Back Home

by Jason AnkenyWith each successive effort for the Westbound label, Dennis Coffey moved further away from the heady funk-rock of his earliest LPs and towards a glossy, unapologetically commercial approach informed by the growing popularity of disco. With Back Home, he essentially abandons funk for good, in the process scoring a major disco hit with "Wings of Fire." But disco is about production, not virtuoso playing, and too much of Back Home stifles Coffey's innovative fretwork in favor of overbaked arrangements and repetitive rhythms. The end result smoothes away the rough edges that made Coffey such an exciting and singular guitarist.