''First Base'' is the debut album by English rock band

Babe Ruth George Herman "Babe" Ruth (February 6, 1895 – August 16, 1948) was an American professional Baseball in the United States, baseball player whose career in Major League Baseball (MLB) spanned 22 seasons, from 1914 through 1935. Nickna ...

. Produced by guitarist

Alan Shacklock Alan Albert Shacklock (born 20 June 1950) is an English musician, composer, arranger and recording producer, who lives and works in Nashville, Tennessee. His 1972 song "The Mexican" as performed by Babe Ruth is considered influential in the early ...

and Nick Mobbs, and engineered by Tony Clark at the

EMI EMI Group Limited (formerly EMI Group plc until 2007; originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records or simply EMI) was a British transnational conglomerate founded in March 1931 in London. At t ...

Abbey Road Studios Abbey Road Studios (formerly EMI Recording Studios) is a music recording studio at 3 Abbey Road, London, Abbey Road, St John's Wood, City of Westminster, London. It was established in November 1931 by the Gramophone Company, a predecessor of ...

between June and September 1972, it was released November that year. The album track "Wells Fargo" — a

hard rock Hard rock or heavy rock is a heavier subgenre of rock music typified by aggressive vocals and Distortion (music), distorted electric guitars. Hard rock began in the mid-1960s with the Garage rock, garage, Psychedelic rock, psychedelic and blues ...

song named after the cash-transporting stagecoach line of the

American Old West The American frontier, also known as the Old West, and popularly known as the Wild West, encompasses the geography, history, folklore, and culture associated with the forward wave of American expansion in mainland North America that bega ...

, with lyrics evoking the era's

cowboy A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the ''vaquero'' ...

legend — was released as a single and became an FM radio hit. The album went

gold Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

(#87), sold well in the US, but had disappointing sales by comparison in the UK. The song "

The Mexican ''The Mexican'' is a 2001 American romantic crime comedy film directed by Gore Verbinski. The film stars Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt, with James Gandolfini, Bob Balaban, J. K. Simmons, and Gene Hackman in supporting roles. It tells th ...

" has been

covered Cover or covers may refer to: Packaging * Another name for a lid * Cover (philately), generic term for envelope or package * Album cover, the front of the packaging * Book cover or magazine cover ** Book design ** Back cover copy, part of ...

and

remix A remix, also sometimes called reorchestration or rework, is a piece of media which has been altered or contorted from its original state by adding, removing, or changing pieces of the item. A song, piece of artwork, book, poem, or photograph ca ...

ed many times. Among them, it was covered in 1984 by

John "Jellybean" Benitez John Benitez (born November 7, 1957), also known as Jellybean, is an American musician, songwriter, DJ, remixer, and music producer. He has produced and remixed artists such as Madonna, Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, and the Pointer Sisters. H ...

with vocals by Janita Haan. "The Mexican" was also mixed into the third track of ''

The Dirtchamber Sessions Volume One ''Prodigy Present: The Dirtchamber Sessions Volume One'' is a 1999 solo mix album by Liam Howlett of The Prodigy (the latter used as a moniker in this case), initially produced for BBC Radio 1's mix show ''The Breezeblock''. There are more tha ...

'' by

Liam Howlett Liam Paul Paris Howlett (born 21 August 1971) is an English record producer, musician, DJ, songwriter, co-founder and leader of the British electronic band the Prodigy. Early years Liam Paul Paris Howlett was born on 21 August 1971 in Braint ...

The Prodigy The Prodigy are an English electronic music band formed in Braintree, Essex, in 1990 by producer, keyboardist, and songwriter Liam Howlett. The original line-up also featured Rapping, MC and vocalist Maxim (musician), Maxim, dancer and occasi ...

in 1999 and covered by

GZA Gary Eldridge Grice (born August 22, 1966), better known by his stage names GZA ( ) and the Genius, is an American rapper. A founding member of the hip hop group Wu-Tang Clan, GZA is the group's "spiritual head", being both the first member in ...

in 2015. The sleeve design, painting and photography were by Roger Dean.

Track listing

# "Wells Fargo" (Alan Shacklock) – 6:14 # "The Runaways" (music: Alan Shacklock, words: David Whiting) – 7:12 # "

King Kong King Kong, also referred to simply as Kong, is a fictional giant monster resembling a gorilla, who has appeared in various media since 1933. The character has since become an international pop culture icon,Erb, Cynthia, 1998, ''Tracking Kin ...

" (

Frank Zappa Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American guitarist, composer, and bandleader. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa composed Rock music, rock, Pop music, pop, jazz, jazz fusion, orchestra ...

