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It
was during the very first nasal whinings of
the ‘Beatles’ “Love Me Do” that were
wafting over the air waves that a group
calling themselves The Jaybirds were having
their first experience of flower power, in the
form of a Chrysanthemum Society. The focal
point of this three man outfit was Alvin Lee,
who was a short, and fair youth, who sported
skin tight cavalry twill trousers, with loose
fitting waistcoats, with his hair slicked back
in the true Elvis Presley style.
Alvin and his band performed on Friday
evenings, and sometimes on Mondays as well, at
the St. Michael’s Church Hall, Sutton in
Ashfield, at an event known to the locals as
the Sutton ‘op or pronounced as Sut’nop.
The entrance fee was just two bob, and if
Alvin and the band made a fiver on the night
they were more than satisfied. That explains
why the Sutton in Ashfield, and the District
Chrysanthemum and Dahlia Society in general
were regarded as something of a fly in the
group’s ointment, so to speak. As this small
Society used the very same hall favoured by
the huge, and frequently war like patrons of
the Sut’nop and on two weekends a year they
saw the need to hold their early / late flower
shows there. When this happened, it meant
there were to be no Friday night ‘hop’ for
the Jaybirds, and the need to find a new and
quite possibly, a much less appreciative
audience to win over, was the case. To be sure,
the patrons of the Sut’nop were not renowned
for their delicacy or restraint by any means,
but it was during this time that the last
desperate remains of the “Teddy Boy” phase
were struggling unsuccessfully for their drape
jacketed survival. |
These groups of youths, and many of them
scuffing their large pit boots menacingly along the
entrance, and on into the hall, would arrive
promptly at seven p.m. with their best ladies at
their side for the start of the evenings
entertainment. It wasn’t until about seven thirty
that the pit boots along with drainies had left
their girlfriends and lovers behind to listen to the
power chords and fast riffs of Alvin’s already
blistering lead guitar solos, and proceeded to walk
across the road to the popular Dew Drop Inn. Now
what was the reason for them leaving the concert you’re
wondering? It had nothing what’s so ever to do
with The Jaybirds, but the story is double sided. In
the first place, the good folks at St. Michael’s
Church run an alcohol free establishment, the only
refreshments served there are coke-a-cola and orange
juice, with or without ice! Secondly, the fine ale
across the street was only 1s 5d for a pint, at the
Dew Drop or at the New Cross Hotel, as the fine
folks new to Sutton referred to it. So at about nine
forty five in the evening, the Smokey thick
atmosphere filled the whole tap room, and was now
working its magic, along with all the muted oaths,
and the extravagant claims of large amounts of ale
supped, as the pit boots trooped back into the
church hall once again.
They would have remained back at the pub, and
fastened to their pints long after the final request
for their departure coming from the land-lord,
except for one important factor, they didn’t want
to miss all the action and frenzy that was going on
towards the end of the concert. Everyone knew, that
the show finished at ten p.m. and it was quarter to
the hour now. Alvin and the band could be heard at
their loudest and best. The reason for this was due
to the fact that the last part of the hour of their
performance consisted invariably of misguided
attempts to make themselves heard above the frenzy
caused by the two hundred people who were very
intent on fulfilling the mass ritual of fisticuffs.
It seems that the trouble always started with the
return of the pit boot brigade from the pub. While
they were away the younger crowd had remained at the
hall and proceeded to take liberties with the pit
boots lady friends, with a little dancing on the
floor. A very unwise decision to be sure, as these
youngsters found themselves confronted with very
large, very drunken, and very aggressive pairs of
pit boots coming directly at them.
Leave it to the Jaybirds at this point, to go into
songs like “Carol” and Johnny B. Goode.” As
Alvin’s fingers would be working overtime while he
was sweating furiously in order to drown out the
boot crunch against the bone sound! It should be
noted, that during one of these particularly
prolonged and spectacular melee, that the first long
introduction to a song was born. As back in those
days bands playing in front of a live audience,
rarely if ever moved outside of the tight and very
limited confines of the conventional three minute
format of their numbers. It was in this area that
Alvin Lee was one of the first to break into new
territory when he was forced to play a lashing,
stinging five minute guitar solo at the beginning of
the song “Money” while chairs and fists were
flying dangerously close to the stage area. Back in
those days Alvin had quite a growing reputation for
being an innovator, some people have never recovered
from the traumatic effects of the time he walked
into the hall wearing the very first pair of Cuban
heel boots ever to be seen in Sutton. This event
alone, in the face of all those pit boots, was to
say the least a brave gesture at that. Although
Alvin had a certain polish even back then.
The group’s version of “Poison Ivy” was
thought by many to be even better than The Rolling
Stones Version which was released on EP. No one but
Alvin could change from rhythm guitar to lead guitar
with quite the same panache. As all good things come
to an end, The Jaybirds were lost forever to make
way for the “Bee-Hive Hairdoes and the Pit Boots
of St. Michael’s. Moving forward, the gigs at
nearby Mansfield Palais were to be the next step up
the ladder of success, and before very long even
little Nottingham had fallen at the feet of the
blonde, speed, freak and his band. But The Jaybirds
have certainly come a long way since those meagre
days so long ago.
They’ve managed to sell a lot of records, and made
a great deal of money while touring America.
Although they’re no longer called The Jaybirds,
because somewhere along the line bass player Leo
Lyons came up with the name that would make the
world stand up and take notice of “TEN YEARS AFTER”.
|
1.
Melody
Maker 10/23/71
Ten
Years After - “A Space In Time” (Chrysalis)
Yes
folks, Mr Alvin Lee and his rock and roll band pushing out
the most relevant thing they’ve done to date. This
album’s got the guitar and vocals of a bitchy old lady:
out for trouble, and finding it. Lee
is at his meanest, with guitar and vocals that don’t
rely on frills nor finery, just quick fingers and a
poisonous,
Venemous tongue. It opens with “One Of These Days,” a
rising,
cosmic noise that lashes into a furious half-bop,
half-boogie,
taking in about every facet of Lee’s hard shifting
guitar. That all melts down into “Here They Come” soft
and acoustic, but with an underlying riff of menace.
