Winterhawk [Chicago]: Revival (1982)
Winterhawk’s only studio album, the self-financed-and-released Revival, may have emerged in 1982, but its contents -- power trio hard rock spiced with prog, blues, jazz, and even southern rock accents -- leave no doubt as to the band’s origins in the previous decade.
In fact, Winterhawk was formed circa 1977 by guitar wiz Jordan Macarus, with vocalist/bassist Doug Brown and drummer Steve Tsoukatos, and they eventually opened shows for the likes of Budgie, Steppenwolf, and Black Oak Arkansas in prestigious Chicagoland venues like the 5,000-seat Aragon Ballroom.
Alas, Winterhawk would never graduate to headliner status, in their own right, but stellar songs like “Period of Change,” “Sanctuary” and "Revival” bear witness to an absolutely killer and creative combo -- despite a healthy debt to Rush, in part due to Brown’s acrobatic high notes.
But the star of the band was unquestionably Macarus, wether he was harmonizing, Thin Lizzy-like, with himself, alternating gently picked classical guitar figures with crunchy power chords à la Randy Rhoads, or peeling off jazzy, fleet-fingered displays like Steve Morse (see “Ace in the Hole”).
A little less distinctive was the band’s boogie through “Can't See the Forest for the Trees,” but the album’s closing, nine-minute jam “Free to Live” convincingly covered every (good) aspect of ‘70s rock (including some similarities to Kansas), and even dipped into the ‘60s for its hippie dippy lyrics.
Winterhawk were, in other words, a band waaay out of their time, so it’s only fitting that Revival (beautifully reissued on LP, as you can see here) had to wait a couple of decades to be, well, revived by the dedicated musical archaeologists at Rockadrome Records, via the world wide web.
To learn more, check out my review of Revival and expanded Winterhawk bio in the All-Music Guide.
p.s. -- Don’t confuse this Winterhawk with the San Francisco-based Winterhawk, which released a couple of LPs in 1979 and ‘80, and blended hard rock and southern rock behind their Native American themes.
Other Hard Rock Obscurities: Truth and Janey’s No Rest for the Wicked, Diamond Reo’s Dirty Diamonds, Granmax’s A Ninth Alive, Granicus’ Granicus, Bux’s We Come to Play; plus the OTHER Winterhawk.
