10.

New Music Express 3/16/74 

Monday Afternoon in Reading, and the time seems right for Alvin Lee to come clean. With a Rainbow concert set  for himself and “friends”, plus rumours of a possible solo career, it’s been looking more and more likely that  Ten Years After are finally about to self-destruct.  Lee’s activities lately have been somewhat hard to follow. Over the last year he’s drastically cut down his work with TYA, recorded an album with Mylon Le Fevre----a white gospel singer from Georgia who still “believes” despite some varied drug experiences –and is currently recording with musicians like Boz, Tim Hinckley and Ian Wallace. Add to that the fact that Lee has not exactly been over complimentary about Ten Years After,  after referring to them as “a travelling jukebox,” quite frequently, and not with any great affection.

 So what goes on?   “ONLY ALVIN might have some ideas on that.” muttered a stray engineer, toying with various mechanisms at  Lee’s Reading home studio and indicating a certain amount of bewilderment himself. This was before Alvin himself lumbered in a few moments later, wearing the usual clogs and denims but looking a good deal fresher than he has for some time. One feels that although Lee isn’t the most obvious rock casualties, his experiences of almost continual touring with Ten Years After left him stunned for a spell.  

 Right through he hung on to a sort of South Yorkshire accent –pronouncing fun as ‘fon’—but the whole Woodstock  Guitar-Hero phase and the huge amounts of money that rolled in afterwards left him with a general blankness. He firstly found it difficult to cope, then later once explained how he found it hard to relate to anybody outside the rock world at all. At the time, he over compensated for that with a kind of flashy panache that quickly became transparent, especially on stage. Subsequent attacks on the size of his ego no doubt added to his discomfort.  Now he appears more acclimatised, and he’ll be the first to admit that his work outside TYA and in his own studios with musicians of his choice has been what’s really helped him out.  

 Meanwhile, the rest of his house and property—the acres of ground, stables, and rows of greenhouses—go more or less ignored except for the attentions of a couple of gardeners who toil away daily, apparently oblivious to the musicians who come and go. Lee has also had to devote time lately to the promotion of his album with Mylon. Also on the Rainbow concert since his record company, Chrysalis, didn’t seem “over-interested” in either project. There’s the distinct impression that as they’re basically Ten Year’s After’s label, they don’t want to get involved in anything that might split the band for good, presumably feeling that TYA still have a few more profitable years to run. It seems to have been left to Lee himself to look after the advertising and the organisation of his solo work.  

 Ironically, Lee feels his activities outside the band have really saved TYA—and right now he claims he has no thoughts of leaving. “The fact is. I don’t think Ten Years After would be going now if I hadn’t had the opportunity to do something else. Last year there was no doubt it was getting predictable, but you really can’t fight that. You can’t suddenly say: ‘Right, we’ll go on the road with a new sound, new material and new attitude. ‘You can’t just do that to order. “I’m not going to be the one to say Ten Years After is finished because I don’t really think it’s up to me to do that. It would have to be up to the band as a whole. “Truth is, I’m just not satisfied playing for them alone and at present I get more satisfaction out of these other things. But there are still no plans to specifically break TYA up. At any time there could be something to put them together or tear them apart, I don’t know.

 “There aren’t many musicians who can play in about three different bands at once, but I don’t see why it can’t be done or why I shouldn’t try. All I know is that something like the Rainbow concert is better than sitting at home watching TV or going out on the road playing all the same old numbers again. “There’s nothing to suggest that if the Rainbow concert is a success then I’ll become a solo performer. Playing with a few different musicians has just meant that I’ve learned more in the last year than I have in the previous four, which can only help Ten Years After.”  

 ACCORDING to Lee, the new album TYA recorded with the hopeful title of “Positive Vibrations” is more constructive than recent records. Again, he says, the home studio has helped in allowing the band more time to come up with something new. It seems they’ve even been moving a little away from the usual, almost standard 12 bar rock/blues. “I mean, we’ve tried to avoid just jams and verse-chorus numbers, I’ve tried to play the role of producer more and tried to create something more structured –to think about it more in advance rather than to just let everybody play it, and how it comes out is the finished product. That’s what’s happened in the past.” He closes the subject for the moment by saying he doesn’t really see very much point in talking further about TYA, since the Rainbow concert is uppermost in his mind. But he still hasn’t formulated any particular plans on what will take place. As yet, only the line-up is roughly settled. The material has yet to be  worked out. “It’s not going to be the heavy rock that people expect from Ten Years After it’s not going to be the sort of country stuff from the Mylon album—it’s going to be something completely different again.” He says definitely.  “We’d thought we’d play the gig simply because we’ve been having such a good time in the studio.  It’s the obvious thing to do—almost it’s an alternative. “Then, in July, Mylon’s coming over again and we’ll record another album and play a proper tour. That’s another alternative. It’s been a year of alternatives really.” 

 Lee’s whole demeanour as he discusses his options contains a noticeable dead-pan lack of excitement. His equanimity is as such, you feel if he witnessed the end of the world, he’d make it rather sort of matter of fact. Since a number of notable names turned up on his album one wonders if they’re liable to show up at the concert. Hari Georgeson for example, alias George Harrison. That’s unlikely because from Lee’s remarks, he now appears rather embarrassed about his connections with Harrison altogether. “It’s really something I want to avoid in a way, because I want this concert run for the sake of the music rather than the names. It’s nice to play with great musicians but often people take more notice of their names than what they play. “With all due respect to George, his song ‘So Sad’ on the Mylon album is great—but I don’t know whether it’s  representative of the album as a whole. You know, he just came down for a couple of nights, we recorded it and that was that, and he said we could do what we liked with it. “But then, everybody connected with the business wanted it to be the single, and I’m sure George’s name was the weight—not the song. However, they insisted on it in America. “Now it’s been released as a single in Britain which just shows it’s sometimes difficult to differentiate between the music and the selling potential. “On the Rainbow gig the selling potential is irrelevant as far as the musicians are concerned. We’re prepared to lose our pants on it. I’m not making any concessions at all.”  