“I’d Love To Change The World,” is another in the
more
complex
TYA book, with Lee adopting an almost angelic look on
life, but a quick “oh yeh!” rattles it onwards.
Then
there’s “Over
The Hill” the most beautiful track on the album,
tumbling with melody and TYA is the
Last
band you’d expect that from. Yeh, strings, lots of them,
and it’s as commercial as you’d ever get. With
the effect of somebody finding the rock and roll channel
on the radio, we get the real 50’s influenced
Band,
“Baby Let Me Rock and Roll You,” barrel–rolling
piano and Alvin on long metallic runs with echoed,
gutsy vocals. Short, sweet, and just dandy. Down
home blues, is here too with things like “Once There Was
A Time,” which progresses from a
plonking
jog to another high-flying racer. This track is Alvin’s
“Johnny B. Goode,” and it’s a glad one.
“Let
the Sky Falls,” brings an up-tempo “Love Like a Man”
to mind, and like every track the presence
of
Lyons, Churchill and Ric Lee is more prominent, and
commendable than ever before. Yeh, they can
certainly
play.
There’s
a few things here going to surprise a lot of TYA freaks,
but they’re going to like it, as are a lot
of
the bands critics. This is TYA experimenting, progressing,
and succeeding.
Our
meanest rock and rollers with a good, proud album.
By
R.H.
|
|
German
Article
Ten
Years After
“A
Space In Time” 1971 -
(Chrysalis 6307 500)
Facts:
Neue Ten Years After –LP mit zehn Titeln, wovon
neun Alvin Lee und einer Lee zusammen mit Leo Lyons,
Ric Lee, und Chick Churchill geschrieben hat.
Review:
Wer stampfenden Rhythmus, lichtschnelle
Gitarrensolos und kernige Bassstrukturen
erwartet-also Rock ‚n’ Roll in wohlbekannter Ten
Years After- Machart-wird vielleicht etwas enttäuscht
sein. Natürlich sind das immer noch die alten Ten
Years After: das dichte Schlagzeugspiel, Leos
eigenwilliger Bass, Alvin’s unverkennbarer Gesang
und seine einmaligen Kurz-Solis.
Aber, A Space In Time, ist dynamischer und
differenzierter geraten. Streicher, akustische
Gitarren, ungewohnt leichte, ruhigere Parts zeigen
Ten Years After sehr verspielt. Das ist für Alvin,
Leo, Ric und Chick eine wertvolle musikalische
Weiterentwicklung. Ten Years After klingt so nicht
weniger gut.
|
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A
Space In Time-was recorded at Olympic Studios, London England
and released in 1971
The
Rolling Stone Magazine Review, from October 14, 1971
“The
original material and arrangements are terribly lame…As the
Romans used to say…let the buyer beware…”
In
another article a little more positive review:
A
Space In Time was Ten Years After’s biggest commercial
success. The reasons are pretty obvious; Alvin Lee’s song
writing had improved markedly and there was far more stylistic
variety than on their previous albums.
The
big hit here was “I’d Love To Change The World,” with
its catchy acoustic guitar hook and immortal opening line,
“Everywhere is Freaks and Harries.” Other high points
include:
“Baby
Won’t You Let Me Rock ‘n’ Roll You,” the bands first
stab at a Stones-style raunch (complete with a riff from Led
Zeppelin); the country-ish romp “Once There Was A Time”;
and the gently folky and surprisingly self-deprecating “Over
The Hill,” which features strings, a move that would have
been unthinkable for this band a year or two earlier.
|
TEN
YEARS AFTER TOUR ALTERATION 1971
Ten
Years After have added a further date to their British
concert tour which opens at
Bristol Colston Hall on September 14—it is at
Bradford St. George’s Hall on September 27. But the
group’s visit to Scotland—Edinburgh Empire had
previously been announced for September 25—has been put
back to October, and revised dates are now being set for
Edinburgh, and Glasgow.
The
new Ten Years After album “A Space In Time” is
currently climbing the American LP charts.
Other dates on the tour—which
also features Supertramp and Keith Christmas—are at
Liverpool Philharmonic Hall (September 15), Newcastle City
Hall (16), London Coliseum (18), Southampton Guildhall
(20), Leicester De Montfort Hall (22), Manchester Free
Trade Hall (26), Sheffield City Hall (28), and Birmingham
Town Hall (October 4).
|
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2.
The
Private Life of Alvin Lee
- by
Simon Stable
New
Musical Express 5/6/72
Alvin
Lee of Ten Years After seems to spend more time on tour than
on holiday, but recently before
yet another American tour, I managed to get to see him at his
country home. After a pleasant and enjoyable chat he played me
a track he’d written and recorded the night before, a number
he’s thinking of putting on the next album. It was
another of his fast foot-tapers with plenty of harmonica and
guitar panning from side to side. He told me he was planning
to call the song “Holy Shit”, though he did say he might
be forced to change the title and some of the words. I’ve
known Lee for about three years and, despite his success,
I’ve always found him to be an easy-to-get-on-with guy. He
is, as the following interview may show, an interesting and
intelligent person.
After
your third album “Stonedhenge”, why did you change
producers? Why produce yourself?
Good
question. Well, when we did our first album we were very new
to the whole recording situation, and our producer was
provided with the studio and we were told to appear at ten
o’clock in the morning and make an album. And it was out in
four days. We were very green. We just recorded all the
numbers we did on tape in the studio. I don’t think at the
time we even heard it until it came out. When it finally did
go out, we were quite disappointed, really, as the result
didn’t seem to have the dynamics of the record we had played
within the studio. And we realised this was down to the
recording techniques. The second album was live, so there was
nothing to do about that. Then we decided to produce ourselves.
Still, being rather green we used the same studios that we’d
been given. It’s a Decca album, so we used a Decca studio.
It only had a four-track machine. There were no facilities for
panning stereo, and what little bit of that we did we had to
have equipment specially made.
We had this little box made to pan across an instrument,
from one side to another. That’s the reason for all the
corny panning, just
one box with one knob on. It was just a matter of getting into
the format. Getting to know what it was all about. We realised
that rather than doing what somebody else suggested, who
wasn’t really interpreting our music the way we wanted it
interpreted, anyway, it would be best doing it ourselves. Even
if you make a mistake, I believe that your own mistakes are
better recorded than someone else’s. Ten Years After
music is quite personal to us as musicians, and I think it
should be recorded our way than the way a third party sees it.
