Published on Aug 10, 2001
You all probably know the old saying, “The third time’s the
charm.” In the case of rocker Ted Nugent, that’s kind of a
misnomer. After all, his self-titled debut and
Free-For-All were hardly failures, both creatively and
commercially. If anything,
Cat Scratch Fever continued in the vein of success for
Nugent, capping what quite possibly was the best period of his
career.
What’s interesting about this particular disc is that it’s only
known for two songs, the title track and “Wang Dang Sweet
Poontang,” a song which sometimes I’m still surprised gets
any airplay for the use of that one word. (No, I’m not
offended by it, but there are people who could find something
sexually suggestive in a dial tone who probably could organize a
bunch of like-minded closed-minded people to boycott a station who
played it.) Granted, there’s some filler on this album – but the
same could be said for Nugent’s two previous releases. But there’s
some strong material on
Cat Scratch Fever that’s just as worthy of your attention as
the two hits.
Take “Death By Misadventure,” a track featuring the lead vocals
of Derek St. Holmes. (By this time, Nugent was the unquestioned
leader of the band, in both guitar work and vocals.) If this track
proved anything, it’s that sometimes a different singer was perfect
for the material, giving the Nuge the opportunity to grab his
Gibson Byrdland and shred the absolute daylights out of it. While I
admit I’m still in the process of re-educating myself in all things
Nugent, this could possibly be his most underrated song and
performance.
Likewise, tracks such as “A Thousand Knives” and “Home Bound”
(the latter an instrumental) show off the songwriting skills of
Nugent strongly. You can think what you want of the man, his
politics and his sexual bravado, but it’s songs like these that
prove Nugent to be a songsmith.
With claims like that, it’s a shame that
Cat Scratch Fever has any filler… but it indeed does.
Tracks like “Live It Up,” “Fist Fightin’ Son Of A Gun” and “Workin’
Hard, Playin’ Hard” are okay, but hardly measure up to the
greatness encased on this disc. “Sweet Sally” is cut from the exact
same musical pattern as “Wang Dang Sweet Poontang” – if you’re
gonna copy your own licks, fine, just don’t do it on the same
album.
Still, on
Cat Scratch Fever, the positives outweigh the negatives, and
stands as one of Nugent’s best albums in his career. If you can
only own one of Nugent’s platters, at this stage in my exploration
of his work, I’d gladly take this one in a heartbeat.