 SO ALVIN’S not just in it for the money, as has been suggested on a few occasions in print? “Oh that was an American article—Lester Bangs. You can’t believe anything he says. “Money’s just a reward—not a motivation. The only pressure there happens when your manager comes up and says: ‘Oh you ought to do a tour now otherwise you’re going to be in the red’. That does happen. Now the Lee really does look like lifting himself out of the stodgy format that is Ten Years After, presumably the rest of the band are also rather concerned. Ric Lee, Leo Lyons and Chick Churchill must be feeling a slight draught, despite Lee’s denials that he’s about to leave them. “Maybe all this has caused some difficulties between us, but there were difficulties anyway. There was resentment last year when I wanted to take three months off and not go on tour. “At present we have a new album to release, a British tour set up, and it’s just a matter of following that through. Afterwards we’ve got no plans—things might work out, they might not. “You must remember that they’ve all got their own projects as well. Chick’s got his solo album: Ric is managing a band: and Leo’s playing some sessions. It’s not like they’re all totally dependent on TYA. “Personally I couldn’t have survived much longer without doing something outside the band. I was lost. I used to think once you’ve become a success—that’s it, you could relax. But I found I really wanted to be out working. The fact that I didn’t know how to do it just made it worse.”

 The future will tell how successful are Lee’s efforts to escape  the role of super-speedy guitarist with which he looked like being saddled for eternity. Up to now the only offering available is the Lee-Mylon album, a pleasant if not classic record. Meanwhile, the future of Ten Years After continues to hang tenuously in the balance.   

 11.

    RM  3/30/74  

    Alvin gets it out of his system:  

    SUCCESS IN TERMS of wealth for Ten Years After guitarist, Alvin Lee, is a
    500  year-old manor just outside Reading. It stands in 50 acres of farmland which he
    lets out. His white Porsche is parked alongside a fleet of Wagons. Alvin is busy getting
    things together in his studio, (a converted outhouse) for his solo concert, which took place at London’s Rainbow theatre last Friday. A concert which has caused considerable speculation as to whether TYA is on the verge of breaking up or perhaps Alvin is contemplating leaving. As I make my way into an ultra modern kitchen I’m nearly knocked off my feet by Alvin’s enormous Irish wolfhound. Alvin comes through and after few words of greeting he shows me into a very medieval looking lounge. It’s dark and much of its décor is wood carvings. Alvin lights up a cigarette and settles himself on the settee. “People thought because I was doing this solo concert TYA were breaking up, but in fact this is preventing that,” he assures me after putting the obvious question to him. “I’ve found that all my musical frustrations and things I wanted to do were channelled into TYA which is unfair. TYA is a unit to me which exist quite happily within its own scope and I don’t want to start saying I want TYA to do these numbers and begin changing the format of TYA. I’d rather do it outside and leave TYA as the music making group it is. By doing this it gets it out of my system.” Discussing the music he would be playing at the Rainbow, Alvin said it was going to be quite different from what he’s been into before. “It’s different to TYA and the album I did with Mylon Le Fevre, On The Road To Freedom, which was basically country. This is more funky R & B using background singers,” he explained as he chain-smoked. “I’ve chosen a lot of material I had which suits this line-up and some I’ve written specially for it. Altogether we will have spent just one and a half weeks rehearsing here at my studio. The whole thing is a test to see if it can be done and hopefully I’ll do things like it more often.”  Lee fans will be pleased to know that he’s recording a live album at the concert and also getting the event on film.  

What are the chances of taking the Alvin Lee show on the road?

“We’re thinking of doing a couple of clubs afterwards, but I have a TYA tour in the middle of next month which takes me through to July. It would be very easy to take this band on the road because we’d all be rehearsed, in fact I could set on a world tour, but I don’t want to get that involved.” Alvin describes what he’s doing at the Rainbow as much quieter than TYA which he says is a bit of a barnstorming band.  “With TYA you really go wild, freaking out and do everything you can. This concert is getting into more tasty things with structured arrangements,” he adds. What a lot of people fail to realise is that Alvin is not the only member of TYA with interests outside the band. As Alvin pointed out they have all got other things going. Leo Lyons has been involved in producing UFO, Chick Churchill has done a solo album and Ric Lee has a drum clinic going.  

 I raised the question had TYA ever thought about changing their format?

 “We had lots of criticism from the press saying that we weren’t progressing, so we sat around and talked about it,  answered Alvin. “I said that our original concept was that we never played the music people wanted us to play and it would be a mistake now to start playing what people wanted, particularly the press. We did a gig about six weeks after one of our American tours which we didn’t rehearse, it was just like stepping out from a holiday and we really enjoyed it because it was fresh. It was a great gig and everyone was happy and to me that confirmed we shouldn’t change our music. The music develops into its own thing—if we say we’re going to do this kind of music then it’s a false change and not a progression.”

