the charts but over the years has become a forgotten classic.  The video the band produced for the song is a strange mixture of what looks like an in-studio rehearsal and a warm up for an outdoor gang fight replete with leather, & chains.  The film features a gaunt Steven Tyler and oddly enough baseball bats hitting cantaloupe's.  In the background you can see both Crespo and Dufay.  Dufay is the guy playing the left-handed Stratocaster upside down as a righty.  I guess that would be considered a reverse Hendrix?  Crespo's leads in the song are very similar to what Whitford and Perry would have probably created and it helps make the song sound familiar to Aerosmith fans.  It really is a great song and is certainly the best thing Aerosmith created between 1977's Back in the Saddle and 1987's Dude Looks Like a Lady.