Amboy Dukes - Marriage on the Rocks / Rock Bottom (Reissue) (1970/2004)

The Amboy Dukes was started in Chicago in 1966 by Ted Nugent while he was still quite young. His parents shortly moved back to Detroit, so Ted took his band with him. But he found it wasn't working out the way he wanted it, so he started replacing the band members from Chicago, with ones from Detroit. The Amboy Dukes performed psychedelic rock, which is kind of funny, as Ted Nugent is very anti-drug. Between Teds' guitar prowess and stage performance, the band started making a name for themselves. However, since it was Teds' band, he continued to replace members (for various reasons including drug abuse). While Ted Nugent has gone on to greater fame and fortune under his own name, I liked the sound of the early band (and the vocalists). The Amboy Dukes first record label was Mainstream. Their first album The Amboy Dukes peaked at #183 on the music charts. It was available in stereo as catalog number S/6104 and in mono as catalog number 56104. Psalms Of Aftermath has a dropout on the mono version on the stereo version there is no drop out. Their second album, Journey To The Center Of The Mind did even better, reaching # 74 on the music charts. It too, was available in stereo as S/6104 and in a promo only version of mono as 56112. It was also released on the Capitol label (as a record club selection of the month). Its' catalog number was Capitol ST 91489 (the front says S/6112). On the import and promo copies, Dr. Slingshot is missing the John Drake vocals, Mississippi Murderer has a thinner sound (might be the same) and Surrender To Your Kings and Flight Of The Byrd are the same. On the CD version Journey To The Center Of the Mind starts with "tap tap". Their third album Migration was available as stereo S/6118 and mono (in the UK only) on London HAT 8392. The import album has the butchered Prodigal Man man we are used to it, and Loaded For Bear has no high school stuff at the end. While Amboy Dukes did release a few more albums after that before breaking up, the only original member was Ted Nugent. And thus the sound was different enough that I decided not to cover that version on my page. However, I was recently visited by a knowledgable fan with some info on them, so I will mention it here as well.