 Alvin recently described TYA as a travelling juke box, a remark which I asked him to expand on. “That wasn’t  meant as a detrimental remark,” he said. “It’s just a natural reaction from playing every night. Touring with TYA  is like going on  manouvres, it’s not like my original concept of being a musician.” “You’re due on every night at a set time and you have to play.” “My prime motivation in making music was not to be a rock ‘n’ roll star or an entertainer or be out on the road every night, it was to be involved with musicians and creating music.” Alvin who made his first public appearance as a guitarist when he was 14, was with the band at the historic Woodstock festival. Hardly surprising is the fact that he and TYA didn’t enjoy playing once the film was released  because a lot of the audience came simply to see what they were about after seeing them on the film. “I was very surprised at the impact Woodstock had, it was in the middle of a tour for us,” Alvin recalls. “We’d done a few big festivals and Woodstock itself was fine. But when the film came out about five months afterwards it put us in a whole different category. The film put us on a different track since it took our last number of the show which was  a heavy rocker and established us as a rock ‘n’ roll band to all those people who saw it which wasn’t really the truth. It might have been more representative on reflection. I wasn’t aware a film was being made at the time.” In Alvin’s mind the new TYA album, Positive Vibrations is the best they’ve done. “I’m quite looking forward to going back to TYA because it’s going to be almost like a rest for me,” says Alvin. “TYA now works so smoothly, there’s very few hassles because we’ve worked so much—we’ve done 18 US tours—you just go out there and do it, there’s no worries ‘cos everyone knows what they have to do.”  

 Did Alvin think TYA perhaps neglected  Britain a bit?

 “In retrospect looking at what there’s available to do, no” he replied. “You can cover England in about 12 gigs. I like playing Britain because to me it’s like the roots of what I’ve ever done, I understand the British audience. They’re not as demonstrative as American audiences, most bands prefer playing in the States. The halls here are inadequate to say the least—apart from the Rainbow and Sundown everything’s like town halls.” Alvin surprised me by saying TYA wasn’t as loud as people think, he only uses a 100 watt amplifier. “The volume we do get comes out of the sound system and that’s just a matter of turning it up to what ever’s necessary. It doesn’t help anybody if you’re hurting people’s ears—that’s not the way to put music over.” Finally before Alvin had to take his leave since everyone was ready in his studio for rehearsing the Rainbow concert, I asked him if he’d ever ‘hang up his guitar’ as you might say. “It’s nice to have lots of people listening to what you do, I’ll always be playing in pubs if that’s all I could do.”

Article by ROY HILL 

Rolling Stone -  4/11/74

On The Road To Freedom - Alvin Lee and Mylon Le Fevre 

On - On the Road to Freedom, we discover that Alvin Lee isn’t just a slick blues guitarist and purveyor of boogie, and that Le Fevre can do more than spew out gospel jive. The new music doesn’t conform to any idiom just a general feeling of Southerness. The original material has a self-scrutinizing aspect that is simply stated and credible.  Among the best are Lee’s “Fallen Angel,” “Carry My Load,” and the title cut. The two non-originals are beauties. Ron Wood’s “Let em Say What They Will” is a good-natured but hard-nosed guitar rocker. George Harrison’s “So Sad” (No Love of His Own)” sounds to me like one of his best songs. Both writers perform on the album.  Le Fevre and Lee sing with a virile dignity reminiscent of Eric Clapton’s singing on Layla. They have my respect, and their partnership is too mutually beneficial to be limited to a single album.      

By Bud Scoppa  

13.

Melody Maker  4/27/74

Ten Years After - Live At The Rainbow Theatre 

He stands legs apart rocking backward and forwards on his heels. The eyes are screwed tight shut, the shoulders hunched, the face contorted. Below him, charging lemming- like towards the stage come wave after wave of bush-jacketed faithfuls: Dancing unsteadily in the aisles, rhythumlessly  clapping and stamping their plimsolls frantically apeing  his every move. Blistering salvoes of notes come tearing through the darkness to greet them, great grinding waves of riff rock. Alvin Lee is one of a seemingly-diminishing breed of guitar super heroes. A note-bending. lick-swapping master of the high speed run, his fingers blurring on the frets. Surely, you think, there must be a limit to the number of notes which can be crammed into any 12 bars? Well, if there is, Alvin has yet to hear about it.

His speed can be breathtaking. At London’s Rainbow Theatre  on Saturday his complete mastery of the particular subsonic facet of rock Ten Years After are into virtually eclipsed the work of Leo Lyons, Ric Lee and Chick Churchill, and these three are no slouches themselves when it comes to acceleration. Lyons put in some spectacular bass work, Chick Churchill darted around his keyboards and Ric Lee provided  an absolute air raid of a drum solo; but it remained Alvin’s show.  

At the sound of the first note of the first lick a rumble of warm familiarity would sweep round the theatre. TYA tried out a lot of new material, which was greeted with considerable emotion, though whether this was due to its musical content or merely because it was Ten Years After remains open to debate. But with the old favourites there could be no such doubt. “Good Morning Little School Girl”  brought the show to life after a quiet beginning and “Walk Like A Man” (Love Like A Man) transformed a fairly placid audience into a great jerking, shaking, shuddering mob. And that mob was up on its feet and moving as soon as Alvin sent out the first driving message of “I’m Going Home.”  

The rock n’ roll TYA pound out is often unremarkable. Indeed, Alvin Lee’s voice is sometimes extremely ordinary . What puts them in a league above so many of the bands who have followed in their wake, is Lee’s guitar and his Ferrarri-paced playing. Earlier Rococo had battled bravely to keep the crowd patient before TYA came on. Neat and tidy in their music, they deserved a fairer hearing.

By Kit Galer.  

14.

