12 Inch Singles - The Unforgiven "I Hear The Call"

Well I haven't done one of these in a while so I guess I should explain what it is. Back in 1986 I returned from Basic and Advance Individual Training for the Oklahoma National Guard. At the time my father was living in Tulsa and I stayed with him until I could decide on whether I was going to return to college or not. After all, that was why I joined the National Guard in the first place, to get money for college. Ultimately I did not go back to school. Anyway, I don't want to stray too far from the story so after returning I found a flea market not too very far from my dad's place and while strolling through it I came across a booth that had a bunch of 12 inch singles, vinyl records in other words. I knew a few of the bands and bought theirs as well as others that I didn't know anything about, The Unforgiven being one of the latter. I took a chance (hey they were all pretty cheap) and wasn't disappointed by a single one. As a matter of fact I still have all of them today. Hence this series of posts.



I went to the trusty internet and found www.roverpack.com where I was able to get all of this information about the band. They were around from about 1985-1988 and released their debut album in 1986. As you can tell from the video they mixed rock and country in a way that hadn't really been heard much before and with the aid of certain others bands helped set the blueprint for what would later be called alternative country. The band was comprised of:

Steve Jones - Guitar, Lead Vocal
Johnny Hickman - Guitar, 2nd Vocal
Mike Jones - Guitar, Gang Vocal
Todd Ross - Guitar, Gang Vocal
Mike Finn - Bass, Gang Vocal
Alan Waddington - Drums, Gang Vocal

later additions:

Jay Lansford - Guitar
Larry Lee Lerma - Bass

At roverpack you can download their album by clicking on the podcast button however it has been reissued with much higher quality sound. By the way, Johnny Hickman later went on to be in the band Cracker whom I saw at the 9:30 Club when I was stationed in Washington D.C. Small world huh?