AEROSMITH “BACK IN THE SADDLE”
For me, this was a coming of age album. I started listening to Aerosmith in about 1973, when my sister Cyndi mentioned what I thought she said was a great Boston band named “Errol Smith” and that they had already played in our town’s high school gym. At the time, they had one eponymous album, but followed up with a great second one called “Get Your Wings” in 1974.  I was hooked, so I waited  forever for the next one. Finally, “Toys in the Attic” came out in 1975 and it was, haha, “music to my ears.” Also, I can honestly say nowadays that I was grooving to “Walk This Way” about 100 years before Run/DMC. And so once again I waited for what seemed a really long time until the fourth album, “Rocks,” hit the airwaves in 1976. Wow. It was a cranking good record, and this song, “Back in the Saddle,” is probably Aerosmith at its best, with Joe Perry’s tantalizing guitar licks, a great “hoof” beat on the drums by Joey Kramer, Steven Tyler’s raspy screams, and all kinds of hints of the tough-guy American West. One more pretty good Aerosmith album, “Draw the Line,” came out in 1977 before, imo, the band lost some oomph and strayed from their roots. Take a listen to their mid-1970s power.
— Nick Abramo, Bedrock Sports Hawaii