'CAT ON A LEASH' RE-CAPTURED SOME MONTROSE 1973 FIREPOWER

 

Now here's a song for true blue heavy rock guitar purists. Just over a week ago I set out to write a blog on a classic old GAMMA song, the second band for seminal hard rocker RONNIE MONTROSE. 

Song or album, I wasn't sure really, but I ended up being sidetracked when I coincidently discovered the song RESURRECTION BLUES off the 2000 comeback album GAMMA 4, which at the time I couldn't resist to put on Lost Treasures. 

It's free flowing jazzed up blues feel is nothing like anything on the first three GAMMA albums. 

Singer Davey Pattison was always Ronnie Montrose's weakest link in GAMMA, he was no Sammy Hagar, he was no Ted Nugent, he was no David Lee Roth. Like Roth from Van Halen, he was a poor singer but unlike Roth he couldn't make up for it in the showman and entertainer stakes. 

But poor vocals aside, now and then Ronnie Montrose made up for the lacklustre vocals in GAMMA by cranking out a heavy rock guitar classic which touched the heights he set on the debut MONTROSE album in 1973. 

Not often but he did with CAT ON A LEASH. This song comes off the second album, GAMMA 2, which I think is superior to GAMMA 1 because of the inclusion of drummer DENNY CARMASSI, who was the drummer in MONTROSE. 

His brutal style of drumming had so much more impact than SKIP GILETTE, who drummed on GAMMA 1. 

CATS ON A LEASH to me is the very best post-Montrose guitar and drum duel between Ronnie Montrose and Denny Carmassi. Davey Pattison's pissweak singing is the only thing which lets this song down.