Babe Ruth
First Base

Babe Ruth was a great baseball player from the thirties, an unsurpassed legend of this sport in the United States. The renowned cover designer Roger Dean seizes the opportunity by illustrating this debut from the group with an unlikely and spectacular "Inning" in the middle of a sidereal void. Besides the evocative "hook" provided by the cover, this quintet also draws strength, quality, and momentum, like so many other bands, from the classic singer/guitarist pairing, with one being the absolute focal point of attention both on stage and on record, and the other the grey eminence and musical director of the project.
The unusual thing is that in Babe Ruth, the frontman is a frontwoman. A gutsy one, though. Janita Haan surprises because that petite, slender, and thin body and that gentle face framed by wavy blonde locks conceal tonsils set in steel, capable of generating a voice of explosive power, wielded with temperament and grit, though still with a certain youthful approximation (Jennie was under twenty when she recorded this album). A sort of Janis Joplin but cute, really cute on stage as you can still verify today by searching online for her on-stage photos, sinuous and sparkling in a very tight jumpsuit and navel-baring while bending backward to power her penetrating and strong vocals, being entirely able to face the sonic chaos of a hard rock band in full action.
Allan Shacklock, on the other hand, is that kind of guitarist with a lot of technique derived from extensive classical studies, cast aside in favor of the fire of rock but always useful for imparting quality and competence to his compositions and performances. An experienced musician, composer, arranger, and producer, certainly the undisputed leader. Under the name Babe Ruth, six or seven works were recorded throughout the seventies, with continuous changes within the group until the disappearance of each of the five original members, but after a long oblivion, there is currently an attempt to relaunch, with four-fifths of the lineup present on this album and a new album recently on the market. "First Base" remains the recognized pinnacle of their career mainly because it contains the undoubtedly most famous and brilliant song titled "The Mexican", which deserves a description: a Spanish guitar classical intro is immediately swallowed by the progressive assent of a compelling groove of bass and drums, compact and unvaried throughout the piece, making it very hypnotic and danceable, so much that it has been repeatedly sampled in the past by regular hip-hoppers looking for effective rhythmic figures for their prefabricated disco patches. On this irresistible rhythmic drive, guitar and electric piano harmonize on a vaguely Mexican theme, only to make way for Janita's resolute and aggressive timbre during her verse and then explode with power in the chorus, with a choir of unprecedented, violent sonority. It's rare to hear such volume coming from a female throat. The central instrumental portion sees the guitar, soon doubled again by the electric piano, tuning the immortal Morricone whistled theme from the soundtrack of "For a Few Dollars More" (regularly cited in the compositional credits here) and developing it at length, before returning to the main theme of this song which is an unmistakable classic of rock, with its unique personality and atmosphere.
At the opening of the disc, we instead find "Well's Fargo", a dynamic rockblues dominated by a sharp Zeppelin-like riff with bass and guitar in unison, over which Jennie Haan's scream sometimes goes off course, youthfully inaccurate and shrill but overflowing with temperament. Notable is the almost be-bop style guitar solo, fluid and full of scale escapes, but the continuously highlighted solo instrument throughout the track is a saxophone, in the hands of a guest musician. "The Runaway", on the other hand, is a poignant ballad, perhaps compromised by Shacklock's self-indulgence, as he conceives a long orchestral tail with excessive and cloying effect. Before being set aside by strings and woodwinds, the very young singer manages to deploy her most moderate and collected tones, sweetening her voice and bringing it very close to that of colleague Annie Haslam of Renaissance, a folk/progressive band quite popular at that time. In position n° 3 is a surprise cover of Frank Zappa's instrumental "King Kong". The famous theme of the mustached American genius is rearranged by Shacklock by harmonizing his Gibson with the electric Wurlitzer piano of his mate Dave Punshon, for a devoted and respectful version, this time beautifully "dry" and less orchestral than the original. The longest track on the album is another cover titled "Black Dog" (not the Zeppelin one, practically contemporary with this disc, but one of the many dark ballads by American singer-songwriter Jesse Winchester) on which Shacklock once again indulges with a long instrumental coda (we are in 1972, progressive urges were infusing the music of almost all genres) but this time well-executed, much more effective and lyrical than that of "Runaway". The concluding "The Joker" is the most blurred moment of the work, a fairly conventional riff stretched out with few instrumental and vocal effective cues.

Babe Ruth is a respectable work, made remarkable by Jennie's unique vocal potential and the presence of the gem "The Mexican," a track absolutely worth knowing and having in your playlist.