Smoulderin' Jambalaya

**Smoulderin' Jambalaya** is the fourth studio album by English rock band Creosote, released on 4 April 1996 by EMI. It was produced primarily by the band themselves with some collaboration with A.C. Shaftesbury. It was the band's first release since 1989 and was highly anticipated within the British music scene, becoming the fastest selling album in the UK at that time. The recording was marred by creative differences between the bandmates, which culminated in the band's breakup the following year.

The first single, entitled *Smoulderin' Jambalya*, had an overwhelmingly positive reception, with listeners pleased by the energy and heaviness which had seemed to be seeping out of the band's releases in the 1980s. However, the second *Call Me Creosote,* was heavily criticised for its throwback sound and 'cheapness', causing some weariness about the LPs overall quality. The third *Shining Bright*, became an unexpected hit in Japan, remaining at #1 for 4 weeks there. It also performed well on the US Alternative Rock charts. Finally *Royal Rumble*, met with tepid reception and was mocked for its repetition of lyrics. Despite mixed critical response, all of the albums singles charted in the UK top 10, and broke the US top 50.

## Reception

The album met with mixed reviews on release, with many critics finding it monotonous and overproduced. The band was criticised for an 'over-reliance' on guitar riffs, which were not impressive enough to carry away songs like *Royal Rumble*. Herbert Dinkleferger - at this point the Creosote's unofficial biographer - complained, 'It ought to be exciting to hear George Hudson trying his hand at some real stomping hard-rock riffs, but besides a few rare moments, they sound as though they've been pulled from his back-room demos. So many songs on this LP would be tolerable if not for the band's decision to repeat these corpuscular morsels of melody for 16 bars beyond their welcome almost every time.'

The fan response was divided, the most common complaints centred around the lack of lyrical depth and the clear creative dominance of Mr Creosote over the project. A blog post on a Creosote fan site titled 'Jeremiahs Takeover' was re-published in the NME, which claimed Creosote had excluded the creative inputs of Hudson and Taft for the sake of bringing about a 'tribute to his own mammoth ego'. It cited public statements from the early recording of the LP to theorize Creosote had stripped the album of his bandmates' material in favour of his own behind closed doors. Many fans wrote letters in response claiming they had enjoyed the album, and that they supported Creosote's alleged interventions to 'keep things cheerful' amid the band's internal problems.

Some critics praised the continued experimental elements, use of humour and the thicker production style. Richard Greeves, writing in Melody Maker, defended the album, 'Despite the buckets of slime currently being chucked at the band from some quarters, one can not help but feel this album commits no great crimes in itself, its competently sown together and will go down just fine at any sports team's post-match victory party'.

## Later Responses by the Band

Ultimately the release was panned by all bandmembers, with Hudson stating in 2000, 'it sounded like we threw together some respectable radio singles - as a kind of front - and then went home, when you look at the horrendous quality of many of the cuts on the album, it was a massive disservice to fans who buy our albums expecting those non-single gems.'. This sentiment was echoed by Taft, who simply called the album 'sludge'.

Both Hudson and Taft claimed the album was a 'wake-up call' due to their own stagnating creativity in Creosote. In 2001 Hudson remarked 'I don't want to entire excuse myself from what album became, I played guitar like a complete troglodyte, I wasn't trying to treat the audience like I used to, just turned up the gain and shot in a bunch of cliché licks. When I wasn't doing that I strummed chords like I was in Lynyrd Skynyrd - to be completely honest I had been getting lazy for a while, I had no confidence anymore.'.

Mr Creosote stood by the album for some years, claiming it was 'possibly my magnum opus', though he had conspicuously dropped most of its tracks from his live shows by as early as 1999. His infamous defence of the work was that it could only be properly appreciated after 'at least a bottle of champagne'. After the release of Eggs on Top in 2003, he claimed he had 'seen the mouldy bits' in Smoulderin' Jambalaya and had 'moved from strength to strength'. While touring in 2004, he unexpectedly claimed the album was 'a disaster', after listening to it the previous night. Apparently spurred by Hudson's self-criticism - and egged on by an interviewer - he exclaimed, 'Yeah I recall a lot of meddlin' on his part, I suspect he may have overdubbed my bass because it sounds a bit wobbly. He was the one that wanted a guitar based album instead of my bass and drum approach. I wasn't sure at the time but in hindsight I should have stuck to my guns.'. This conflicted with almost every statement Jeremiah had made during the album's recording and his taking credit for all the album's supposed brilliance for the previous 6 years. In 2014 he claimed he still played the record 'from time to time' and in the late 2010s began to re-introduce songs from Smoulderin' Jambalaya to his setlist for the first time since the late 90s.

## Legacy

The album is now widely viewed as the cause of the band's breakup, both due to the tumultuous recording and dissatisfaction with the end product. A particular retrospective focus has been on the songwriting credits of Smoulderin' Jambalaya, with Creosote dominating the music and lyrics of the album. This was linked to the drop in quality compared to the far more collaborative efforts of the band in the 1980s, especially with the involvement of George Hudson.

As Herbert Dinkleferger remarked, 'The balance of writing has turned out to be even worse since the publishing of Taft's biography, revealing Hudson only wrote the choruses of Smoulderin' Jambalaya, Shining Bright and "adjusted" the main riff in Royal Rumble. Taft's Join the Binmen was creatively entirely dictated by Creosote, who repeatedly refused more interesting suggestions on tempo and instrumentation to liven the track, leaving it the dull joking novelty that it is. Many critics, myself included, wrongly implicated Hudson and Taft in the failures, but Creosote was clearly just getting started in his career of misdeeds with this album.'

During Creosote's critical revival in the 2010s perspectives on the album began to shift in the opposite way, with many fans re-asserting their fondness of the album's care free feeling and party-atmosphere concept. Alan Greene of the NME stated the album 'could've been a lot worse considering what we now know about its recording'. Finally, the 2013 compilation *Creosote - The Golden Tunes* included the songs *Smoulderin' Jambalaya* and *Big Fat Fucker,* which was approved by all 3 former bandmembers. Mr Creosote's surprise renditions of its songs have been positively received at live shows.