Call of the Wild (Ted Nugent and the Amboy Dukes album)

Call of the Wild is the fifth studio album by The Amboy Dukes, credited as "Ted Nugent & The Amboy Dukes", released in 1973.

Composition
AllMusic says that the composition of the Call of the Wild album was influenced by AM and FM radio hits of the period in which the album was recorded. The publication says that the album's title track, which opens the album, is "not as blistering as ["Cat Scratch Fever"], but more metallic than the psychedelia/blues of the original Amboy Dukes", calling the song "more Jeff Beck gone rock than the quasi-Ozzie persona Nugent gleefully would embrace" in his subsequent albums under his own name, comparing the composition to the music of Spirit and Jo Jo Gunne. AllMusic also said that "Sweet Revenge" lifted it's melody from the Grass Roots' song "Things I Should Have Said". The website called the song "Pony Express" "a strange amalgam of '60s out-of-the-garage/heading-toward-stadiums riff rock", saying that it borrowed it's melody from Deep Purple's "Highway Star", and said that "Ain't It the Truth" was a piano boogie, comparing it to "Jumpin' Jack Flash". The album's second side is sequenced to sound like a single continuous jam session. AllMusic says that "Rot Gut" sounds like "Joe Perry emulating Jeff Beck". "Below the Belt" contains keyboard and flute instrumentation played by Gabe Magno; AllMusic compared the song to the Rolling Stones' "2000 Light Years from Home", and called "Cannon Balls" a "heavy vocal progressive rocker".

Reception
AllMusic described the Call of the Wild album as "Ted Nugent going through another mutation, but shows him as more diverse and adventurous than he sometimes gets credit for".

Personnel

 * Andy Jezowski - vocals
 * Ted Nugent - guitars, vocals, percussion
 * Gabriel Magno - keyboards, flute
 * Rob Grange - bass, vocals
 * Vic Mastrianni - drums, vocals
 * John Childs, engineer
 * Lew Futterman, producer