New Musical Express  4/27/74  Band On The Run - Ten Years After / Rainbow

Ten Years After just don’t cut the bread. I find it hard to recall just when I heard a more boring, bored and listless performance. Coming to prominence in 1966, TYA these days are like the ancient family dog nobody has the heart to put down. As far as I’m concerned they’ve had their day, and what they now present on stage is unexciting nostalgia, capitalising on what may have once been a worthwhile contribution to rock. Significantly, the only remark of any value that Alvin Lee uttered at London’s Rainbow on Saturday was: “Oh yeah, this is another new one (number) I keep forgetting. They all sound the same to me” I don’t think he was joking, because I was of the same opinion.  

I found his attitude insulting, for reasons other than that comment. He took the stage centre, turned his axe up way above the other instruments and stretched his artistic capabilities as far as the width of the Strand, when we all know he has more talent than that. Anybody would have thought he was there under sufferance, which may I suppose have been the case. Their act reached its nadir when Lee encapsulated all the old Cream lick’s in one solo, and then de-tuned his guitar and continued to play. Admittedly the audience response was rarely short of ecstatic, and they spasmodically pumped their hands during the numbers in what appeared to be attempts to relay adrenalin to three members of the band: Alvin and Ric Lee and (Chick Churchill, Leo Lyons (on bass) alone gave an impression of sincerity and interest in what he was doing.  

For me the only excitement of the whole night was when a top hated gentleman kicked somebody out of his seat two rows forward. Which is odd considering TYA’s act is obviously rocks-off orientated. The music including a couple of newies, like the reworking of “Lucille” called “You’re Driving Me Crazy” and the earlier “Look Into My Life” was one monotonous riff, with Lee barking vocals like a fairground hustler , then acting out his role as an inexcusably loud King Khord. There were actually moments when Churchill had to physically hammer his keyboards like a set of congas to be heard over the lashing six string.  

Competent musicians TYA may be, entertainers they certainly are not. Their stage presence was as flat as a Woolworth’s portrait reproduction. Alvin Lee’s delivery of notes at an immense speed resembled a production line worker knocking rivets into a car body: precise motions, but without any other purpose than holding something together until it’s time to go home. (I’m Going Home that is) Sorry, but it was a relief when it was.

By Tony Stewart 

15.

New Musical Express  5/11/74

Ten Years After  - “Positive Vibrations”  

Ten Years After nowadays resemble a one time football international who’s sadly playing out- his final-days in the Southern League and hoping to hang on for another season. This album confirms the impression hey’re on a course of turning out colourless, anaemic boogying until their day finally comes. Alvin Lee never seems very interested in the proceedings and since his efforts dominate the album it’s rather knocked on the head from the start. His guitar rambles tamely through a collection of unremarkable songs that too often feature lyrics that are coy and clichéd as well as dated in the most embarrassing way.

“Can’t Explain / Feel no pain / feeling so stoned / just keep goin’ on / and I don’t give a damn / ‘cos I am what I am

…..I mean what’s it all about?  

On the positive side there does seem to have been an effort made to present a softer, more considered TYA compared with previous albums. It lacks  much of the usual flash and thunder and occasionally the band does groove together in a desultory fashion. That’s how it is on “It’s Getting Harder” with a neat rhythm, clipped drumming from Ric Lee and chunky brass playing (probably from Mel Collins, though he’s not credited).

Little Richard’s “Going Back To Birmingham” is put down much as the original with Lee’s guitar taking the piano Line. At least it moves. “Nowhere To Run” and “Your Driving Me Crazy” are standard TYA boogie while Chick Churchill takes his one obligatory keyboard solo on “Look Me Straight Into The Eyes”. The closing number “I Wanted To Boogie” is self-explanatory.

Otherwise tracks like “Without You” are so tepid they’re almost painful to listen to. It’s hard to credit such total blandness from what was once a great rock band. That’s the saddest part about it really. TYA seem to have fallen into a false security through the devotion of their many remaining fans. However, none of the band are as talent less as they appear here. I think Alvin should end it now.

By James Johnson 

GUITAR: The Magazine For All Guitarist 

From May 1974 – Volume 2 Number 10

 Tony Jasper – Introduction:

Alvin Lee first hit the music scene in 1967 when a new and untried group called Ten Years After stole the thunder at the National Jazz and Blues Festival at Windsor. Since then, Ten Years After have sold millions of records and toured the States eighteen times; they were one of the featured groups at Woodstock in 1969. This March, Alvin took an independent step with an album on Chrysalis “On The Road To Freedom”, in partnership with Mylon LeFevre, and a Rainbow gig with a band called Alvin Lee & Company. But he insist  that Ten Years After is not breaking up: he just wants to further his musical interest, which encompass more than rock and roll and blues. He says he is first and foremost a musician, and consequently loves the guitar. I asked him when he first took up the instrument.

 Alvin Lee: I picked one up when I was two! My mother used to play a four-string tenor guitar. When I was twelve I decided I must play an instrument properly. Actually I started on the clarinet; my brother in-law played one. I had some lessons and my interest lasted for about a year: it made me listen to Benny Goodman and so to Charlie Christian, Christian is still one of my favourite guitarist. 

 Tony Jasper: So you started playing guitar?

 Alvin Lee: Yeah, I started having lessons when I was thirteen; one year later I played in public with a local band called “The Jailbreakers”. I played rhythm first, and picked up lead lines from the lead guitarist in the group. I had heard a lot of blues because my father had a large record collection of that kind of music. But all that had nothing to do with the guitar music I was playing. 

