NRBQ

NRBQ started life as the New Rhythm and Blues Quintet, the brainchild of pianist Terry Adams, guitarist Steve Ferguson and bassist Joey Spampinato. Adams shut the first version down for a while, and the band came back together in 1967 for good, or at least for as good as a band this happily unpredictable can manage.

Their gift is refusing to pick a lane. Rock, pop, jazz, blues and old Tin Pan Alley tunes all get thrown into the same pot, and the live shows are famous for their loose, anything-goes spirit and sense of fun. The classic lineup locked in from 1974: Adams and Spampinato joined by guitarist Al Anderson and drummer Tom Ardolino, a crew that could turn on a dime from a rave-up to a ballad and make both feel like a party.

All Hopped Up, from 1977, catches that lineup in full swing, and "Ridin' In My Car" is the kind of sweet, rattling pop song that sounds tossed off and turns out to be built to last. Over the years the ranks have also included guitarists Kenny Sheehan and Johnny Spampinato, drummers Tom Staley, Conrad Choucroun, Bobby Lloyd Hicks and Joe Camarillo, and singer Frank Gadler, and Adams is still there today, alongside Casey McDonough, Scott Ligon and Jake Edwards.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.