Point Blank

Much like their fellow Texas blues-boogie heavyweights ZZ Top, Point Blank entrusted their opening pair of albums to producer Bill Ham, the same figure who had engineered ZZ Top’s ascent. Although the group’s personnel shifted over time, its core membership typically comprised John O’Daniel on vocals, Rusty Burns and Kim Davis on guitar, Bill Randolph on bass, Mike Hamilton on keyboards, and Buzzy Gren on drums. The band’s third studio effort, Airplay, eased back on the relentless boogie drive, a direction the part-live follow-up The Hard Way decisively reversed with performances of searing intensity. In 1981 Bobby Keith took over lead vocals from John O’Daniel, steering the final two albums toward a more polished, radio-oriented style that nevertheless failed to register commercially.