Tony Jasper: What were you learning on guitar?

 Alvin Lee: The chord lessons I had were kind of  “Sweet Georgia Brown”, “All of Me” and “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square”! I bought jazz records by Kessel – in fact, all the guitarist of that era. After I had learned the basics and adapted the guitar to making the music I liked, I became a big Scotty Moore fan. I played a lot of country-ish material, and this got me into jazz. I went through a country picking phase and a jazz picking phase.

My rock and roll phase started with Chuck Berry: I like his feel very much, he’s one of my all time favourites. That’s basically where my style came out of. Much later I discovered George Benson. He’s one of the few who started out as a rock and roll guitarist and went on to jazz.

Quite a lot of jazz guitarist go the other way. I find moving from rock to jazz very interesting:

You’ve got the feel and then you develop your technique and go further. Whereas once you’ve got the technique, it’s difficult to develop feel. I’ve never read music, and I don’t think it’s a good thing. In most cases it doesn’t encourage you to extemporise and form your own style. I never did want to read music. I didn’t sit down playing tunes or songs: I sat down and played, and saw what came out, and found sounds I liked and remembered. After a while it develops into your own style.

Tony Jasper: How long did you practice? 

Alvin Lee: I used to do at least four hours a day, sometimes more. Now I tootle around a lot. I play a lot of acoustic.

Tony Jasper: What guitars have you collected?

Alvin Lee: There are quite a few! My stage guitar is a Gibson ES-335. I’ve done a bit to that: I’ve taken the covers off, and put a Fender back pick-up in the middle, so it sounds like a Fender and like a Gibson. That’s great – I don’t have to swap over!  I’ve also got an ordinary 335 without that extra pick-up. It’s about fifteen years old. They don’t make them as good as that now.

Tony Jasper: What have you done to that, anything?

Alvin Lee: Everything! It’s got a different neck on it. All it’s still got is the basic body. I’ve done all the pick-up changes, rewired it inside. I’ve got a stereo Gibson too, but I don’t use it a lot. Stereo is a bit fidgety – there are too many things to muck around with. With a stage guitar I just like to use the front pick-up or both: there’s enough variation there without having to go to a six-position switch. In the studio I use a Martin acoustic, a metal Dobro, a Yamaha acoustic and a Yamaha nylon-string, two Ovations, one nylon, one steel-string. And an old Gibson Melody Maker which has a really good tone. If I see an old Martin in a guitar shop, I buy it. You can do things with it because the basic body is there. Nowadays they’re much lighter. The old ones were heavy.

Tony Jasper: Let’s talk about you and Ten Years After. How do you find the musical relation?

 Alvin Lee: Well, it has to be done where they don’t tell me what to play and I don’t tell them. If we play a number and one of us doesn’t like it, then it’s unsuitable. I mean, I’m doing my own thing my way at present. I like a lot of country stuff, for instance, while Leo likes something more meaty.

Tony Jasper: If you could choose to jam with a group, who would it be?

 Alvin Lee: JJ Cale. I love the feel. You know, I’ve been through practically every kind of guitar, even classical and Spanish. I like to adapt and play with all kinds of musicians. As far as rock goes, Ten Years After are a great band.

 
Tony Jasper: Some rock guitarists have named the Rolling Stones as one band they would like to belong with…

 Alvin Lee: I’ve never thought of the Stones as much of a group, as a musical group. They’re more of an image than a sound. I don’t know…I mean…No, I won’t knock the Stones.

Tony Jasper: Well, who impresses you on the current scene? 

 Alvin Lee: Steve Miller. I’ve got all of his albums. Then I’ve been getting into the  Mahavishnu Orchestra  and Chick Corea. Really, I can get enjoyment out of anything, but then I like playing. Anything I can do to learn more licks and more feel, then it’s obviously a help. I listen to simply anything I can do in the jazz field. On the other hand, at the moment the people in my band – that’s “Alvin Lee & Company” – have been turning me on to some
R & B, Phil Upchurch, a lot of stuff I once missed out on. I love its simplicity. I think all artists go through a phase of doing their utmost and then return to find the essence of being simple. A simple guitar lick, just a couple of notes, but it sits and fits right. Like a hemi-demi-semi-quaver run is all very clever, but often it can be tasteless: it’s a question of fitting it in rather than letting it come. You have to have the feel – a matter where every note counts without overstating. Like the Band. I really enjoy listening to them: they don’t put an extra note in unless it’s needed. Very tasteful.

Tony Jasper: Yes, their lovely laid back feel is very American, lots of ease, seeming to go with the country. 

 Alvin Lee: Well, most of this music was American in origin – blues and jazz. English forms have developed, but I think from American origins. English folk seems about the only pure English music.

Tony Jasper: How do you like your audiences to react?

 Alvin Lee: I’ve always enjoyed “listening audiences” (audiences that listen), but you take them as they come. In the end you don’t have any control if you play in public. I play my best to come over, but I play better if I feel they are with me. Then again, I like them to jump around a bit. I mean, you can play quiet and people listen, play loud and let them jig – you have that kind of control. Ten Years After don’t need gimmicks. The music is the focal point. I don’t want to be involved in the entertainment side, jokes and all that.

If you want to improve as a band, it should start with the music. So many bands are out on the road with thousands of pounds-worth of props, trucks, their own stages, fifty roadies…Somehow, current music seems less musical to me. What’s coming out of Britain, I wonder? What’s Gary Glitter all about? Years back, bands associated with the music; they were into that. A lot of newer bands move in vogues and trends and keeping the kids happy.

