Dan Baird

In a just world, Dan Baird would be a big ol' rock star, regularly setting stadium-sized crowds into a boogie frenzy with his hot-wired rootsy raunch. However, ever since the Georgia Satellites' Open All Night dropped off the charts, the mainstream has had little use for Baird, but Out of Mothballs, a collection of outtakes and rarities from Baird's archives, offers further proof that the man knows how to get on the good foot and crank out the groove for anyone who cares to listen. Featuring a pair of Georgia Satellites tunes cut for a best-forgotten John Stamos movie in 1990, and a handful of songs that didn't make the cut for Baird's solo albums Buffalo Nickel and Love Songs for the Heart of Hearing, Out of Mothballs may have been stitched together from leftovers, but nearly everything here rocks loud and proud, and it hangs together with road-worn ease just like the man's best albums. If "Rock This Place" or "Shine a Light" don't get your party started, you're either deaf or just don't like this rock & roll stuff, while "Shake It Wild" is a good and greasy exercise in swamp rock, "Lock and Key" lifts the Rolling Stones' guitar sound so well you might wonder if Keith Richard and Mick Taylor were lurking in the background somewhere, "Any Little Thing" shows the man can wear his heart on his sleeve without losing the plot, and the cover of "Memphis" throws Johnny Rivers into overdrive and makes you like it. Some of the material on Out of Mothballs was rescued from old cassettes and the sound quality isn't quite up to audiophile standards, but it will sound just right when you crank up the volume, and the howling guitars and Baird's cocky Southern drawl are a winning combo from front to back., All Music Guide