- Included among the Record Descriptions of Favorite Albums (Part 1).
- Nantucket is a solid effort that made the Billboard album charts, selling a respectable 200,000 copies, and features the hit song “Heartbreaker”.
Nantucket – Nantucket (1978): This long-lived North Carolina hard rock band was originally founded in 1969 as a beach music band named Stax of Gold that later reformed as a covers band called Nantucket Sleighride. The band was named for the second album by Mountain, Nantucket Sleighride (1971), which includes a song named “Nantucket Sleighride”. I have a vague recollection of seeing Nantucket Sleighride play on campus while I was in college at North Carolina State University. They later shortened their name to Nantucket and toured steadily in North Carolina, building up a strong following in the state by the time Epic Records signed the band and released their debut album, Nantucket.
The album features the hit song “Heartbreaker”, and Nantucket is a solid effort that made the Billboard album charts, selling a respectable 200,000 copies. Nantucket had an extensive touring schedule in support of the album, opening for KISS, Styx, Boston, Mother’s Finest, Journey, and the Doobie Brothers. Due to its strong fanbase, used copies of Nantucket albums have become nearly impossible to find as the years have gone by; so, in 2003 and 2004, Wounded Bird Records reissued the band’s first three albums on CD – Nantucket, Your Face or Mine, and Long Way to the Top. The latter album features a cover of the early AC/DC classic “It’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock ’n’ Roll)”. As a result, AC/DC hired Nantucket as their opening act for the entire summer of 1980 to support their then-current album, Back in Black (1980), now the second largest selling album of all time. Nantucket is an island off the Coast of Massachusetts and a popular tourist destination that now has numerous luxury homes; it is located about 30 miles from Cape Cod and is accessible by ferry.