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Next
Dusty Shoes
Warner Bros - 1972
Michael Panontin
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Listening to Next's Dusty Shoes, one has to wonder how such a hard-driving record - recorded in a professional studio and issued on a major label - could have fallen so deeply down the well of lost seventies discs.
Well, it certainly wasn't for lack of effort.
The Winnipeg quintet (singer George Belanger, guitarist Ralph Watts and organist James Grabowski, with Brian Sellar and Al Johnson handling bass and drums, respectively) formed out of the ashes of the Fifth, whose handful of excellent singles kept them at the top of the local pop heap for much of the latter 1960s. The guys even travelled to Toronto to record at the venerable Eastern Sound Studio, which at the time had some of the most state-of-the-art equipment in the country and had already recorded albums by Bruce Cockburn, Anne Murray, Murray McLaughlin and Lighthouse.
What's more, Dusty Shoes was feted by none other than Lieutenant-Governor W. J. McKeag. RPM reported in its Feb. 12th, 1972 issue that "for the first time in the history of the staid old office of Manitoba's Lieutenant-Governor, his official residence was opened to a people's group, Warner Bros' Next," adding that "the Winnipeg group has become something of a phenomenon in Manitoba". Also flown in for the party were Kinney Music president Ken Middleton and the record's producer John Pozer.
Dusty Shoes rocks hard right from the get-go. The opening track, 'Which Way', kicks things off with a dog bark, some hefty guitar/organ riffs and a high-pitched caterwaul that places it somewhere between Deep Purple and Foghat. The fun continues with the five-and-a-half-minute 'Take Me with You', a ripping slab of blues-boogie where Watts and Belanger play off each other brilliantly. Frampton and Marriott would have been proud. 'Be Free', the record's single, is predictably more accessible, with melodic guitars and lithe harmonies that point the group more in the direction of Grand Funk and their then-current FM staple 'Closer to Home'.
Dusty Shoes unfortunately tanked. Next kept at it for a good four years, issuing several singles in the mid-seventies before packing it in. Of the five, Belanger was the only one to achieve rock 'n' roll stardom. He joined pop-rockers Harlequin in 1975 and sang on all their hits right into the mid-eighties and beyond.
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