The Sensational Alex Harvey Band - The Impossible Dream

I’m a Clevelander.  I’ve never actually lived in the city proper, but like most people in Cuyahoga County I live in a town right near Cleveland.  I can be in Public Square in twenty minutes, which is actually quicker than some people who live in the city proper can get there, so considering my lifetime of rooting for our lousy sports teams and going downtown and supporting Cleveland’s neighborhoods by shopping and eating in them, like most people in the county, I consider myself a Clevelander.  People from Parma and Lakewood probably don’t call themselves Clevelanders, but those are cities you can actually mention to people and they’ll understand you live up North and not down in Cow Country, Ohio.  I really like Cleveland, and one of the things I like having grown up here is a kind of shared community thing from the people around here in the 70’s and early 80’s.  We went to concerts downtown at Public Hall and The Agora.  We went to things called Party in the Park at the several venues they held them at, and even if you were trying hard to find out what kind of music there was to listen to that wasn’t played on WMMS or M105 (WWWM), you were gonna hear those stations every day whether you tried to or not.

One of the mainstays of Cleveland Rock radio back then was The Sensational Alex Harvey Band.  Alex was (and still is) extremely well loved here.  I remember high school bands covering his songs, and Paul Fayreweather devoting a whole set of his show to SAHB.  I wouldn’t quite say SAHB was ubiquitous, but I would say that everyone knew who the guy was.  That wasn’t the case in other cities.  I can remember talking music when I went to swimming camp or on vacation and people had no idea who Alex was.  I don’t know why this was, because these guys were a blast.

This is one of Alex’s classics here in Cleveland.  The Impossible Dream was one of those I didn’t buy until the 80’s because everyone had it, so mine is a reissue on Samurai Records.  I wish Samurai did every reissue, because they always sound fantastic.  They just did a good job pressing records, I guess.  But like I said, this sucker was one of the most popular albums this city has ever heard.  The classic rock station here still ends up playing all thirteen minutes of The Hot City Symphony:  Part 1 – Vambo Part 2 – The Man in the Jar.  I bet they still have some drunk request the damned thing on the Saturday Night House Party radio show.  They always used to put some dink on the air and he’d be at a party and slur, “Hey! Put on The Man in a Jar!”  Our host would just change the hour he played it in every single week.

Which would always get me asking, “Why not play Sergeant Fury or Long Haired Music?  Why is it that people that call in to request songs don’t buy any of their own fucking records!  I mean, if they did, then maybe they’d want to hear a different song once in a while, ya know?  But like hell if they’d ever have the good taste to ask for Weights Made of Lead which is just plenty of boogie music with Alex hamming it up and doing all the crazy vocals that everyone my age can imitate without a seconds thought.  Alex had this great Scottish accent and it wasn’t too thick, so it just made all his songs more fun.

I remember talking to a friend who came to visit us once from out of town when I was a teenager and he was looking at pictures of SAHB and asking me who the mime was.  I couldn’t believe he didn’t know Zal Cleminson, who was on my ever growing list of Favorite Shit Hot Guitar Players.  Zal dressed up like a mime onstage, but the guy could really play and added a great, crunchy guitar anytime it was needed, and could play tastefully understated or way over the top at the drop of a hat.  Or just a change in the song, because like I said, he was a Shit Hot Guitar Player.

Maybe SAHB was partly special for me because they were just such a teenage boy’s kind of thing to like.  They had just enough chops to impress the older Rock Nerds that they could be serious (and while they were often funny, they never slipped into Frank Zappa territory).  The keyboards gave them a slight Prog Rock feel, but the drums and Cleminson’s guitar definitely would be at home in any Pub Rock band.  All in all, they were unique and if you ask me, they hold up very well even today.

Like I said, my copy is a reissue on the Samurai label.  It’s in terrific shape.  I think there’s a click here and there, but it’s a record, and that just happens, ya know?  I wish all my records sounded as good as Samurai’s SAHB reissues.  The drums are nice and full, the vocals crystal clear and the guitars sound great.  My guess is that if you found a copy of this and you had a choice between the Vertigo and Samurai releases, the Samurai would be half price.  I’ve heard the Vertigo’s and they sound really good, too.  But I’d save the money, buy the Samurai and get another album with the savings, at least around here – SAHB records fetch premium money here in Cleveland.  Get one.  It'll treat ya right.