 
Tony Jasper: Do you see quadrophonic sound offering anything?

 Alvin Lee – Reply: I don’t see it affecting our music. We mixed a quad album with “A Space In Time”. To my mind it’s not much better than stereo, just a bit more complicated. On a live record, you can have more effects, but basically I prefer to mix live in mono. You have such a wide speaker set-up and many miss the stereo mix. To give everyone a reasonable listen, then mix in mono. 

 Tony Jasper: Finally, let’s imagine you’re throwing a feast: who from the guitar world – dead or alive – would be sitting at your table? 

 Alvin Lee: A meal of guitarist? Sounds delicious. Dead or Alive? Django would have to be there. George Benson, Ollie Halsall, Scotty Moore… (a long pause)…Rock musicians, hmm…Oh Hendrix – he was an innovator. It’s difficult, this one. I get a lot of enjoyment from any music when someone picks up a guitar. Sometimes it can be frustrating to listen to a great player, knowing it will take you another ten years to get anywhere near them! 

16.

Melody Maker   6/22/74

Ten Years After  - “Positive Vibrations” (Chrysalis).

TYA  Boogie On

No messing about, straight into the funky riff and blues-stained vocals on “Nowhere To Run.” You might say “I’ve heard all this before.” But that is a definition of popular art. It’s very familiarity is part of the reason for the survival of a brand of music that some thought exhausted by 1969. But here they are, one of the oldest bands in captivity, still going strong . And after a few bars, your head starts to nod and feet do wiggle in a kind of Pavlov’s dog reaction. And tunes like “Positive Vibrations” are quite pleasant, with Alvin singing very nicely and playing unusually laid-back guitar for a TYA gig.  

Chick Churchill’s piano rings merrily and Chick elsewhere adds electric  piano, clavinet and a spot of Moog. And as we progress further, why “Stone Me,” has an extremely effective boogie beat with a trance of harmonica from Alvin that takes us back to the steamy blues clubs of yesteryear. Ric Lee swings’dem drums and it’s a lot of fun. TYA vocals in general seem to have taken a turn for the better, with less of the old anguished yelling, and more tuneful harmonizing as detected on “Without You.” But just in case old TYA fans are impatient with all this trend towards sweet nothings, “Going Back To Birmingham” has Alvin cutting a rug and slashing the carpets. “It’s Getting Harder,” has Churchill getting a big band sound from his keyboards, and lots of wah-wah chucking away.

Note the excellent production here, which is maintained throughout, and helps make this one of the best, if least publicised of their albums. The rest of the material continues through some sprightly rock n’ roll. “You’re Driving Me Crazy,” a neatly arranged “Look Into My Life,” and “Look Me Straight Into The Eyes,” and a cheerful farewell “I Wanted To Boogie.”  

Plain home cooking for the average enthusiast.

By C.W.  

PLAYING THE LEE'D GUITAR!
From Music World & Beat Instrumental Magazine
From June of 1974 Issue

Probably the only British musician who looks on his 19th States tour as a rest is Ten Years After's Alvin Lee - and that's not just a line. In March he played London's Rainbow with friends and reckons that to start with it was the most nerve-racking gig he'd had since he first went on stage. At the moment he's probably on the boards somewhere in the States ripping notes from the weathered 335, his travelling companion for the past eight years - back in his established place at the front of Ten Years After, and enjoying his rest. But back to his Reading country house for a minute, and shortly before departure. Will this really be a rest? "Ten Years After works very smoothly and it'll be like a holiday, playing every night. I'm really looking forward to it, and it'll be a rest more than anything." Alvin Lee's Rainbow concert in March was recorded for a live album which he expects will be released in August. Like his album with guitar picker Mylon Le Fevre, it's evidence of his expanding musical interests, but he doesn't intend to let them conflict with Ten Years After. They've recently been rehearsing material from the new Positive Vibrations album to incorporate into the act. "I was thinking of augmenting the band," said Alvin, "and using other musicians , but they weren't very keen on that. I can see their point though - that Ten Years After is Ten Years After, and shouldn't expand out of its depth. Add a fifteen piece orchestra and it wouldn't be Ten Years After.

BOOGIE

"Where Ten Years After scores to my mind is with the choogling boogie thing, it gets going and can't be stopped, and that's the bands essence. The influences of what Chick and I have been doing are coming in subtly. Ten Years After's music is very much high energy, a conglomeration of the four of us. For the last album we had about twenty numbers and a lot of them were like new things Chick and I have been doing. But we had to agree. Unless Leo and Ric and everybody have lines they can work with it's not the music of the band. It's nice to think of the band keeping an identity."
Although he's keen to keep Ten Years After touring, do his other interest mean that the band is now a finance vehicle?
"It has been said so before and, in fact, the situation is like that, unfortunately - but I haven't let enter into my decisions. If I was not to work for Ten Years After, I could do the band's commitments on my own and get more money. But I make money a side issue, and don't want it to be my motivation . I find that if you take care of the music the rest takes care of itself." The just reward I wondered? "No, not always. I don't do anything because the money's better - it always kicks back if you do that," he said.
He admitted to not making any money out of the Rainbow concert, but stressed it was for fun more than anything.
"It started when Ian Wallace, Tim Hinckley, Mel Collins, Boz Burrell and myself started a sort of Muscle Shoals rhythm section called The Gits. It got so far we started recording and getting different singers down." (Alvin has a fair-sized 16 - track studio in a barn near the house.) "Then - this was about a month before the gig, Terry Doran heard us and said why don't you do a concert? I had one of those flashes and just said yes. We booked the Rainbow the next day, had organisational meetings, and got into it like a project."

