Samson: “Riding with the Angels” / “Little Big Man” (1981)
Today’s colored vinyl in support of Pride Month and my friends in the LGBTQ+ community is actually a picture disc -- that counts right?
Released in May of 1981, in tandem with Shock Tactics: Samson’s third long-player (and second with future Iron Maiden air raid siren Bruce Dickinson on vocals), this collectible 7-inch picture disc was headlined by the best song these New Wave of British Heavy Metal also-rans ever recorded!
The only problem was Dickinson, guitarist Paul Samson, bassist Chris Aylmer, and drummer Barry ‘Thunderstick’ Purkis didn’t write the biker gang anthem “Riding with the Angels” themselves ... hit writer extraordinaire Russ Ballard did. (*)
And that, my friends, pretty much says it all about Samson’s creative limitations, which were second only to their utter lack of common sense; unfortunate traits that saw them hitched to inept management and an inefficient record label that was going bankrupt even as this album arrived in stores.
Bruce himself later admitted in his autobiography, What Does this Button Do?, that Samson “made every mistake in the business,” and perhaps the biggest performance of their career, at the 1981 Reading Festival, would also be his last with the group, before scampering off to join Steve Harris’ Iron Men.
To that end, you’d be hard-pressed to find another song -- by Iron Maiden or whoever -- that’s a better showcase for Bruce’s vocal talents than this scorching-hot hard rocker, and I’m sure it helped him land his future gig, as much as anything else.
As for this single’s B-side, the non-album track “Little Big Man,” it simply couldn’t compete with the glorious A-side; but at least it was a serviceable head-banger and, more importantly, not at all embarrassing.
Well, maybe just a little, but you take what you can get with Samson!
To their credit, the band didn’t chuck it in after Bruce’s defection, but carried on recording (mostly mediocre) new albums behind vocalist Nicky Moore (ex-Tiger) and a succession of different singers through the rest of the decade and into the early ‘90s.
Band leader Paul Samson sadly passed away from cancer in 2002, at the age of 49, and bassist Chris Aylmer unfortunately suffered the same fate five years later at the age of 58.
* A former member of Argent, Ballard also wrote “New York Groove,” as made famous by Ace Frehley, “God Gave Rock ‘n’ Roll To You,” recorded by Kiss, numerous Rainbow singles, including “I Surrender” and “Since You’ve Been Gone,” and “You Can Do Magic” for soft rockers America.
More Samson: Head On, “Hard Times,” Shock Tactics.