''The Great Spectacular'' is a self-produced demo album by the

Dixie Dregs The Dixie Dregs is an American rock band from Augusta, Georgia. Formed in 1970, the band's performance consists entirely of instrumentals that fuse elements of diverse genres such as rock, classical music, country, jazz and bluegrass into an ec ...

, recorded in 1975 on campus at

University of Miami The University of Miami (UM, UMiami, Miami, U of M, and The U) is a private research university in Coral Gables, Florida. , the university enrolled 19,096 students in 12 colleges and schools across nearly 350 academic majors and programs, incl ...

and released in 1976 only on limited vinyl. By the time the band had risen in popularity in the late 1970s, the record had been out of print, becoming a highly sought-after collector's item, and was re-released for the CD format in 1997.

Overview

Eight of the songs from this album were re-recorded for the Dixie Dregs' future releases. The first three tracks ("Refried Funky Chicken", "Holiday" and "Wages of Weirdness") were re-recorded on their debut album ''

Free Fall In Newtonian physics, free fall is any motion of a body where gravity is the only force acting upon it. In the context of general relativity, where gravitation is reduced to a space-time curvature, a body in free fall has no force acting on i ...

'', while "Ice Cakes" and "What If" were re-recorded for ''

What If What If may refer to: Film * ''What If'', a 2006 TV film starring Niall Buggy * ''What If...'' (2010 film), an American film * ''What If...'' (2012 film), a Greek film * ''What If'' (2013 film) or ''The F Word'', a Canadian-Irish film Telev ...

'', "Country House Shuffle" and "Leprechaun Promenade" for ''

Night of the Living Dregs ''Night of the Living Dregs'' is the third album by Dixie Dregs, released in 1979. The first half of the album was recorded in the studio, and the second half at the Montreux Jazz Festival on July 23, 1978. The album received a Grammy Award nomin ...

'', and "The Great Spectacular" for ''

Dregs of the Earth ''Dregs of the Earth'' is the fourth studio album by Dixie Dregs, released in 1980. This album was the band's first release on Arista Records, their last one before changing its name to The Dregs, and contains a re-recording of one of their earli ...

''. "T.O. Witcher" was featured during Morse's time with Kansas on the album ''

In the Spirit of Things ''In the Spirit of Things'' is the eleventh studio album by American rock band Kansas, released in 1988 (see 1988 in music). It is a very loosely organized concept album, telling the story of a flood hitting the real Kansas city of Neosho Falls ...

''. "Kathreen" hasn't appeared elsewhere. On the making of ''The Great Spectacular'', guitarist and bandleader

Steve Morse Steve J. Morse (born July 28, 1954) is an American guitarist, best known as the founder of the Dixie Dregs and as the lead guitarist of Deep Purple from 1994 to 2022. Morse has also enjoyed a successful solo career and was briefly a member of ...

recalled:

Track listing

All tracks composed by Steve Morse #"Refried Funky Chicken" – 3:50 #"Holiday" – 3:55 #"Wages of Weirdness" – 3:54 #"T.O. Witcher" – 2:12 #"The Great Spectacular" – 3:16 #"Ice Cakes" – 3:46 #"Leprechaun Promenade" – 3:19 #"Country House Shuffle" – 3:59 #"What If" – 3:28 #"Kathreen" – 2:50

Personnel

Dixie Dregs: *

Rod Morgenstein Rod Morgenstein (born April 19, 1953) is an American drummer and music educator. He is best known for his work with the rock bands Winger and Dixie Dregs. He also played with Fiona, Platypus, the Steve Morse Band, and Jelly Jam. He has also ...

– drums *

– guitars *Allen Sloan – violin *

Andy West Andy West (born February 6, 1953) is an American bass guitarist and composer who is an original founding member of the Dixie Dregs along with Steve Morse. Since the breakup of the original band in 1983, West has been on albums with Mike Keneally ...

– bass guitar *Frank Josephs – electric piano

References

External links

The Dixie Dregs @ Allmusic ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Great Spectacular, The 1976 debut albums Dixie Dregs albums Demo albums Self-released albums