I believe of all musicians , I find it hard to respect a
musician who uses a producer, because I think that if a
musician knows what he wants to put down, he should do it
himself. That’s
where the art of recording comes in, to know how to apply your
music to the tape, to get the results in. We haven’t, to my
own personal satisfaction, done anything at all incredible,
but every album has had good bits, and we’ve learned from
them. So, hopefully, we are in control and will make them
better and better as we go along, which is the logical
progression anyway. I must be putting producers out of
business!
Do
you feel your part in “Woodstock” helped your career as a
musician or not? I mean, it put you in the public eye, but did
you not find you were playing more and more request, and less
and less of the things you actually wanted to do?
Well, we
never play request. We never play anything other than what we
want to do. However “Woodstock” did have considerable
effect. When we did “Woodstock” we didn’t realise it was
going to be such a big thing, just a festival which we had to
arrive at on time. It wasn’t until we got into a helicopter,
and flew in, that we realised what a big thing it was. Even
then, we weren’t to realise how much world attention it
would get, which it did. It was on national news in America
and everything, and that’s more than I expected, so the kind
of publicity we got from being in the “Woodstock” film
initially, like gave us a boost in popularity.
A
lot more people had heard us, where as before “Woodstock”
we were still playing the concert halls and we were still
selling enough albums, we were doing really well. After
“Woodstock”, well we found that more people were coming to
the concert halls, more people were buying the album, but it
was on the strength of “Going Home”, which is a nasty
situation. You can’t take control of it. First, like, a lot
of young kids were coming to the concerts who weren’t
particularly into what we were trying to do, merely into us
having been at “Woodstock”, and it was more or less a kind
a rock ‘n’ roll circus, which is what we’d been trying
to avoid up to then. And it got a bit out of hand, and I did
in fact regret having been in “Woodstock”…fearing it was
going too far out of hand, but we used the opportunity of the
press and that, doing Press articles to say that we wanted
people to get into the structures of the music, and listen to
what we were trying to do as well as rock ‘n’ roll.
EXHILARATED:
I explained, that we rock ‘n’ roll at the end, just to have
a good time. Roland Kirk does the same thing—plays all his
serious structures for two hours, then ends up laying on the
piano playing a twelve-bar. It’s a good way to finish off a
gig: gets
everything out of your system, and everyone can have a good
rave-up and go home feeling exhilarated, which is a good thing.
But I feel that if “Woodstock” had used “I Can’t Keep
From Crying”, it might have been a bit more helpful to us,
‘cos it would have spotlighted the more constructive stuff
we’re doing. But all in all, now that “Woodstock” has
died down, I don’t think it has made much difference. It
might have turned-on a younger audience, maybe they’re now
into something else. I find the straight pop, the
entertainment side of music, has a very select audience.
It’s not something we get involved in. Like singles, we
don’t get involved in them, because you have a hit single,
then “Top Of The Pops”, it doesn’t bring anything that
progresses the band. Like a band that’s nowhere can have a
hit single, and suddenly start getting a reasonable turn out
for their concerts and probably better contracts for their
next single. But they’ve got to keep on recording hit
singles, and to do that there are people that specialise in
aiming hit singles at the mass market. It’s a disgusting ,
soul-destroying kind of business to get into. I believe the
musician should record the sounds he likes and wants to
express, and a lot of it as far as we’re concerned is left
to chance.
When
TYA took off it wasn’t because we aimed to write music at
the audience, it was just that people had picked up on what we
were doing, and the more we did it, the more people got into
it. That’s all it’s ever been really.
When thinking of Ten Years After, one usually thinks of
Alvin Lee rather than the rest of the band. Do you ever feel
any resentment from the others? TYA is a co-op, we all get
paid the same; we all attempt to do the same amount of work;
we all tour the same, because I’m the singer and the lead
guitarist, it was quite on the cards I should be singled out
as the front man, because I stand in the spotlight. It was
intended originally, when we started out, we hoped to make it
four people on an equal level. It was through nothing to do
with ourselves that this Alvin Lee business  got picked out, we
didn’t encourage it.
We had to disown this new Decca album
they’re bringing out of old tracks, because it’s got Alvin
Lee and Co., and that’s the very thing we’ve been trying
to avoid. We talked about it when it happened and said,
“look, this looks like it’s going to happen, and there’s
nothing much we can do about it.” When people say Alvin Lee
this and that at concerts, I usually personify what they
either like or don’t like
about the band. It’s just how they refer to the band.
You yourself say that when one thinks of TYA, some people do
think of an Alvin Lee back-up band. To our minds it isn’t.
It’s not a thing to really get concerned about ourselves,
it’s irrelevant to what we’re trying to do. It’s a kind
a super-star role, which we’ve never encouraged, it’s just
a kind of misunderstanding. I mean, I can explain myself
completely to anyone who calls me a super-star, but I know
very well they don’t know me, they’re just saying that
without enough knowledge, so there’s no answer to it. It’s
a shame that everybody can’t understand every musician that
exists for the true fact of what he’s trying to do. Eric
Clapton is your number one guitarist, and so many people adore
Eric Clapton and hate everyone else for no logical reason,
it’s just the way things go. You can’t control it, it’s
just the way people think.
Your
last album “A Space In Time” didn’t do incredibly well
in England. Do you feel this had anything to do with the fact
that American copies were imported and on sale long before its
British release? Or was it that the album wasn’t up to
standard?
Well,
I wouldn’t say up to standard, I think the standard as far
as we are concerned was better in some ways. The major reason
it didn’t do as well in your album charts was due to us not
releasing it at the right time in England. We were pressured
to get a release date with the new Columbia label in the
States, so we released it there first. It was three months
before it was released in Europe, and a lot of European sales
were lost because of the import shops buying it from the
States.
NO
IMPORTS: That helped the sales in the USA, it was a gold album
in the States, the first one, so obviously it was received
there better than anything else we’d done. That’s the
reason I was given when I said “what’s happened to the
last album?” I think it’s true. Our next album is going to
be released on the same day world-wide, so every market that
sells it will be selling their own copies, not importing it
in.
