I was into these guys back in the mid to late 1970's. I always liked their version of "So Many Roads." Probably, could be characterized as Bluesy Rock than a blues band, but whatever, they made great music. I think they were overshadowed at the time because the Allmans/Capricorn artists were the dominant blues rock bands at the time and Climax were from England. Peter Haycock was a very underrated guitarist, overshadowed by the Clapton/Duane types of the times.
Oh yeah. "Couldn't get it right"- is right. I remember being incensed by the audacity of leaving "Blues" in their name when that came out. On re-listening to it just now, it's not bad as a disco/funk song of the era. Could do without the Bee Gees falsetto on the chorus. It's got a good beat and you can dance to it. Pretty wicked simple musical hook. Good lyrics. Maybe they did get it right after all. Hopefully, for their sakes, they were able to pocket a good bit of that sellout money.
This was the first big hit for the Climax Blues Band, who had been recording since 1968 and released 8 previous albums. Derek Holt, who was the bass player and a vocalist in the band, spoke with us about this song: "The song is about being on the road in America. 'Looking for a sign in the middle of the night' being about the old Holiday Inn signs, really, because the moment you saw the Holiday Inn sign, that meant you got a bed for the night. When we first started in America, we used to fly everywhere; sometimes we'd have 3 flights a day to get to any one place. The way the itinerary was sorted out, it was never very easy to get to anywhere, so consequently we used to arrive in the town, get into a car, just about make the sound check for the gig, do the gig, get back in the car, then look for a bed. Towards the latter sort of probably five years of the band's life, we started using tour buses, so you could sort of leave after the gig, get on the bus, get a bed, drive 1,000 miles or whatever, be at the next gig being quite refreshed. So that was a really nice way of traveling." This song is a great example of the dual vocal technique The Climax Blues Band was known for. Holt explains: "Colin Cooper used to sing the lead - the low vocal, and I used to sing an octave higher. And then, because 4 of us sang in the band, we used to harmonize. The fact that we had the dual singing the same line but with an octave split made the sound very unique, and it's still very unique today. Whenever people use it I think it's great. That was one of our trademarks, we just used to sing together in unison." Holt: "We did an album for RCA called Gold Plated, and the album was produced by an old legendary producer called Mike Vernon. We delivered the album to RCA. RCA heard the album, said, 'You know what, guys, there really isn't a hit single on it. So, could you go try and write a hit?' We went to our London studio, which belonged to George Martin, without Mike Vernon, the producer, and we had a couple of days in the studio and we came up with the song Couldn't Get It Right from absolutely nowhere. Just a question of sitting in the studio, sitting around, thinking of a great rhythm and putting the old sort of dual vocals on it, the octave low and high vocals, couple of hooks. And we turned up, and it became a hit. So nothing more than a lucky moment in time. It really annoyed the producer, who thought we were holding out on him with an extra song that we never told him about.
Can't fault a band that released many blues/blues-rock albums for trying to hitch a ride on the (then) current trend of disco...one shouldn't judge or condemn this attempt.
Also, their vocal arranging with octave singing between the two singers is used to great effect in the country band "Big & Rich".
