REO Speedwagon

The Early Years 1971-77

Illinois power balladeers’ rocky path to AOR stardom.

Some years before they discovered the magical effects of poodle perms and power ballads, REO Speedwagon were already packing in the crowds with a feistier sound, as documented on this eight-disc box.

157 Riverside Avenue sets a barroom boogie template on their self-titled 1971 debut album, with early singer Terry Luttrell giving it extra guts on the scruffier mono single versions of that track and the thunderous Sophisticated Lady included here.

The country rock of Let Me

Ride and the post-hippie anthem Golden Country are highlights of R.E.O/T.W.O., but after that they seemed to be a band in search of a trademark sound. They sacked their second singer, Kevin Cronin, before 1973’s

Ridin’ The Storm Out, and the two alternative, Cronin-fronted versions added here show that Mike Murphy, his replacement, did a better, grittier job.

However, Murphy didn’t turn any new heads on 1974’s Lost In A Dream, or the following year’s emptily titled This Time We Mean It. The band got back on track by rehiring Cronin to make R.E.O. in 1976. He’s in particularly fine voice on the opening salvo of Keep Pushin’, with its Thin Lizzystyle twin-guitar motif, as their harmony-tinted pop-rock sound begins to take shape in earnest.

They’re no softies live, though, as proved on You Get What

You Play For, the double LP that spans the final two discs in this collection. It has the feel of a band finally able to express themselves, with Gary Richrath’s guitar a particular highlight on the solo-heavy expanded reading of Golden Country.