What
did you feel about your concert at the Colosseum. Was the
Sunday night better than the midnight, Saturday?
Oh
yeah, The midnight show was a bit slow, the audience seemed
tired. Those things like having to wait an hour from the time
you got in, to when the first band played, always affect a
concert. That can be the difference between going down well
and having chairs thrown at you, whether the road managers and
equipment function well, and it all comes together in time or
not. If it doesn’t go well there’s nothing you can do
except get it together as quickly as possible. I wasn’t
disappointed with any of the concerts.To my mind there’s no
good concert hall in London. We didn’t play the Rainbow
unfortunately, that might have changed my mind.
You
see, we were playing to four balconies at the Colosseum, an
eighth of the audience. With our spherical array of speakers
and horns we can hope to cover about a hundred degrees of
sound, which is about forty percent getting good sound. It’s
just acoustic problems and technical difficulties in
projecting the sound into the audience, which is always a
problem where ever you go.
UNFORTUNATE:
There will always be people getting bass boom, always
be people hearing too much guitar, too much vocal. I think
people who sit in the middle, about ten or fifteen rows back,
get a good sound and know what’s going on. It’s
unfortunate that someone standing at the back gets the sound
blocked off by people standing up in the front.
It’s
Better At Festivals, in Fact?
Right,
you’ve got no acoustic problems, and you’re in the open
air, which is always nice. There is a problem being in the
open air that is easy to overcome, you just have to use a lot
of power and a lot of speakers. It’s when you get sound
bouncing around halls, hitting the ceiling and bouncing back.
When you play loud, it’s a different case. You get good
sound drifting across an auditorium, reaching a listener up on
an acoustic level, but when you’ve got a lot of sound coming
out of the speakers, then suddenly the corners of the room,
and what the ceilings are made of, start affecting the sound.
These are the problems, more or less.
You’ve
just been on an extensive European tour and you frequently
tour America and Japan. Which countries do you prefer to play
most and why?
Well,
it changes, at the moment I really enjoy playing in England.
The last concert we did, you could hear a pin drop all night
long, and people really sat listening, getting into what we
were doing. When it came to like rock ‘n’ roll at the end,
they got into that and had a jive around, which is—as far as
the format of our concerts go—perfect . More recently than
that we did the colleges, which was like getting back to the
roots-razzle-bit after playing Madison Square Gardens and the
Philadelphia Spectrum. Twenty thousand people. Really it was
almost a shock. The first college we did was at Reading
University: it’s just a little wooden hall with about 1,300
people in it. You
go on stage and there’s none of this Ten Years After bit,
awoah! You just walked out and said hullo, and people were
sitting there and it was like getting back to the old club bit,
I really enjoyed it. I felt you had to really kind’ve work;
get things to work on stage. At a really big concert it
becomes a bit like a circus, often comparable to feeding lions
to the Christians at the Colosseum in Rome. You stir up so
much excitement: by the time the band goes on you sometimes
feel that what you play isn’t that important. That’s a
wrong feeling to take, but sometimes it occurs to you when you
do a lot of concerts. When you walk on stage and people cheer
for two minutes you feel flattered but are they going to
listen to what we are going to do? And half the while,
they’re cheering through the first three numbers as well.
They’re just having a good time, which is great, but I like
people to listen to the music. If you go down well I like to
feel it’s been earned—rather than just happened.
Are
you going to do any festivals here?
I
hope so. I want to see festivals continue myself, for more
reasons than one. I don’t know of any plans to do a festival,
but we’ll spend time in England after we’ve recorded the
next album. We’ve got possible dates for festivals, but
nothing’s been confirmed.
On
your last album you added strings to your last track—are you
in fact thinking of adding horns on the next one?
Yeah,
thinking of it. On an album we try and show where our music is
at, but for variety, we try and have a couple of tracks to
play around with, and we always find it nice to do a track
which is out of character so everybody says ‘Why Good Lord
This is Nothing Like Ten Years After!!!! So therefore, if you put a nice soft mellow un-Ten Years
After between two Hard TYA tracks, it adds to the overall
variety of the album. You don’t get this grind, grind, grind,
grind of some rock albums, because they’re all the same
tempo throughout. So for that reason alone, we really enjoyed
doing the strings on the last album.
It was just an experiment to see what we could do with
strings, and I’m really happy with it. It’s one of the
best string things there is. It had very little to do with
TYA’s music as people would think of it, but there again,
music doesn’t really mean that it’s just what people have
picked up through things like “Woodstock”, and variety is
quite important to us.
We’ve
just been recording in the South of France. We hired a big
house there and the Rolling Stones’ mobile truck, and
whether we were influenced by being in the Rolling Stones’
truck, or whether it’s that the Rolling Stones truck has its
own sound, I’m not sure—but a lot of the tracks we did
there sounded very similar to the Stones. So rather than just
forget them, just for a joke we got a saxophonist from
Supertramp to overdub some sax parts on it and beef it up. If
you listen to the last Stones album without the overdubs
it’s quite surprising, and if you listen to some Beatles
tracks without the overdubs there’s nothing there. Some
people specialise in overdubs, but we don’t. We specialise
in the basic four instruments. But I don’t see any reason
why, for one or two tracks, we don’t have a
nine-hundred-piece orchestra just for the variety of it all.
It’s a groove to do, so we’ll probably get into something
like that.
INFLUENCE:
Your
best album to my mind was “Cricklewood Green”, and the
best track on that was “Circles”. I liked it because it
was acoustic. Are you planning more things in this vein?
This
was a side trip again. It was a direct influence from
“Astral Weeks”
by Van Morrison, 1968
which moved me considerably at the time,
and I used that kind of format; the folk acoustic format, to
say something I wanted to say. Which was life going round in
circles, which is a pretty…..well, it was just a phase I was
going through. I mean. I still think that way sometimes. It
was more of a folk outlet to me….more like a truthful
thought….a thoughtful thought being sung instead
of spoken.
