Long Cold Winter
Cinderella
Released – 1988 by Mercury Records
Track List
1. Bad Seamstress Blues/Fallin’ Apart at the Seams
2. Gypsy Road
3. Don’t Know What You Got (Till It’s Gone)
4. The Last Mile
5. Second Wind
6. Long Cold Winter
7. If You Don’t Like It
8. Coming Home
9. Fire and Ice
10. Take Me Back |
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Although ‘Long Cold Winter’ peaked at #10 on the US charts compared with ‘Night Songs’ at #3, this is considered Cinderella’s best and most successful album. It represents a style the band were always keen to explore by combining the classic rock and gritty blues of 70’s Rolling Stones or Aerosmith with the more commercial aspects of swaggering rock n roll and metal of the time.
That combination is probably most evident on big commercial hits ‘Gypsy Road’ ‘The Last Mile’ ‘Coming Home’ and the mega ballad ‘Don’t Know What You Got (Till It’s Gone). The remaining tracks virtually sit on the blues or straight up rocker sides of the fence. It all makes for a really interesting mix preventing the album from becoming stale.
‘Gypsy Road’ ‘The Last Mile’ and ‘Coming Home’ all appear to be about the same thing but I’m a big fan of all three. Each track is an upbeat feel good rocker that will definitely have you singing along. ‘Don’t Know What You Got’ as mentioned is a huge ballad and was the highest charting single at #12 in the US.
It’s easy to focus on those mentioned above but there are some other solid tracks here. ‘Bad Seamstress Blues’ starts out with a bluesman acoustic guitar and harmonica you’d expect to see and hear on a Southern US porch before kicking into a dirty, driving guitar riff. It’s a cool song and probably could and should have been a hit single. ‘Take Me Back’ and ‘If You Don’t Like It’ are two others I’m fairly into and over time have grown on me a lot.
Obviously ‘Long Cold Winter’ is unmistakable Cinderella but you can really hear a progression from their debut. If you were to sit and listen to both back to back you’d easily spot that this was a natural thing and where the band always wanted to be. It’s even more apparent when then listening to the third album ‘Heartbreak Station’.
I never realised I was that into blues influenced material until I started listening to Cinderella and 'Long Cold Winter'. It had always been there beneath the surface and now I have embraced that element to rock n roll a whole lot more thanks to albums like this. There’s a lot of pleasing stuff to the ear on this record while the band also managed to maintain that raw edge of the first record.
It’s a tough one for me to choose a favourite between ‘Night Songs’ and ‘Long Cold Winter’ as there’s an equal amount of material I like on both albums. However, what I like on ‘Long Cold Winter’ I really like. So in that sense the second album just swings it.
Visit: www.cinderella.net
Dirty Rock review by ‘Jonni Starr’ 2007
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