R.E.O. Speedwagon (album)

R.E.O. Speedwagon is the debut studio album by American rock band REO Speedwagon. Released in 1971, it was the only album recorded with singer Terry Luttrell, who would go on to join Starcastle. Kevin Cronin joined the band for R.E.O./T.W.O. This album concluded with a progressive rock song unlike the later arena rock songs that made them famous.^[1]

The album produced the fan favorites “157 Riverside Avenue”, “Sophisticated Lady” and “Lay Me Down”, but sold very poorly, though “Sophisticated Lady” did reach number 122 on the singles charts.^[2] “157 Riverside Avenue” and “Lay Me Down” were subsequently recorded on the live album Live: You Get What You Play For. “157 Riverside Avenue” and “Sophisticated Lady” were both featured on the compilation album A Decade of Rock and Roll: 1970-1980. In 2007, the British company BGO Records released REO Speedwagon and R.E.O./T.W.O. together (BGOCD775), marking the first time the band's first album was widely available in CD format. For some unknown reason, Epic Records never issued this first album on the cassette tape format (but they did issue an 8-Track Stereo Tape Cartridge version of it).

Record World called the single "Sophisticated Lady" "ultra-energy music of the sort that enlivens top 40 formats."^[3]

Record World called the single "Lay Me Down" a "hard, but not too hard, rock number" and "exciting music."^[4]

Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic gave the album a somewhat positive review and said, "After all those power ballads it's easy to forget that REO Speedwagon started out as a by-the-numbers boogie band with 1971's REO, kicking odes to the "Anti-Establishment Man" and a "Gypsy Woman's Passion." This is a band that's quite different from the arena-conquering rockers of a decade later, but they were no different than their time, embodying almost every cliché of the era from the spacy hippie meditation of "Five Men Were Killed Today" to the numbing nine-minute venture into the heavy jams of the closing "Dead at Last," where a flute is hauled out, presumably to compete with Jethro Tull. As captivating as they are, these are but detours from the main road of straight-ahead blues boogie, a road that hits its highlight early on with the rollicking shuffle "157 Riverside Avenue," a piano-driven rocker that in no way points toward REO Speedwagon's later strengths; if anything it sounds like a leaner Chicago fronted by a Rod Stewart wannabe in Terry Luttrell. There are a few other noteworthy moments scattered throughout -- an able aping of the Jeff Beck Group on "Lay Me Down," for instance—but this pretty much is generic '70s hard boogie that needed a little more flair in some area, any area, to be memorable."^[6]

All songs written by Neal Doughty, Alan Gratzer, Terry Luttrell, Gregg Philbin, and Gary Richrath.

Side one

1. "Gypsy Woman's Passion"  – 5:17
2. "157 Riverside Avenue"  – 3:57
3. "Anti-Establishment Man"  – 5:21
4. "Lay Me Down"  – 3:51

Side two

5. "Sophisticated Lady"  – 4:00
6. "Five Men Were Killed Today"  – 3:00
7. "Prison Women"  – 2:36
8. "Dead at Last"  – 10:08

REO Speedwagon^[7]

• Terry Luttrell - lead vocals
• Gary Richrath - guitar
• Neal Doughty - keyboards
• Gregg Philbin - bass, backing vocals
• Alan Gratzer - drums, backing vocals

Additional personnel^[7]

• Andre Borly - organ (track 6)
• Freedom Soul Singers - backing vocals (track 8)

Singles - Billboard (United States)