I
haven’t had any other ideas along the same vein. We could
always do something like that. We did acoustic stuff on the
first album and third album. It’s not planned. It was where
we were at, really. I mean, the last album showed we could
play some nice tunes, so I’m happy with that, that’s past.
I think we have to show now, more of our expression of our own
selves and our instruments.
| New
Musical Express, May
13, 1972
This
is the concluding interview by Simon Stable with Ten
Years After guitarist Alvin Lee. Here Lee talks about
his film ambitions, and discusses Ringo Starr’s
venture in the same field.
Simon:
Alvin, I know you’ve been into photography and making
your own private films for some time. Are you planning
in the future to make a full length feature film. With
perhaps your own electronic sound track?
Alvin:
I’d very much like to. At the moment I’m finding out
how much practical experience I lack to do that. However
perseverance could bring something out like that along
those lines.
Looking
at the world of commercial films, it’s rather
disenchanting ---a bit like looking at pop singles.
I’d much rather be involved in something artistic, in
making a documentary of what a camera sees rather than
making a story about whatever---combining visuals and
sound to create an environment for the watcher.
All of this very much in the air at the moment.
It’s all gossip, depending on what type of filming or
video system is going to come out.
If
you can get your hands on a video studio that will
convert your tape into film, you’ve got a lot more
technical control with what you can do with the visuals.
I’m well ahead on sound, I’m quite confident I can
do a good soundtrack to any movie, and I’m quite
confident I can do a good movie, but I’m not quite
sure what direction I want it to be yet.
Simon:
Ringo’s doing this documentary of a rock ‘n’ roll
star…(Note: I believe this movie to be “That’ll Be
The Day” released in 1973 which also
features Keith Moon).
Alvin:
I wouldn’t want to get involved in anything like that.
I mean it could be good actually. Anything can be good,
but more likely than not it will be more like light
entertainment than an artistic masterpiece. Ideally a
film I make will be more like an album, being kind of
what happens with the camera with the sound at the time
of making it, and whether it’s good or bad will depend
on whether the heads behind the film are together. To a
point, you have to pick something good to say in a film,
the way that you have to pick something good to say in a
song. It’s the way that you do it that makes it
artistic or a rip-off, isn’t it?
Simon:
Would you like to direct a film yourself?
Alvin:
I’d like to be involved in it, but I’d like
practical experience, meet somebody whose done some work
on films. Obviously, it’d help me a lot. I think I’d
have a few original ideas to contribute.
Simon:
To get into another completely different kettle of fish,
as they say. What do you feel about Decca’s release of
Alvin Lee & Company. I know we mentioned it earlier,
but we didn’t completely go into it. Could you tell me
about the material on that particular album?
Alvin:
It’s left over from albums. It’s left over from
“Stonehenge”. “B” sides of singles which were
put out and were nothing to do with us anyway. When you
do an album, the record company will take a single off.
It’s part of their bread and butter.
You can’t tell them they can’t. It’s like
saying you can’t have any money. “Well”, you say
“if you release a single it’s the record company
promotion for the album, and not a single. We don’t do
“Top Of The Pops” and we don’t do any television .
We won’t do any promotion on it---so please yourself.”
So they release them for promotion of the album, and
this album is the “B” sides.
One’s
a very early single we did at the same time we recorded
the first album. It’s not too bad: there’s some nice
jammers and things on it. At the time we turned it down
for release, so obviously we wouldn’t have chosen it
now. Everybody’s interested to see what kind of
material we decided not to put on our albums, so it’s
probably a good album for them to buy, but apart from
that, they didn’t consult us on what they call the
packaging of it. They did say they were going to use a
photograph of me and call it “Alvin Lee and Co.” If
they had I would have said no. What in fact I said was
“If they’re going to release an album of rubbish and
left over tracks, why don’t we look around ourselves
and get some good stuff put on? But they didn’t want
to have anything to do with that.
Simon:
Would you object to Decca releasing “The Best
Of…”?
Alvin:
You can’t object. We have a recording contract which
everybody has to sign---they own the songs. We can’t
re-record any songs which we recorded with Decca.
They’ve got thirty-five original songs, some of which
we play completely differently now because of those
deals, that we signed when we were a bit green. We
don’t even own the rights to play the stuff, which is
sad. But it’s irrelevant really, because we’re more
concerned in doing new stuff. I don’t mind albums
being released, as long as people know they’re
leftovers. If they did do a “Best Of” it could be
good and it could be bad. There’s nothing we could do
about it. The thing is, we could do a better one, but
they won’t communicate with us about it.
Simon:
How long have you been together as a band, and how long
in the present form?
Alvin:
About four and a half years. There’s no reason for the
band not to continue in its form for a long, long time.
A band as old as we are has a problem in keeping
ourselves in tune with the music we play. The more we
play, the more rehearsals we do, because the more used
we get to hearing what we do.
When
you’re doing an extensive tour---playing every
night---what you’re doing is performing your music to
the audience every night. After awhile, although there
are subtle differences which a musician could get into,
it does tend to sound much of a muchness. You tend to
fall into what you did last night because “that
sounded good enough”. That’s the kind of attitude
that comes in. It’s really hard playing every night
and travelling on a plane. You don’t have much time to
rehearse or think of new ideas. This is why we work in
tours rather than just play. We do a tour for a month,
play every night, then throw new ideas around. If we can
come out with three new numbers for the next tour, well
that’s enough to get into. We recorded every night
ourselves. We always record ourselves live, and we
listen back to the new numbers, make changes to them,
and they just progress.
Perhaps
the way to stay interested in your own music is to keep
it progressing, keep it moving. There’s no limitation
in my mind as to what four musicians can do, as long as
they want to keep progressing. As long as all the
members of Ten Years After want to play, and want to
play better, and want to play the music to people, then
there’s no limitations. The only limitations are in
your own head, as soon as you start saying you’re fed
up and you don’t want to do this or that---you’re on
the downward slope.
It
does happen, we do get fed up, instead of breaking up we
rehearse, which is the right way of doing things, and
although we probably won’t be playing the same numbers
in five years time, I don’t see any reason why we
shouldn’t be still making music in five years time.
I
don’t see why there shouldn’t be people that want to
hear Ten Years After in five years time.
