Double Dose (Live)

Album Review

Seventeen months after their previous album, Hot Tuna became a quartet with the official addition of keyboardist Nick Buck. They released this two-LP live album, their first concert material in seven years (which was saying a lot for a band that began their recording career with two live albums) and they split just as the album hit record store shelves. Nevertheless, Double Dose gave a solid aural portrait of the mature Hot Tuna; it became a vehicle for the musical interests of guitarist/singer Jorma Kaukonen. Kaukonen, in fact, used the entire first side as an acoustic solo set, then included the excellent "Genesis" from his solo album Quah on its flip. Elsewhere, the full-on electrified group alternated between Kaukonen's best Hot Tuna compositions such as "I See the Light" and "Sunrise Dance with the Devil," and blues and rock standards such as "I Wish You Would" and "I Can't Be Satisfied." The album was produced by Felix Pappalardi (Cream, Mountain), who knew his way around hard, bluesy rock, and gave Hot Tuna its best recorded live sound on record — even with significant studio overdubbing. The nascent Hot Tuna fan might start here or, a bit more ambitiously, obtain the band's first two albums, Hot Tuna and First Pull Up, Then Pull Down, skip the five subsequent studio albums, and complete a selective collection with Double Dose. The Wounded Bird imprint's double-disc deluxe edition is sequenced significantly differently than both the LP original and the two previous, single-disc CD incarnations on Edsel and Acacia. The tracks "Serpent of Dreams" and "Bow Legged Woman, Knock Kneed Man," were moved from near the middle of the original LP and placed on disc two of this set. In addition, the second CD adds four interview tracks which serve as bonus material. ~ William Ruhlmann & Thom Jurek, Rovi