JIMMY BARNES: Freight Train Heart

Produced by Jonathon Cain, Desmond Child and Mike Stone

Released: 1987

A conversation on Facebook the other day put me in mind of just how much I love this album. It's both a shame and a surprise that Jimmy Barnes wasn't able to crack the American market with Freight Train Heart because it is easily one of the best examples of radio-friendly AOR ever recorded. Anyone who doubts this should first take a look at the list of people who played on this (half of Journey, the singer from Guiffria, Huey Lewis and the guy who would replace Gary Richrath in REO Speedwagon), and then just randomly play any track off it. This is finely-tuned, shiny hard rock that showcases the immense power of Jimmy Barnes' vocals like nothing he's done before or since but it's also one where he and the various musicians around him work as a complete band to create a collection of fantastic songs. Considering the problematic recording process that used three studios in two countries and dozens of session players and the arguments Barnes had with Cain and his US label over who should play guitar on "Too Much Ain't Enough Love" (among other things), it's surprising that anything so cohesive could have resulted. Four singles came from this album, but really all ten of them are hits.

Freight Train Heart opens with some mean, bluesy David Lindley slide guitar as Barnes echoes the blue-collar rock of his previous album with "Driving Wheels", the ultimate ode to truckies. Then, with the help of some of the guys from INXS and the Angels, Jimmy turns an obscure Ronnie Wood song into an absolute blues rock ball-tearer; "Do or Die" is similarly raucous, like Cold Chisel at their most fired-up, but even louder. In between these two is the smouldering "Too Much Ain't Enough Love", one of Jimmy's best songs with one of his best controlled vocal performances. Neal Schon plays all over this and does such a killer job you can understand why Barnes defied company executives who wanted Robert Cray instead.

Later on there's the pop-laced "I Wanna Get Started With You", another riotous rocker in "Lessons in Love" and the majestic "Last Frontier", Jimmy's tribute to the battlers who built his adopted country. And then there's the power ballads, and if ever there was a guy who could put power into the rock ballad, it's Jimmy Barnes. In "I'm Still on Your Side" he hits notes that float somewhere in orbit and unleashes a scream that must have just about blown the roof off wherever he was at the time, and not once does he go out of tune. "Waitin' for the Heartache" is almost the perfect radio rock song, but the real gem is "Walk On", an undiscovered slice of brilliance from Desmond Child and Joe Lynn Turner that Jimmy Barnes takes to a whole new level of awesomeness. It's the perfect closing moment to one of Australian rock's perfect albums.

1. Driving Wheels
2. Seven Days
3. Too Much Ain't Enough Love
4. Do or Die
5. Waitin' for the Heartache
6. Last Frontier
7. I Wanna Get Started With You
8. I'm Still on Your Side
9. Lessons in Love
10. Walk On

Rating: 100%

JIMMY BARNES: For the Working Class Man

Produced by Mark Opitz, Jimmy Barnes, Jonathon Cain, Chas Sandford and Gary Gersh.

Released: 1985

When Jimmy Barnes released Bodyswerve the beast that was Cold Chisel was barely dead in the ground and their former singer could have recorded almost anything and seen it go to #1 in Australia, which is precisely what did happen. But American conquest was always on Barnes' mind and the ragged bunch of garage rockers with their raw production from his first solo outing simply weren't going to cut it on the world's largest music market. For the Working Class Man was apparently the answer, half new material penned by professional songwriters and half of the previous album's songs given a fresh coat of paint.

Originally released in Australia as a double vinyl in a gatefold sleeve to compensate his domestic audience for the fact that this was, in effect, only half an album, For the Working Class Man replaced Bodyswerve's rough and ready blues with slick American-style radio rock. It made next to no impact on that market, but smashed into the top of the chart in Australia, where Barnesy's legions of fans simply didn't care that most of its songs were written for him by (and for) a bunch of Yanks. "Working Class Man", the histrionic blue-collar anthem that sealed Jimmy's reputation as a screamer of seemingly unlimited power was quickly adopted as some kind of unofficial nation anthem, the irony of it having been written by an American AOR guitarist completely lost on the Aussie masses blasting it out at every opportunity. While it subsequently captivated a generation, "Working Class Man" wasn't even the album's best song, an honour that lies with "Ride the Night Away", a scorching rocker written by Springsteen's right hand man Stevie van Zandt complete with Charlie Sexton on guitar and Mick Fleetwood nailing down the beats. Unlike "Working Class Man" where Jimmy's objective seems to be to blow his larynx out, the other songs feature a more controlled performance. The album also introduces the power ballad to Barnes' oeuvre in the shape of "Without Your Love". The only one of the new tracks to feature the singer's writing credit, it was a hint of what was to come from the man over his next couple of blockbusters.

The balance of For the Working Class Man was made up of seven of the twelve songs from Bodyswerve, giving a makeover by Bob Clearmountain in New York. Most noticable was that of "No Second Prize", where, for some reason, extra tracks of Barnes bellowing the chorus to the fade were dropped over Mal Eastick's guitar solo. The other songs were similarly dicked with, although not to same extent, but it really doesn't seem at all necessary and from a local perspective they were just stuck on to make it releasable as an album.

For the Working Class Man helped to establish Jimmy Barnes as Australia's top male rock singer, but it probably succeeded more because of his reputation than due to its songs. As good as the new songs were (well, except the US radio dross that is "American Heartbeat"), this was essentially just Bodyswerve with a handful of different tracks and is really just a stopgap between that album and the triumph of Freight Train Heart to come.

1. I'd Die to be With You Tonight
2. Ride the Night Away
3. American Heartbeat
4. Working Class Man
5. Without Your Love
6. No Second Prize
7. Vision
8. Promise Me You'll Call
9. Boys Cry Out for War
10. Daylight
11. Thickskinned
12. Paradise

Rating: 65%

JIMMY BARNES: Bodyswerve

Produced by Mark Opitz and Jimmy Barnes

Released: 1984

When Jimmy Barnes released this scream from the garage, the beast that had been Cold Chisel had only been dead for ten months; their final studio album had only just fallen off the charts. Bodyswerve lacks the polish and commercial appeal of his other albums and is totally bereft of the superstar duets and endless power ballads that littered those works. This is probably why his solo debut is one of the most overlooked recordings of his catalogue, but it is also the reason this remains one of my favourite Jimmy Barnes albums.

Barnes' songwriting has less finesse than either Don Walker or Steve Prestwich, but essentially Bodyswerve is very reminiscent of the earliest Cold Chisel outings. A balls-out uncompromising rock record, Bodyswerve alternates between the smouldering heavy blues of "Daylight" to flat-out belters like the hard-partying anthem "Paradise" to the fury of "Boys Cry Out for War" that is almost metallic in its raw intensity. "No Second Prize" is a simple, slow-burning rocker that highlights the sheer power of Barnes' voice and also lets guitarist Mal Eastick shine; the remixed version from For the Working Class Man dropped a vocal track over the long fade of this track, robbing it of some of its purity but here it is the stand out that remains solid even now. Some of the other songs aren't quite as memorable and the covers of "Piece of My Heart" and "A Change is Gonna Come" probably add little more than some extra minutes to the playing time. Barnes made better records both before and after this, but the energy and passion on display here makes this a pretty worthwhile hard rock album.

1. Vision


2. Daylight


3. Promise Me You'll Call


4. No Second Prize


5. Boys Cry Out for War


6. Paradise


7. A Change is Gonna Come


8. Thick Skinned


9. Piece of My Heart


10. Fire


11. World's on Fire

Rating: 65%