There
might not be as many people as now---we might phase out
of popularity, but we don’t stop playing just because
fifty thousand don’t want to hear us. We used to play
to a hundred people, and I’d imagine we still would,
if it got around to that again.
We’re
all opportunists---that’s about the nearest to being a
business musician---but we’re still not out-and-out
entertainers. We don’t put on a show---tell jokes and
things like that, a lot of the business is getting into
that now. You can go and see Jethro Tull and you get an
actual theatrical presentation, which is OK….but I
find it rather limiting to the band, because once
you’ve got your presentation set---once you’ve done
it five times---it all starts seeming like a cliché to
me. If we ever do a tour with a bad band, and they use
the same jokes every night, it all seems a bit
un-artistic to me.
Simon:
Last year, it might have been two years ago now, you
nearly went to Russia, but you didn’t go there---are
you in the future planning to do Iron Curtain countries?
Alvin:
Well no, That’s one thing that “Woodstock” stopped
actually, because we were going to play the Iron Curtain
countries on a basis of a cultural exchange.
“Woodstock” led them to believe it would be more a
rock ‘n’ roll concert than a cultural
exchange----which in all fairness, it probably would. So
I don’t think there’s much possibility of that
happening now.
We
get loads of letters now from Iron Curtain countries,
saying they can’t buy our albums there. They’re so
suppressed, silly things like they can’t buy a Ten
Years After album or anything. It really affects these
people and they write and say they’ll exchange their
Czechoslovakian folk records for anything we can let
them have. It’s sad, sad.
Something
like music, man you should be able to go and listen to,
whatever you want. Ideally you should be able to go
wherever you want and say what ever you want, but it
does seem difficult in this over populated world.
Special Thanks
to Simon's wife Judith for allowing us to use her
personal copy of this third article, written by Simon
Stable.
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3.
Melody Maker
9/16/72
Alvin
Lee Talks About:
The
New Ten Years After Album
"Rock
and Roll Music to the World "
Alvin
Lee accepts abuse with equanimity, or so it appears. He
has received slightly more than his fair share
over
the years. And while he tends to smile philosophically
after being berated, those close to him reveal
that
the barbs of critics hurt him just as much as the next
rock n’ roll super star. The
barbs have been shot at a man whose band has been a shade
too popular to be good for him, and whose
guitar
technique is a mite too nifty to be healthy. The blast has
come because Ten Years After are not the
world’s
GREATEST little rock and roll band, even though they were
one of the stars of Woodstock, the movie and the
festival.
They
have their faults, but if they have been guilty of selling
their image too hard, then it becomes a minor offence
when
one compares them to some of the current visions emerging
on the platforms of rock. Where
one can fault Ten Years After is not on grounds of
exaggerated self-importance . No one who knows
Alvin
Lee, Chick Churchill, Ric Lee or Leo Lyons, would accuse
them of being egotists. Their
problem has been to establish a stronger musical identity
for the band, other than as a showcase for fast
Moving
guitar work. Their albums from “Sssh” onwards have
tried to break out and develop, but they
have
rarely produced exceptional original material.
As
sidemen Chick on organ, Ric on drums and Leo on bass have
not shone as brightly as Alvin. But Ten Years
After
have stuck together. And that is because they enjoy being
together and in consequence have become
one
of the longest surviving British bands. Alvin’s
personal problem has been a shyness an inability to mix
with fellow musicians and the music scene.
While
other guitarist and singers gaily leap from group to group
guest on albums, jam in clubs and rave at
the
discos, Alvin fronts his group, then returns to a country
retreat. But now he is within an ace of solving
one
problem and he is working on the other. For Ten Years
After have recorded an album that ignores the
passions
of fashion , and simply represents what they do best---a
little rock, a modicum of roll, and the blues.
The
new Ten Years After album is called “Rock And Roll Music
To The World,” as is certainly their best
since
“Undead.” Although not a “live” album it was cut
on the Stones’ mobile unit in France and gives
TYA
a spontaneity and brilliance that has been lacking on
previous albums.
More
surprising has been Alvin’s determination to get out and
blow in different environments. He has been
recording
at a friend’s home studio with American gospel singer
Mylon LeFevre , and guitarist
Steve
Sanders, both from Georgia. Mylon and Steve have been
staying at Alvin’s home, a Tudor house, set in
spacious
grounds, once isolated from the world, but suddenly
threatened by massive motor way works which
tear
through the soil a few hundred yards away.
Alvin
is so keen to jam that he even purchased a minibus in
which he can drive his musicians around if
they
are
stuck for transport.
“I
used to drive Ten Years After around when we first started,”
he revealed sitting in the low-beamed lounge
surrounded
by toys, gadgets and guitars. “I used to drive to London
before they built the M1. Because I did the driving,
the others had to unload, although Leo used to pretend he
was the manager. “He’d ring up after a gig
and
ask how we had gone down. “Mr Lyons the manager here.
Were the group to your satisfaction’?” Alvin
laughed
at the memories stirred by the sight of the white Commer
parked on the gravel drive. Once they were
the chief group transporters, before the mighty Transit
took the road. “I
only bought it yesterday.
You
know, it’s almost therapeutic when a group travels
together in a van. It’s like being married. You get downs
and ups, but if you don’t travel together you don’t
know each other or play together.
On
our last European tour we shared a bus with Patto and they
are an incredible band and incredible
People.
We all had a great time on that tour.” But how will
Alvin use his new van? “Oh, if I’m going to a session
in
London, or if I have to pick up a drummer for
a rehearsal. They always have transport problems.
It will also help
me to keep my driving down to a reasonable speed, as
I’ve got two endorsements driving my Jaguar. I’ve
got
a Triumph TR3 as well, and I wouldn’t part with it, but
it’s a real bone shaker.”
Who
has Alvin been jamming with?
“This
guy called Mylon from Georgia. He’s asleep upstairs at
the moment. He’s a gospel singer from Macon.
He
used to have his own big band, a 13 piece. We did some
gigs with him in the States , and his band was
incredible,
although it never took off.
His music has got that laid back beat and it’s
much less frantic than
what
I have been playing. I’ve been really enjoying playing.
That style, and I’ve become a lot more relaxed.
