NAZARETH - RAZAMANAZ

NAZARETH - Razamanaz
VÖ.: 14.08.2009
Label/Vertrieb Salvo/Union Square Music/Soulfood
Presse/Online Promotion

By the time we got to Razamanaz, we knew that this was what we should be doing.” – Dan McCafferty

It’s more than three and a half decades since the release of the album regarded by many Nazareth fans as their finest hour. By their third LP, the Scottish quartet knew exactly what was required to reach the next level of success, having produced a well-regarded debut album (Nazareth, 1971) and a commercially disappointing follow-up (Exercises, ’72).
“Exercises was a wake-up call!” laughs Agnew today. “We were beginning to wonder if we’d done the right thing. Anyway – we’d done it. And it made us see what it was that we did well when we started writing Razamanaz.”

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The determination to make a killer comeback album was clearly there; all that was needed was the right circumstances to allow it to happen. Fortune smiled on Nazareth when they undertook a tour supporting the then-biggest rock band in the world, Deep Purple, and Purple’s bass player Roger Glover agreed to enlist as their producer.
“As far as I’m concerned,” says Agnew, “Roger was the best producer we ever worked with because he would take a song the night before recording and routine it until you knew it backwards. The next day we would come in and record it fresh. Roger said, ‘I don’t want you to have to think about the structure of the song. All you need to do is concentrate on playing it as well as you can.’”
The results of the Glover/Naz collaboration speak for themselves. Many of the songs on Razamanaz are blues-rock classics. One obvious example is the title track, fuelled by a stop-start riff and McCafferty’s fully-developed shriek. Bad Bad Boy, Night Woman and Broken Down Angel are also among the finest songs Nazareth ever committed to vinyl. Agnew remembers: “We did Broken Down Angel in Island Studios because Roger wanted that particular sound. He said, ‘This is going to be your first hit single’. We all thought that as well. The rest of the album was recorded in a mobile studio up in Scotland.”
Not only was Broken Down Angel a hit along with the second 45, Bad Bad Boy, the album itself peaked at No. 11 in the UK album charts and refused to budge, with fans flocking to the subsequent live shows. The band themselves had invested a lot of faith in the LP. As Agnew now recalls, “When we put Razamanaz out, we thought ‘This is going to be a hit. If it’s not, then I don’t know what people expect’ – but of course it was an instant hit, and it got great reviews. It had two great big singles and that was really the beginning for us: it got the ball rolling.”

• Nazareth’s classic breakthrough album – a major international hit – bolstered by six bonus cuts

• Features the Top Ten UK hit singles Broken Down Angel and Bad Bad Boy

• Beautifully remastered by Tim Turan at Turan Audio for the finest sound quality

• Packaged in a stylish and sturdy wallet-style digipack

• 16-page booklet includes extensive notes by journalist and author Joel McIver (using new interviews with founding members Dan McCafferty and Pete Agnew), rare photos and memorabilia

Tracklisting:

1. Razamanaz
2. Alactraz
3. Vigilante Man
4. Woke Up This Morning
5. Night Woman
6. Bad Bad Boy
7. Sold My Soul
8. Too Bad Too Sad
9. Broken Down Angel