"Pay Before You Pump" is former NRBQ guitarist Al Anderson's third solo album, a country rock effort with an emphasis on the rock. When he remakes his song "Lonely Too Long," he allows distortion

Pay Before You Pump

"Pay Before You Pump" is former NRBQ guitarist Al Anderson's third solo album, a country rock effort with an emphasis on the rock. When he remakes his song "Lonely Too Long," he allows distortion to creep into his guitar riff; by contrast, Anderson's version of "Without Your Love" is even more quiet and understated than Tippin's, but when Anderson sings, "Danced with the devil in a bottle of whiskey," there's a stark terror in his husky whisper. Music Row hitmaker Bob DiPiero cowrote two songs with Anderson and they're the most country-sounding tracks on "Pay Before You Pump." "Change Is Gonna Do Me Good" (a thinly disguised rewrite of Sam Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come") is an old-fashioned gospel hymn, while "Under the Hood" uses more automobile metaphors than you can count. --Geoffrey Himes

Pay Before You Pump