Take that slow ride with Foghat

Through classic-rock radio’s reliance on one song, over the decades Foghat has been reduced to a footnote in the pantheon of rock and roll. Listeners young and old seem never to tire of hearing, yet again, all eight minutes of “Slow Ride.” VH1 put it in their Best British Rock Tunes of All Time. But, it is easy to forget the band’s platinum and double-platinum sales during the 1970s. They likewise earned eight gold albums. By today’s indie-label standards, those are monumental record sales. How’d they do it? Foghat had a secret weapon that few other blues-rock bands had at the time.

The electric slide guitar was still a novelty back then. Johnny Winter and Duane Allman could pack a stadium, but some rock critics called Foghat’s Rod Price the Slide King of Rock and Roll. That sound, made by moving a metal (or glass) tube along a guitar’s strings electrified fans. It served to separate many dollars from the concert-and-record-buying public. But that was then, and this is now. One is right to wonder how much of the original DNA is still in the English band that had its biggest year in 1975.

Foghat’s founding drummer is pretty much the last man standing. His name is Roger Earl. And then, there’s Craig Macgregor, the bassist who replaced founding bass-man Tony Stevens in 1975. The founding rhythm guitarist and emblematic voice of Foghat, Dave Peverett, passed in 2000; Price succumbed to a heart attack in 2005. In their places are Charlie Huhn and Bryan Bassett, respectively. Huhn’s been a career side man in a growing list of arena acts, and Bassett played in dozens of acts himself, including Molly Hatchet. He started Wild Cherry, the band that gave us “Play That Funky Music.” This, then, is the current engine that powers the gold-plated sunset days of Foghat.