Judas Priest - Rocka Rolla

Sunday time for a classic.

The time machine takes us back 46 years, on the 6 September, 1974 did 3 albums go released. Herbie Hancock's "Thrust", HAWKWIND's "Hall Of The Mountain Grill" and "Rocka Rolla" by JUDAS PRIEST, the later one if where we put today's focus on.

"Rocka Rolla" is the debut studio album by the British rock band JUDAS PRIEST, released on 6 September 1974 by Gull Records. It was produced by Rodger Bain, who had made a name for himself as the producer of BLACK SABBATH's first three albums. It is the only album to feature drummer John Hinch.

"Rocka Rolla" is also the debut single by JUDAS PRIEST, first released in August 1974, and later released as the title track of their first album the following month.

This song was played live on The Old Grey Whistle Test. The song has several short guitar solos played by guitarist Glenn Tipton, an outro solo by K. K. Downing, as well as a harmonica solo played by vocalist Rob Halford. During live performances, Tipton's backing vocals were sung significantly higher than Halford's. The song often closed the shows on their early tours and was extended into a lengthy jam.

The B-side to the single for Rocka Rolla was another song from the same album, "Never Satisfied", which was co-written by Al Atkins.

According to the band there were technical problems in the studio, resulting in poor sound quality and a hiss through the album. Guitarist Glenn Tipton had just joined when recording of "Rocka Rolla" began and did not contribute any songwriting except on the title track and "Run of the Mill". He did come up with the songs "Tyrant", "Epitaph", and "Ripper", but Bain considered them not commercial enough and rejected them. Bain also rejected the concert staple "Whiskey Woman" which later, with contributions from Tipton, morphed into "Victim of Changes". These songs were eventually all included on their next album, "Sad Wings Of Destiny". In addition, "Winter", "Deep Freeze" and "Winter Retreat" form a suite, but are listed as separate tracks and divided as such on the CD release.

Several of the songs on the album feature contributions from the band's previous frontman Al Atkins and had been regular parts of their live performances in Manchester, where the band had achieved a cult following during the previous few years. The track "Caviar and Meths" was originally a 14-minute effort penned by Atkins, Downing, and Hill but due to time constraints, only the intro was recorded for the album. A longer version of the song appears on Atkins's 1998 album "Victim Of Changes". Though not the full-length version, it is notably longer at seven minutes. That album also contains covers of "Winter" and "Never Satisfied".

At this point of the band's career, they had not yet developed their signature look of leather and studs. They had appeared on a British television programme called The Old Grey Whistle Test in 1975, performing "Rocka Rolla" and "Dreamer Deceiver", and their wardrobe was very "hippified" as journalist Malcolm Dome put it. This footage was included on the Electric Eye DVD. In addition, the album is more blues/hard rock oriented than their later releases, and also has some slight progressive rock influences that would continue through to Stained Class, but to a lesser extent, and would be abandoned in later releases. This makes the album's style virtually unrecognizable when compared with later PRIEST albums, although "Rocka Rolla" does feature dual guitars and "Run of the Mill" is the first song that was explicitly designed for Halford's, rather than Atkins', vocal range.

The album was released to very little reception selling "only a few thousand copies". Because it flopped, the band found themselves in dire financial straits. In particular, they talked of nights in which they were starving and didn't know when they were going to get their next meal. They tried to enter into an agreement with Gull Records to pay them 50 pounds a week, but Gull, which was also suffering economic woes, refused. In a retrospective review, AllMusic gave "Rocka Rolla" a rating of 2.5 out of five stars, and said that while it was a "sketchy and under focused debut", the album "definitely hints at JUDAS PRIEST's potential and originality".

Today's tune is a BBC clip from 1975, enjoy!



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