Label: Esoteric Recordings (UK), ECLEC 2480
Style: Rock, Progressive Rock, Country Rock
Country: Llanelli, South Wales (18 December 1944 – 31 January 2017)
Time: 67:11
Format: Flac Tracks 16/44,1 kHz
Size: 425 Mb
Having released his debut solo album Iceberg in 1973, Deke Leonard formed a band of the same name to tour it. Original bassist Paul Burton was replaced by Martin Ace by the time Kamikaze was recorded, in typical fashion in between live dates promoting the first album. Another of Deke’s narratives describes the cover shoot. The tale involves searching for big cats, Jumbo jets, and being drenched to achieve the desired photographic intent, and so another chapter in Deke’s life on the road is written…
This record, not surprisingly, sounds more like a band than Iceberg, although oddly it is not as immediate as its predecessor. Kamikaze again features Deke’s penchant for good time rockers, kicking off with Jay Hawk Special. The addition of fiddle player Byron Berline on the initially bluesy Sharpened Claws playing a rumbustious jig’n’reel in the second half of the song lends it a downhome countrified feel, and as the song ends Byron’s fiddle carries on, a lone hoedown after everyone has gone home.
Deke’s vocal on the Quo-like rocker In Search Of Sarah And Twenty Six Horses bears an uncanny resemblance to Noddy Holder, something I had not considered before, but the resemblance is definitely there. You would think from the title that this song was inspired by a CS&N styled drug-fuelled haze, but the straight ahead nature of the music puts paid to that theory. Deke explains further in a convoluted tale involving a girl called Sarah Cheesewright and a book entitled Portrait Of The Artist And 26 Horses, another example of his way with a story. You’ll just have to buy the CD to find out more!
(theprogressiveaspect.net/blog/2015/05/06/deke-leonard-iceberg-kamikaze/)
01. Cool Summer Rain (00:31)
02. Jayhawk Special (04:17)
03. Sharpened Claws (07:20)
04. Taking The Easy Way Out (05:28)
05. The Black Gates Of Death (04:42)
06. Stacia (01:04)
07. Broken Glass And Lime Juice (05:36)
08. April The Third (03:51)
09. Louisiana Hoedown (02:54)
10. In Search Of Sarah And Twenty-Six Horses (06:47)
11. The Devil's Gloves (05:16)
12. She's A Cow [single B-side] [bonus track] (03:34)
13. California Silks And Satins [bonus track] (07:57)
14. Joyful Soul [bonus track] (03:27)
15. Steel Painting Man [bonus track] (04:20)
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