38 Special
Special Forces

Let’s pick up the discussion on 38 Special and summarize things: after their first two “warm-up” albums, competent and well-played but lacking in notable ideas, their third and fourth albums (namely “Rockin’ into the Night” and “Wild Eyed Southern Boys”) set things straight, lending their style and sound distinctiveness and substance, and pushing their career to new heights.

So, with this fifth work released in 1982, the band arrives with the enthusiasm and awareness that they’ve made it. It’s clear, then, that their intention is to change little or nothing in the strategies and dynamics among the six musicians, in the production, or in their target audience. “Special Forces” is thus a re-proposal of the key ingredients underlying their two previous successful records, namely:

_The alternation between the two lead vocals, but not only that, also between their two very different attitudes: the properly southern, jovial and country blues side of singer Donnie Van Zant, and the tense and hard melodic style of guitarist and vocalist Don Barnes, a guy whose skills have more in common with Foreigner than with Lynyrd Skynyrd—a true rocker of the Eighties in this regard.

_The exquisite effectiveness of the riffs, often “muted” as they say, meaning dampening the string vibrations just after they’re plucked. This is an excellence of maestro Barnes, capable of imagining through them catchy rhythms that manage to steal the listener’s interest from the vocals themselves.

_The intelligent, democratic, elegant interplay between the two guitars (Jeff Carlisi is the other, excellent guitarist), with almost always distinct parts, smartly interconnected and with a magnificent sound, based on the gritty, warm Peavey amplification—the true American answer to the British Marshalls.

Of the nine songs featured, four are sung by Donnie Van Zant, three by Don Barnes, and a couple in duet, one line each. The standout is the opening number, “Caught Up in You,” among the band’s biggest hit singles. It’s a Barnes creation, obviously: a choppy rhythm that then opens up in the choruses, a tense and driving vocal, an extended and wonderful “sung” solo by Carlisi all the way to the fade-out. All of this in a hard-blues-melodic setting distinctly their own. There’s nothing really new compared to the two preceding albums… it’s a tried-and-true formula, but here it finds its most commercially successful manifestation.

The rest of the album boasts other good tracks, especially the ones sung in duet, such as the super-charged boogie “Rough Housin’,” not commercial at all but 100% ruuuock! The other duet track, “Take ‘em Out,” is perhaps the best on the album, meticulously harmonized from the first line to the last by the two singers, and with Carlisi once again going wild on his six-string: great energy, a cool vibe, and gritty, perfect “brown” tones (copyright Eddie Van Halen), meaning warm, thick, just right.

On their best albums—of which this is one—38 Special achieved a fruitful crossover of essentiality, energy, fullness, melodic substance, clear execution, and instrumental balance. I’ve never understood why, in these parts, they’ve remained a cult band for only a select few, even shunned by advocates of the “raw” and the “primitive,” as if playing well and having the desire and ability to insist on meaningful melodic and rhythmic “hooks” were a negative trait.

Especially in the early Eighties, under the bombardment of new wave, synth pop, Michael Jackson and the like (mind you, those genres also had their gems, even if… few and far between!), this Florida sextet was, for me, a solid touchstone for my listening and my musical enthusiasm. Not alone, of course… there were Supertramp, Rush, Police, Toto, Saga as well…