Just as the eponymous debut of Hot Tuna created the template for the Jefferson Airplane offshoot in its acoustic format, the fifty-year-old third album by the group, Burgers, defines the band in electric form. Its very first track “True Religion” actually contains all the elements that would reappear throughout this first studio record of the group’s and, if it weren’t so infectious in and of itself, the opener might suffice to confirm the motivating instincts motivations of founding members bassist Jack Casady and guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Jorma Kaukonen.
But in building upon previous studio experience to act as producer, Kaukonen managed to focus the virtues of Hot Tuna for the purposes of a well-wrought LP. The group largely reins in its proclivity to stretch out and jam, but the double-time section of the aforementioned first cut hints at those capabilities. On “Highway Song” and “Ode for Billy Dean,” the guitarist exhibits his growing skill as a songwriter and a singer, while “Water Song” and “Sunny Day Strut” are evocative instrumentals that supply significant substance to an album that would otherwise seem slight. More significantly, the two latter cuts fully display the uncanny chemistry between the two principals: the respective effects of Kaukonen and Casady’s interplay are as uplifting on the first as they foreboding on the second.
The aforementioned original tunes reside comfortably next to blues and gospel covers the likes of which populated the two previous concert albums. Rev. Gary Davis is the composer of “Let Us Get Together Right Down Here”–the same man whose “Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning,” among many others, appeared on the Tuna debut, while Julius Daniels’ “99 Year Blues” gets an updated arrangement with drums by Sammy Piazza. Also returning from the previous release, First Pull Up, Then Pull Down (and a stint in the latter-day Airplane), violinist Papa John Creach helps imbue “Keep On Truckin’” with a quirky twist in keeping with a decidedly contemporary reading.
Following in the footsteps of harpist Will Scarlett on the initial Hot Tuna release, Nick Buck’s piano on the latter track continues the Tuna tradition of open collaboration with other musicians. It’s one that would continue for the life of the group and include stringed-instrument wizard Barry Mitterhoff in the 2000s as well as slide guitarist extraordinaire Greg Douglass on a summer 1975 tour: the presence of this former member of The Steve Miller Band was a harbinger of Hot Tuna’s so-called ‘metal years,’ but the early integration of acoustic and electric instruments is first on full display during Burgers. From: https://glidemagazine.com/270853/50-years-later-revisiting-hot-tunas-confident-hearty-third-lp-burgers/
