Consumer Guide Album

NRBQ: At Yankee Stadium [Mercury, 1978]
Although I give them points for stick-to-it-iveness and good cheer, their records have always struck me as complacent because even the subtlest r&b has a more pronounced backbeat. But on his second try, drummer Tom Ardolino makes a marginal but telling difference--the performance is urgent, intense, up, so that even given their adolescent romantic preoccupations (life on the road, it keeps you young) the songs take on a complex life worthy of their chord changes. And try Terry Adams's Jimi-meets-Thelonious clavinet on "Talk to Me." B+