Perhaps best known for having Johnny Depp as a guitarist before he pursued a full time acting career, the Rock City Angels will forever remain one of the more interesting footnotes in the annals of Rock and Roll history.
Signed to Geffen Records in 1987, the band was a huge attraction during the mid-to-late 80s Los Angeles Rock and Metal scene. But by that time, Rock City Angels had very little to do with the glitz and glamour of the sunset strip, having traded their early ‘New York Dolls meets Punk Rock’ worship for a more soulful and bluesy sound, taking cues from Blues and Soul greats as well as mid period Rolling Stones and Faces. Realizing this, Geffen sent the LA transplants to Memphis to record their debut album, Young Man’s Blues.
Geffen hired renowned producer Jim Dickinson (Rolling Stones, Big Star, The Replacements) to engineer the album and what resulted are the eleven tracks you have before you. Geffen, in their typical shortsightedness, passed on the tracks, due to them being too soulful and not at all what was happening on the Sunset Strip at the time and fired Dickinson, much to the distaste of the band. Another producer was brought in and the band re-recorded most of the songs, plus a few more, for what you would come to know as Young Man’s Blues…but the album was a commercial failure due to the nonexistent promotion the label exhibited. Geffen was much more interested in another LA based band that they had just signed called Guns N Roses, and therefore, Rock City Angels were left to twist in the wind and were eventually dropped by the label.
Since the release of Young Man’s Blues in 1988, the album has taken on a ‘cult classic’ status among rock music lovers and aficionados. With the death of Dickinson in 2009, and lead singer Bobby Durango, in 2012, talk began to resurface regarding the whereabouts of the original mix of the now classic, “Young Man’s Blues” album. Tapes that were considered lost to time were rediscovered recently and as a tribute to Bobby’s original wishes, are finally being released for the public to hear. This is a must have for all fans of Rock City Angels as well as all fans of rock and roll music. Once thought to be gone forever, these tapes show a band at its peak power, despite what the label thought at the time.
The Durango Kid rides again, here it is, Young Man’s Blues the way it was meant to be heard!
Listen to The Rock City Angels “Beyond Babylon” – Unreleased Jim Dickinson Mix now:
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