INSANE

The band he finally got together consisted of himself, Mel Collins, Tim Hinckley, Alan Spenner, Neil Hubbard, and singers from new band Kokomo. Rehearsals began at the home studio ten days before the gig.
"It was a bit insane really. This place was really buzzin". We got up at nine one morning for a slit-eyed photo session, and then went into the studio for about twenty three hours. We got fifteen numbers arranged and rehearsed that time, and felt very confident with eight days to go. But the next day was a washout, and nothing worked. With the gig four days away we found we'd got fifty five minutes of material - for a two hour show! But because of the Press saying it wasn't just a fun gig, it was me trying to prove that I could go solo, it all became important and heavy.
"When the singers came down we ran through the whole thing once and found we had an hour and ten minutes. We then ran through loads of stuff that everybody would know, like Mystery Train and Jailhouse Rock, and we got five numbers to slip in. They were just sort of banged off," he laughed, "we thought we'd worry about ending off on the night."

The band got to the Rainbow during the afternoon and although they hoped for a complete run-through and a meal, there was never time. "Suddenly it was all on us…and I was really nervous. More nervous than I've been since I first went on stage. I was getting these very weird flashes of thinking I was just on the road doing a tour…and then thinking about the different numbers, and the choruses, and who takes the first solo and the words. The words were incredible. I couldn't remember half the words. I would be about to kick off and then I'd see this totally different band in the environment where I'd seen Ten Years After for the past six years. Very weird, but great in its own way."

Alvin has now had a good chance to listen to the tapes since the gig and reckons that everyone felt a bit insecure for the first half an hour. After that it all got a lot more positive - "but looking back it seems silly doing all that work for one gig. It would have got really tight in two or three nights."
Alvin's new albums are coming out through his Space Productions production company, and together with his studio, this means that he can now record and release albums by other artists. But the time problem and the fact they're released through Chrysalis means he can't just record and release who he likes and when he likes: "I'd like to, and there are a couple of things, that are very loose at the moment, which might come together in the distant future. But I don't want to approach somebody and say I'll do a deal with you. I'd prefer them to approach me - but in fact they don't like to do that either, so it's something of a stalemate."

CHANGE

Alvin mentioned that two years ago he didn't believe in jamming, and working and playing outside the band. Now he's involved with a confusing number of musical directions - when did he first begin to change?
"The stopping point came when I felt like I'd written every song I could think of with Ten Years After, and played every solo…all I was doing was pinching bits from this and that and putting them together differently, and it was starting to get repetitive. That's when these different forms, styles and attitudes started to develop as a recorded thing rather than a hobby.
"I started finger - picking guitar, but never as seriously as working with Ten Years After , and that's where Mylon came in. We started playing a lot of country and Chet Atkins things.
That was a medium for me to play those tasty Fender Telecaster - type licks, rather than the Gibson screamers."
But for the moment anyway, it's back to those Gibson screamers and Goin´ Home. He's had the battered, sticker - covered 335 for close on eight years, and with a Strat pick-up wired in reckons it gives him all the sounds he needs with Ten Years After. Although he readily admits to there being faster guitarists, Alvin too is fast when he wants to be. Two players he loves to listen to are Chet Atkins and George Benson.
"As far as speed is concerned George Benson is amazing. When he plays a run it just goes whoosh, right up the neck. Now that's speed."

ALVIN LEE: 1974
TEN YEARS AFTER LEBT !

Ten Years After am Ende? Viele glauben es. Auch Alvin Lee hatte lange Zeit von seinen drei Mitmusikern die Schnauze gestrichen voll. Doch bevor sie offiziell auseinander gehen wollten, traten sie noch eine letzte Welttournee an, um ihren vielen Fans diesseits und jenseits des Atlantiks Lebewohl und Dankeschön zu sagen. Dabei geschah es: Erst stand jeder der vier stramm in seiner Bühnenecke rum, dann lächelte man sich zaghaft an, und plötzlich war der Funke wieder da, der Ten Years After einst zu einer der besten und explosivsten Live Bands machte. Und kaum war in den USA das letzte "Goodbye Concert" gegeben und die Gruppe nach England zurückgekehrt, rief Alvin Lee auch schon bei unserer Londoner Korrespondentin Margot an "Unsere Abschiedstour wurde zum neuen Anfang."

Finster war die Meldung: Alvin Lee hatte sich mit Organist Chick Churchill in die Wolle gekriegt . Es drehte sich ums Geld, von dem Chick meinte dass Alvin zuviel und er zuwenig davon bekäme. Hitziges Hin und Her, ein paar sarkastische Bemerkungen von Alvin Lee, Rempeleien und dann zack zack - hatte Alvin plötzlich eine vielleicht auch mehrere Ohrfeige (n) weg. So beobachtet in einem Hamburger Hotel während der letzten Ten Years After Tour.

Das war natürlich Wasser auf die Mühlen all derer, die Ten Years After schon längst als wandelnde Leiche sahen. Immerhin an diesem Tag in Hamburg war die Stimmung unter den vier Musikern wirklich saumäßig, keiner sprach mit keinem, und erst nach dem Konzert tauten sie etwas auf und unternahmen zaghafte Annäherungsversuche untereinander.