“We’ve
been recording with Ian Wallace on drums from King Crimson.
He’s incredible And we had B.J. Wilson on
drums
from Procol for
a couple of tracks. Leo played bass and although nobody
has heard of any of the numbers,
it
really slotted together well.”
Alvin
thought it was time to wake up Mylon, as it was around 4
pm and he removed a hunting horn from the
fireplace.
He gave a deafening blast and the distinctive moan of a
gospel singer from Georgia filtered
from the
minstrel
gallery overhead. Alvin acknowledged the moan with a cry
of “Noy!” “That’s
the Patto group call.
You’ll
hear that a lot if Patto are around.” It seemed a fair
warning.
Mylon
lurched downstairs, a young American with quite a bit of
hair around his face, blessed with a beautiful
drawl
that made Bonnie Bramlett sound like John Cleese. “This
is Mylon,” said Alvin with some pride.
“We
really got off on his music in the States. When he sings
about the south bound train for Tallahassee it’s
all
real. When I sing, it’s only how I IMAGINE it all.
It’s probably only psychological, but it gives you the
feeling
it’s all right to sing the blues when Mylon is around.”
But
how did Alvin relate Ten Years After to his new friends.
Presumably the band would continue? “Sure---right.
Ten
Years After has become itself. The music is an
amalgamation of all four of us. On the next LP we strived
to
make
it natural music from the band with nothing different,
just for the sake of it. It’s more of a rock album.
The
music of Ten Years After is pretty hard rock, but my
listening tastes have mellowed. I like Stephen Stills
and
Poco and I figured it would be nice to play that way as well. And
I’m particularly interested in meeting
other
musicians and jamming, although I’d never felt like it
before.”
“You
see, I had a socialising problem. The music business
should be like a big club. On the surface
it is
but
relationships don’t go deeper unless you work at it. And
that’s what I’m doing, and it’s widening my
horizons
a lot. I take
other people’s music a lot more seriously. I’d be into
any music outside of what we were doing
if
it was ”heavy” and progressive on the albums. We
always like to end our sets with some rock but we wanted
to
try and do something else as well, so that people could
hear a bit of everything.
“We
recorded the new album in a chateau in France. We did five
days rehearsal then spent five days with the
Stones’
mobile. At the time we thought the results hadn’t been
that good, and the experiment hadn’t worked.
But
when we got the tapes together, it sounded really good.
It’s captured an atmosphere on record that we
have
never got before. Like, the drums were just set up in a
room lined with marble, and the drums got a
bright
sound you couldn’t repeat in studio conditions.”
While
Alvin is pleased with the new TYA album he admitted he had
been itching to try something new.
“Everybody
enjoys playing with different musicians from time to time
and after awhile a regular group does
become
like work, when you earn your living from it. And then it
becomes harder to find really new things.”
By
now Mylon was beginning to open his eyes to the fading
afternoon light. How did he meet up with Alvin?
“We
met about two and half years ago in New York. I had a band
called Holy Smoke and we jammed
together.
Alvin told me to call up anytime I came over to England
and me and Steve came over about six weeks
ago.
I quite the road last December. We only had 91 days off in
two and half years, and it was getting hard.
We
were a 13-piece band, and we worked all over the States.”
Mylon has a couple of fine albums to his credit,
including
one on the Cotillion label, produced by his friend Allen
Toussaint, famed for his association with
Lee
Dorsey. Mylon has been managed by Felix Pappallardi, and
has also recorded with Little Richard. He
has
an open soulful vocal style. The recordings that Alvin and
Mylon have made together are a revelation.
Although
only rough mixes from a home studio, the tracks they
played sounded like a gold album, with Alvin
emerging
in a startling new light. The two seem to have a good
effect on each other. Said Mylon: “We’ve done
about five or six songs together. I was up at 5 am writing.
In fact yesterday was one of the best days
in
my life.” He grinned
with pleasure at Alvin as the tapes began to roll,
while Steve shook his head,
uttering
a soft “wow” as Alvin’s guitar pushed along the
vocals. The first number “It Ain’t Easy,” showed Alvin
in a completely different light, far away from his usual
jet propelled style. Rich, mellow chords and
an
easy country feel prevailed, but even so, his remarkable
technique marked him as a guitarist of
distinction.
“This
is all original music,”
said Steve. “I just play
rhythm guitar and sing the back up vocals, but we
all
believe
in it. Alvin plays some guitar on this that kills me.”
There was some more fine playing on “Starry Eyed
Child”
and “One More Chance,” all with a relaxed down home
beat, that recalled the Band or the Byrds. Did
Alvin
sing on any of the tracks? “No, faced with that Georgia
accent, I don’t make it. Mylon wants to take
this
eight track recording back to Georgia and get it
transferred to a 16 track. Then I’ll go over there with
Leo and
finish it off.”
Next
Alvin played the new Ten Years After album “Rock And
Roll Music To The World,” which is due out
tomorrow
(Friday). And the band sounded much better for their fresh,
frank approach. The tunes concentrate
on
a solid rock beat, mixed with some rave-ups like “Choo
Choo Mama.” “We kept it all very basic,” said
Alvin,
“but there are some really good solos from Chick. Listen
to this one on ‘Standing At The Station.’
It
took nearly six hours to mix the Moog synthesiser and
organ tracks together. As
Alvin blew some tremendously exciting guitar solos,
particularly on “Station,” which climaxes with an
express
train thundering across the speakers, it seemed this will
prove the best album TYA have produced.
“The
first two albums we did were representative of how we
played at the time. ‘Stonehenge,’ the third one
was
influenced by flower power, and the others were aimed to
be progressive. This
is just how we are now.”
By
Chris Welch
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4.
From
Disc Magazine 11/25/72
Alvin Lee …Wanted To Stay Together
Alvin Lee is rather like a man amongst boys. Rock, with
its temporary nature, is constantly coming up with
fresh faces to titillate the fickle public, but Alvin
Lee has survived it all with the help of Leo Lyons, Chick Churchill and Ric Lee, four people dedicated to
the furtherance of the music of Ten Years After. We were backstage at Bristol’s Colston Hall after the
final gig of TYA’s recent British tour. It was a marvellous gig with “Spoonful” and “Crossroads”
brought back into the set after a long absence.
