First Base (album)

{{More citations needed|date=July 2024}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}

{{Infobox album

| name = First Base

| type = Studio album

| artist = Babe Ruth

| cover = Babe_Ruth-First_Base.jpg

| alt =

| released = November 1972

| recorded = June–September 1972
EMI Studios, London

| venue =

| studio =

| genre = {{Flatlist|*Hard rock

• progressive rock
• art rock

}}

| length = 41:36

| label = Harvest EMI (Capitol Records in the US)

| producer = Alan Shacklock, Nick Mobbs

| prev_title =

| prev_year =

| next_title = Amar Caballero

| next_year = 1973

| misc = {{Singles

| name = First Base

| type = studio

| single1 = Wells Fargo

| single1date = November 3, 1972

| single2 = The Mexican

| single2date = 1973

}}

}}

{{Album ratings

|rev1 = AllMusic

|rev1score = {{Rating|4|5}}{{cite web|url=https://www.allmusic.com/album/first-base-mw0000265566|title=First Base - Babe Ruth - Songs, Reviews, Credits - AllMusic|website=AllMusic|accessdate=2 September 2018}}

|rev2 = Christgau's Record Guide

|rev2Score = C+{{cite book|last=Christgau|first=Robert|author-link=Robert Christgau|year=1981|title=Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies|publisher=Ticknor & Fields|isbn=089919026X|chapter=Babe Ruth: First Base|chapter-url=https://www.robertchristgau.com/get_album.php?id=6336|accessdate=31 August 2018}}

|rev3 = Creem

|rev3Score = B−{{cite magazine|last=Christgau|first=Robert|date=November 1973|url=https://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/cg/crm7311.php|title=The Christgau Consumer Guide|magazine=Creem|accessdate=31 August 2018}}

|rev4 = The Rolling Stone Record Guide

|rev4score = {{rating|2|5}}{{cite book |title=The Rolling Stone Record Guide |date=1979 |publisher=Random House |page=18}}

}}

First Base is the debut album by English rock band Babe Ruth. Produced by guitarist Alan Shacklock and Nick Mobbs, and engineered by Tony Clark at the EMI's Abbey Road Studios between June and September 1972, it was released November that year.

The album track "Wells Fargo" — a hard rock song named after the cash-transporting stagecoach line of the American Old West, with lyrics evoking the era's cowboy legend — was released as a single and became an FM radio hit.{{cite book|last1=Luhrssen|first1=David|last2=Larson|first2=Michael|year=2017|title=Encyclopedia of Classic Rock|publisher=ABC-CLIO|isbn=1440835144|page=11}}

The album went gold in Canada (#87{{cite web|url=http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/obj/028020/f2/nlc008388.5087b.pdf| title=RPM Top 100 Albums - July 27, 1974}}), sold well in the US, but had disappointing sales by comparison in the UK. The song "The Mexican" has been covered and remixed many times. Among them, it was covered in 1984 by John "Jellybean" Benitez with vocals by Janita Haan. "The Mexican" was also mixed into the third track of The Dirtchamber Sessions Volume One by Liam Howlett of The Prodigy in 1999 and covered by GZA in 2015.

The sleeve design, painting and photography were by Roger Dean.