Hoodoo Rhythm Devils - All Kidding Aside (Reissue) (1978)

The Hoodoo Rhythm Devils rode the post-hippie wave emanating from San Francisco at the dawn of the '70s. Fusing blues boogie with country-rock rave-ups, full-throated rock & roll and a hint of soul, they didn't quite sound like any other band in the Bay Area in the early '70s. In a 1972 Rolling Stone rave of their second album, The Barbecue of Deville, Nick Tosches compared the group to Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen and Asleep at the Wheel, which points to how the band was closer to the American equivalent of British pub rock than an extension of Steve Miller's spacy blues. Maybe that's why they were nothing more than a cult act, releasing five records before splitting in 1978.

The Hoodoo Rhythm Devils formed in 1970 when guitar teacher John Rewind teamed with Joe Crane -- a bassist who played with Johnny and Edgar Winter back in his home state of Texas -- on the advice of one of his students. Rewind recruited drummer Glenn Walters -- the two had played in a St. Louis band called the Zoo in the '60s -- and added bassist Richard Greene, who played with Roberta Flack, among others, in Washington, D.C. Initially calling themselves Joe Crane & His Hoodoo Rhythm Devils, the band truncated their appellation to the Hoodoo Rhythm Devils by the time their debut, Rack Jobbers Rule, came out on Capitol in 1971. The band added second drummer Roger Clark -- formerly of the Steve Miller Band -- for 1972's The Barbecue of DeVille, which was released on Blue Thumb. During that year, the band toured extensively but it didn't help break them to a wider audience. Clark left after the tour and Keith Knudsen played some gigs with them before they hired Jerome Kimsey to drum on 1973's What the Kids Want. Although the Hoodoo Rhythm Devils were gaining some recognition from their peers in the form of covers of Crane's songs -- Commander Cody and Johnny Winter recorded his tunes, as did Patti LaBelle and the Chambers Brothers -- the band itself was stalled. Richard Greene left late in 1973 and was replaced by Roger Stanton, who played with the group until they split in 1974. After a year, the group reunited and cut a record that was shelved (it saw an archival release in 2012), then signed with World Records for 1976's Safe in Their Homes. Fantasy re-released the album the next year and the group cut one last album for the label, All Kidding Aside, in 1978. Tragically, Joe Crane died from leukemia in 1980. Glenn Walters continued playing with the Hoodoo Rhythm Devils while also playing corporate gigs with his Glenn Walters Quartet. Richard Greene worked as a recording engineer before becoming a member of the a cappella group the Bobs; he also sang "Fall Into the Gap" on a well-known ad for the clothing store The Gap. Roger Clark toured with Travis Wammack. All these men wound up with careers in the music business, and the Hoodoo Rhythm Devils retained a cult following that purchased archival releases from Rear Window Music. Starting in 2012, the label went through the band's vaults and found the unreleased "Lost Album" from 1975, plus two live shows -- Live from New York and One Night Only -- and the rarity-filled The Best of the Hoodoo Rhythm Devils, Vol. 2, which also included a new reunion cut between the surviving members and their offspring.