We headed back towards London, veered off at the
Reading by-pass and manoeuvred our way through
narrow lanes which ultimately brought us to our
destination—a rambling old home, kept in immaculate
repair, set in fifty acres of land.
After listening to some tapes put down in the States,
we had an hilarious supper, a bottle of champagne to celebrate
Lorraine’s birthday, a couple of tunes
played by Alvin on the piano and a lot of fun watching the men play billiards.
TYA have become something of a rock institution. Is
there any one thing
that has kept you together? Alvin says: “There are a
few things, but the main thing is that we wanted to stay together. It isn’t always easy, but if you
look for a way to work problems out rather than split up,
it’s much better. All bands have arguments, but we
look for a way to work it out.
“Each one of us is free to do what we want, to a
degree, and it’s our own music. A lot of people say they are
still playing the same way, but that is the style of
the band. Breaking up seemed entirely negative to us.”
Yours has been a natural progression as opposed to one
that followed the trends. Was that purposeful?
“It has always been part of our policy not to force
any progression. In the old days, as it were, all the bands I knew had to play popular numbers, figuring that you
would get more work like that, but that was a matter of
doing gigs at the weekend to get some money rather than
having any long-term thoughts about playing your own music.
After a few years, we got to thinking about it and we
decided we would best be known for playing the kind of music we liked. “Having been involved with a bit
of the Tin Pan Alley side, I really didn’t like it. I used to do guitar sessions and they would tell you
what style to play—that you were playing too much—
and it was awful. We decided we were going to be free
and play our own music which we did for about a year and a half with no success at all (much laughter),
but we still kept at it.” Ten Years After were and still
are the most blues-orientated band to find mass acceptance. Why do you think you succeeded where others failed?
Alvin replies: “In all fairness, John Mayall was a large
inspiration, due to the fact that he was earning a
living playing his own kind of music. This gave us a great
deal of encouragement to try to do a similar thing on
our own level. Mayall’s group was a purist blues band, where as we interpreted the blues in a way which
offended the purist. “I think there is a lot of luck
involved because I
know a lot of good musicians who are now doing nothing, just
because they didn’t have the
perseverance. “You see, the one thing our band had in
common when it was rough was that we didn’t have anything else we could do. We didn’t have a trade.
The only way I could earn a living was to do a gig in a pub which was all experience
anyway.”
Do you think Charisma plays an important part?
“That of course, is in the eye of the beholder.
I’ve always liked to believe there wasn’t such a thing but,
of course, there is. Take ‘Woodstock’ as an example.
After we had been at Woodstock the attitude towards us was entirely different. We seem to have acquired
some kind of prestige from being on celluloid. “Some people
are totally affected by it and others not at all, and
they are the kind of people I can get along with. I can’t
get along with people who sit overawed just because you
were in a ‘Woodstock’ film.”
However, even though you have tried to take the
emphasis off yourself by having the rest of the band do solos,
most of the attention is still focused on yourself.
Would you agree that some people have more of an aura than
others? “Sure. You get a much more positive reaction if you
have something that people can either relate to or recognise.
For instance, there’s Elvis Presley whom I, as a 13-
year old, hero-worshipped. I was totally in an aura which
I had made up in my own mind about him, and everything
he did was fantastic and there was no knocking it— until I eventually went off him and, in fact hated him.
You see, no rationalisation at all. “It could have been
because he changed, because I still think his early recordings
were incredible. They have so much earthiness—so much country funk, but he then went into that plastic
Hollywood pop star game and his music became stereotyped.
“ I went to see him in Las Vegas and he was like an
Elvis Presley impersonator. He really overdid himself.
“I think if he had just played his own music instead
of relating to all those other images, he would have been
better off —commercially as well. To get any lasting pleasure,
you have to believe in what you do. You should take it
seriously. “With Ten Years After, the thing is I
don’t lead it. I may stand at the front and write the songs,
but I don’t tell anyone what to play. It’s the music of
four people and it grows itself and finds its own level.”
Your guitar style has become very distinctive. Did this
happen gradually?
“It was very gradual. Originally, all my phrases were
either made up or copied off records—most of them I adapted from other things. Very few of them were
original. But the more I played them the more I twisted
them around and other people brought my attention to
it. “I would say ‘I played this solo just like it was
on the record’ and they’d say ‘it’s nothing
like it’ and play the record. It would have changed without
my noticing it.
“However, I did become aware that my own style was
developing—in fact, I got really paranoid as to what
I should do if I didn’t because I didn’t really
know what I was doing. I figured it was a matter of listening to good records, picking things up, adding to them and
interpreting them my own way.”
This follow-through attitude you have towards your
music also seems to apply to your interest in
electronic music and photography. Is it true of you
generally? Alvin says: “It’s nice to think you think that, but
the only thing I believe is that if you want to do something
or be involved in it, then you have to learn all the
angles about it. “Even if you want to run a sweet shop,
there’s a right way to do it. It’s a help just
talking to people who know something about it, but best of all
is actually doing it. “It’s one thing to think
something out perfectly, but doing it is something else.
“I’ve always basically been
a thinker and I’ve had to adapt to doing. What I do have is
the ability to be involved one hundred percent.” We haven’t had a “live” album from TYA since “Undead.”
Can we expect another one? “That’s on. We’ve avoided another ‘live’
album for the same reason we’ve avoided putting slow
blues’ numbers on recent albums—because it seemed too easy.
It just didn’t seem right to put down an album in one evening instead of working for three months in a
studio. “However, I’m convinced that it would be a good
time to do one now and we’re going to record with the
Stones’ mobile studio which we tested out on ‘Rock and
Roll Music to the World’.
“We’re going to record four dates on the Continent
in January and mix the tapes in Los Angeles where
there are good studios for mixing. “If it turns out
all right, then we’ll definitely release it. That’s our
next plan.”
What about the U.S. hysteria that followed
“Woodstock.” Has it eased up?
“That kind of flashed up and flashed off really. It
was a bit of mass media exposure
and it went the way I always figured it would—just a flash in the pan.”
Author Unknown
"Pro and
Con" Review by a "Quintessence" Fan
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