) – 6:40, recorded in one take, no overdubs # "Black Dog" (

Jesse Winchester James Ridout "Jesse" Winchester Jr. (May 17, 1944 – April 11, 2014) was an American-Canadian musician and songwriter. He was born and raised in the southern United States. Opposed to the Vietnam War, he moved to Canada in 1967 to avoid ...

) – 8:03 # "

" (Alan Shacklock) – 5:48 - interpolates ''Per Qualche Dollaro in Piu'' (''

For a Few Dollars More ''For a Few Dollars More'' () is a 1965 Spaghetti Western film directed by Sergio Leone. It stars Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef as bounty hunters and Gian Maria Volonté as the primary villain. Klaus Kinski plays a supporting role as a se ...

'', music by

Ennio Morricone Ennio Morricone ( , ; 10 November 19286 July 2020) was an Italian composer, Orchestration, orchestrator, conductor, trumpeter, and pianist who wrote music in a wide range of styles. With more than 400 film score, scores for cinema and televisi ...

) # "Joker" (Alan Shacklock) – 7:42 # "Wells Fargo" (single version, CD only; Shacklock) – 3:35 # "Theme from ''For a Few Dollars More''" (CD only; Morricone) – 2:19

Personnel

; Babe Ruth : *Janita "Jennie" Haan - vocals, castanets on ''The Mexican'' *

- acoustic and electric

guitar The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted (with Fretless guitar, some exceptions) and typically has six or Twelve-string guitar, twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming ...

Hammond organ The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert, first manufactured in 1935. Multiple models have been produced, most of which use sliding #Drawbars, drawbars to vary sounds. Until 1975, sound was created ...

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a percussion mallet, beater including attached or enclosed beaters or Rattle (percussion beater), rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or ...

vocals Singing is the art of creating music with the voice. It is the oldest form of musical expression, and the human voice can be considered the first musical instrument. The definition of singing varies across sources. Some sources define sing ...

*Dave Hewitt -

bass guitar The bass guitar (), also known as the electric bass guitar, electric bass, or simply the bass, is the lowest-pitched member of the guitar family. It is similar in appearance and construction to an Electric guitar, electric but with a longer nec ...

*Dave Punshon -

electric piano An electric piano is a musical instrument that has a piano-style musical keyboard, where sound is produced by means of mechanical hammers striking metal strings or reeds or wire tines, which leads to vibrations which are then converted into ele ...

, keyboards *Dick Powell -

drums The drum is a member of the percussion instrument, percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophones, membranophone. Drums consist of at least one Acoustic membrane, membrane, c ...

, percussion ; Other musicians : *

Gasper Lawal Gasper Lawal (born 23 September 1948 in Ijebu Ode, Nigeria) is a Nigerian drummer, griot, and composer who has publicized traditional African percussive languages in the West. As a performer, his "Afriki" sound created a fusion of Nigerian percussi ...

conga The conga, also known as tumbadora, is a tall, narrow, single-headed drum from Cuba. Congas are staved like barrels and classified into three types: quinto (lead drum, highest), tres dos or tres golpes (middle), and tumba or salidor (lowest ...

, bongo,

cabasa The cabasa, similar to the shekere, is a percussion instrument that is constructed with loops of steel ball chain wrapped around a wooden cylinder. The cylinder is fixed to a long, wooden or plastic handle. The metal cabasa was created by Mar ...

*Brent Carter -

saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to p ...

*Harry Mier -

oboe The oboe ( ) is a type of double-reed woodwind instrument. Oboes are usually made of wood, but may also be made of synthetic materials, such as plastic, resin, or hybrid composites. The most common type of oboe, the soprano oboe pitched in C, ...

*Peter Halling -

cello The violoncello ( , ), commonly abbreviated as cello ( ), is a middle pitched bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), tuned i ...

- Leader *Clive Anstee - cello *Manny Fox - cello *Boris Rickleman - cello * Jeff Allen - drums on "The Runaways"

Charts

Releases

*1972: LP US/Canada, Harvest SW-11151 *1972: LP UK, Harvest SHSP 4022 *1972: LP Spain, EMI/Harvest 1J 062-05.159 *1972: LP Italy, EMI/Harvest 3C 064-05159 *1972: LP Japan, Odeon *1991: CD Canada, One Way 57343 *1995: CD Germany, Repertoire REP 4554-WP *2001: CD Repertoire REP4554

References

External links

Amateur reviews
{{Authority control Babe Ruth (band) albums 1972 debut albums Albums with cover art by Roger Dean (artist) Harvest Records albums Albums produced by Alan Shacklock