While on vacation this Summer, I came across a single for a band that did not get enough love. The band is Y&T and the single was for “All American Boy”. The song is a cover and was written by Dave Robbins and Van Stephenson. I believe it was first recorded by Stan Bush in 1983 on his self-titled album. Van had recorded this song and it appeared on the soundtrack to the movie “The Slugger’s Wife” back in 1984/1985. Y&T got ahold of the song in 1985 as well and it was included on their album ‘Down for the Count’ with quite possibly one of the worst album covers ever as you can see below for the back cover of the single. A funny enough, the front cover of the single is taken from the back cover of the album. The song went to #48 on the mainstream rock chart.
It was the the first single off the album, but for me not a great song choice to start with a cover. It was probably a label decision, who knows, but singer/guitarist Dave Meniketti, guitarists Joey Alves, bassist Phil Kennemore and drummer Leonard Haze deserved better. The had never recorded a cover song prior and they did two on this album…definitely label pressure. The follow-up single did much better which was their big single “Summertime Girls”. Y&T is a very underrated band. If you want to learn a lot about their albums, check out Tim Durling’s book ‘Down for the Count: The Y&T Album Review’ on Amazon.
A-SIDE:
2 Loud 2 Old Music 