Search - Jake E Lee :: Runnin With the Devil

NEXT BEST THING TO A NEW ALBUM

Andrew D. Cantrill | Palm Springs, CA United States | 04/21/2010

(4 out of 5 stars)

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Always one of the most underated guitarists of the 80's (being wedged between Randy Rhoads and Zakk Wylde didn't really help) Jake E. Lee is mostly known by the two Ozzy hits from his tenure still being played on the radio: "Bark At The Moon" and "Shot In The Dark". Fine songs, but there is far more to appreciate about Jake than just those two numbers. Both of the two albums he recorded with Ozzy, "Bark At The Moon" and the overly slick and keyboard heavy "Ultimate Sin" (not to mention his three Badlands recordings) are chock full of fantastic playing by this man.

Needless to say, many fans around the world have missed him since he opted to take a leave from the music industry about ten years ago. To be fair, he did give a few projects a try since the mid 90's, but record company incompetence kept his output limited to the minor label releases of "A Fine Pink Mist" (a solo instrumental disc with industrial influences)and "Retraced"- A MUST HAVE FANTASTIC album of obscure cover songs from the 70's.

The only thing keeping the loyal fanbase over at www.jakeelee.com from committing mass suicide has been the sporatic appearances of Jake on various tribute albums over the last ten years. And it is from some of these tribute albums that the songs on this disc are culled.

On to THIS album:

Nicely packaged with a cool photo on the inside and a free Jake E Lee lapel pin included, "Runnin With The Devil" features about half of Jake's tribute album output. Songs originally performed by Ted Nugent comprise about half the record, with individual covers Metallica, Queen, Van Halen and AC/DC are performed with various singers and backing musicians. Some of the vocals are great, others are merely tolerable (and Glen Hughes' peformance on "Get Down, Make Love" nominally falls into the "tolerable" catergory. I am being generous with the legend).

Production values vary from the good to the "lead solo is so low in the mix that the drummer is playing over it and I am pissed listening to this and want to punch the producer in the face" bad. Thankfully, only the Van Halen tune is so ruined.

Hopefully, this disc will sell well enough that the other one-off recordings of Jake's will be included in a sequel. Some of these are out of print, and even at regular prices for those still in production a diehard could easily spend over $150 compiling the other ten or so Jake songs floating around. Those remaining tracks that Jake's fans would like to see on a sequel are:

Rice Pudding from the Jeff Beck tribute

Working Man and By-Tor/The Snow Dog from one of the Rush tributes

Crazy Train and Revelation from the Randy Rhoads tribute (!)

American Horse from the tribute to The Cult

Fight From The Inside from THE OTHER Queen tribute

Surfing With The Alien from the Joe Satriani tribute

It would also be nice to have included the two songs he did on Rob Rock's "Rage of Creation" album. These are "All I Need" and "Media Machine". The only other Jake E. Lee song floating around out there that I am aware of is the extended live version of "Jade's Song" that popped up on "Guitar's Practicing Musician Vol 3".

With some basic promotion (ie telling the fanbase on jakeelee.com and myspace ahead of time), such a sequel would sell quite well.

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