Search - Savoy Brown :: Raw Sienna

End of an Era

Kurt Harding | Boerne TX | 04/22/2000

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Raw Sienna is an important album in that it represents the end of the road for the Chris Youlden blues era and foreshadows the more straight-forward rock era to begin with Looking In. The heroin-for-lunch-bunch loved this album despite the message of moderation set forth in Needle and Spoon. Guess the second part of that song was the part they tuned out. I was fourteen when I first heard the album and side 1 was a little rough for me despite my being partial to a good horn section. It is side 2 that really stands out. Every song is memorable. Listen to the emotion screaming out in the clotted voice of Chris Youlden on I'm Crying, to the mellow seduction of Stay While the Night is Young, and to the instrumental prowess on display on Is That So? When I Was a Young Boy forcefully expresses the regrets and shoulda, coulda, wouldas of many a man. Drummers will appreciate the understated percussion on this side and instrumental aficionados will be spellbound by Is That So? If you own only one Savoy Brown album, that album should be Raw Sienna."

The Penultimate Blues Boogie Record

M. S. Ulbricht | The Great Northwest, USA | 02/11/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"If you like your Blues with a touch of Boogie, and full of intelligent and creative arrangements, then this is the record for you. There is not a bad cut on this album. Unfortunately, this was the last record which the talented vocalist Chris Youlden would perform on with Savoy Brown. However, Youlden and Savoy Brown's outstanding guitarist Kim Simmonds made the most of it. The songs on Raw Sienna vary from a couple of snappy Jazz instrumentals, to some great Blues Boogie, and even include a couple of nice and easy bluesy ballads. The band plays at a consistently high caliber througout the set. Kim Simmonds guitar playing is both entertaining and imaginative, while Youlden shows why he was considered one of the premier vocalists of the British Blues scene. Many future guitarists learned as much from listening to the vastly underated Simmonds, as they did from other British Blues players such as Eric Clapton, Alvin Lee, etc. From the high energy "Needle and Spoon," to the soulful ballad "I'm Crying," through the raucous horn enhanced instrumental "Mister Hare," the listener will be rewarded with an immensely enjoyable musical experience. A must have for any serious record collector, Raw Sienna is one of those "minor masterpieces" which should have garnered more attention than it did at the time. Fortunately for the public it still sells well enough to be stocked in any decent music store. If you don't like this record then you don't like music; period. Do yourself a favor and "get down" with Brown."

Another Step Furthur!

chris meesey Food Czar | The Colony, TX United States | 09/20/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"With the release of their fifth album, Savoy Brown starts hitting their stride. Raw Sienna is the first of three masterpieces in a row for Kim Simmonds and company, as well as Chris Youlden's finest hour with the band. (So fine, in fact, that he would leave the band soon after for his own solo career.) He and Kim would continue their experiments, begun on the previous album A Step Furthur, with horns and orchestration, and thus continue to expand the vocabulary of blues/rock. Some tracks, such as "Needle and Spoon," swing as well as any produced by jazzman Dave Brubeck, with intense lyrics that undercut the nonstop groove with pain. (Does anyone out there really think this is a prodrug song? Listen again: "You married to H, you know you married for life!") "Hard Way to Go" and "A Little More Wine" would deservedly become concert staples, while "Stay While the Night is Young" finds Youlden at his most romantic and tender. Kim was also beginning to compose some of the most eloquent instrumentals in rock: "That Same Feelin'" continues the 1960's-adventure-movie-soundtrack feel of "Waiting in the Bamboo Grove" from A Step Furthur, while "Is That So" foreshadows the deep introspection of Savoy's next masterpiece, Looking In. Most bands would be lucky to have one album half as good as Raw Sienna; the fact that Savoy Brown climbed so many peaks in their illustrious career shows the desire and the determination of leader Kim Simmonds to constantly reinvent and challange both himself and his fellow musicians."