Inzwischen aber ist bei den vier Jungs aus Nottingham die Stimmung "Going Home" und zwar separat verflogen. Heute lacht Alvin Lee darüber, hat anscheinend alles was war vergessen und sieht die Zukunft von Ten Years After wieder in den rosigsten Farben: Warum denn sollen wir uns auflösen? OK, es gibt Gerüchte dass wir uns nicht besonders gut vertragen und letztes Jahr als wir eine grössere Pause einlegten und ich mit Mylon Le Fevre ein Solo Album aufnahm, spekulierten viele, dass wir als Gruppe erledigt seien. Aber das sind eben nur Gerüchte. Wir hatten noch nicht mal ein Wortgefecht im Dressing - Room, ehrlich wir haben uns noch nie gestritten".
Sein Manager Chris Briggs von Chrysalis sagt das etwas anders: "Wir geben zu dass es gelegentlich zu Reibereien zwischen den Mitgliedern der Gruppe kann aber jetzt ist bei ihnen wieder alles in Ordnung."

Eins jedenfalls steht fest: Ihre letzte Welttournee hat Ten Years After wieder zusammengebracht. Jetzt planen sie bereits ihr nächstes Album. Sie bleiben uns also erhalten, und das ist die Hauptsache.

CIRCUS RAVES 

JULY 1974 ISSUE

ALVIN LEE’S  “VIBRATIONS”

TEN YEARS AFTER’S BREAK FROM SHOW BIZ 

  In the world of show business they like to say that every performer must pay his dues. Paying dues is the endless time spent trying to get a break, trying to make money, trying to be famous. Paying dues are the wasted years, the years a musician spends eating beans out of a can and huddling in cold basements with the other guy’s in his band. Paying dues are skipping out on motel bills you don’t have enough money to pay. Paying dues is terrible.

Ten Years After knows all of this, but like so few others of their ilk, paying dues has paid off.

Alvin Lee, Ten Years After’s masterful guitarist, now has enough money to purchase any kind of lifestyle he wants. But where most rock-stars in his situation would tend to buy themselves into a heavier rock and roll existence, Alvin Lee has something else in mind.

No fancy cars for Alvin, no flashy clothes, and no money-hungry loose men and women.

Alvin has long been frustrated by what he terms “the entire business side” of the recording industry. He began to devote his time, work and money towards one goal – the day when he could withdraw from the industry’s influences and make “his own music.”

He started towards that achievement with “On the Road To Freedom”, when Alvin and Mylon raised each other’s spirits and gave each other the motivation to go on with their careers.

Still, Alvin recently said “I wanted it to be like it was in the olden days, back when we just made music for the fun of it and that was all that mattered.”

To accomplish such a task was simply a matter of putting out “positive vibrations as opposed to the negative vibes the industry so often puts out.” The struggle for these positive vibes was long and hard, but it seems to have finally made itself present in the form of the aptly titled LP “Positive Vibrations” (on Columbia Records). Alvin’s latest entry with Ten Years After.

The road to recording the album wasn’t an easy one, according to the guitarist whose playing is so fast that it frequently takes an instant reply machine just to hear a chord or two.

“The things which went on in the industry were just really beginning to get me down,” he intimated, “my perspective and the band’s were so closed that it became harder and harder to produce something fresh as time went on. We never had that problem when we were first getting started, but then in those days we were working only for ourselves.”

  BURST of BLUES:
Alas, in those early days the record industry itself wasn’t what we’ve come to know it as, much less the bands which provide its sustenance. Ten Years After, for one, was a struggling young quartet back in 1966, hustling night and day for the opportunity to prove themselves, but never committed to their ideal of recreating the music of Elvis Presley and others. The band was happy then, “We were doing exactly what we wanted to do and nothing else,” explained Lee. Creating vibrant, exciting material was simply a matter of dropping an old fifties song on the turntable, giving it a couple of spins and then getting your buddies together to re-work it.

Within the next two years of Alvin Lee’s life, however, something altogether new and different swept England. There was a sudden rebirth of the blues, that so changed the face of British rock that even the Beatles didn’t know what hit them. The blues had been an indulgence once confined to the basement rehearsal rooms of then non-entities like Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page. Overnight, the blues became a sensation, and every band in England began working feverishly over the tattered remnants of B.B. King records.

“We were obviously quite affected by what went on around us at that time,” Lee notes in what could only be termed the grossest of understatements. As it turns out, the band worked and slaved at their new interest harder than any of the competition, for it was something that they’d grown to love, and as Lee put it, “we never had any problem doing a good job on material we really care about.” Soon the band’s repertoire and reputation began to spin around London like wildfire, and before the band knew it they had a recording contract with England’s Decca Records.

“When we went into the studio we were young and energetic and not in the least bit knowledgeable of the sophisticated equipment available to us in the studio. We relied on feeling to get us across on that first record,” remembered Lee of the session for the band’s first Ten Years After album.

It was a smoldering collection of tracks, with blues riffs hot enough to melt a box of crayons, and it was obvious that the levels of energy and creativity were high within Ten Years After’s framework.

Boogie Blues Trap:

As if to prove that the band wasn’t about to be locked in a hard-and-fast categorization, Ten Years After attempted many new and different things on their next two efforts, imparting an ethereality to their sound with the jazzy subtleties of their second Undead LP and the tonal and rhythmic variations of Stonedhenge, the group’s third album.

“In those days we were really unfettered by the demands of the industry,” Lee explained, “We made albums when we wanted to, which in our case was whenever we felt we had worthy material for the public’s ears. In a situation like that it’s not at all hard to be creative – to constantly be searching for a fresh, new approach to things.”

Then came the albums that set the stage for Ten Years After’s ascension into the ranks of the super-great. Ssssh and Cricklewood Green. These were powerful efforts that many consider to be the band’s all-time best efforts. While Lee also considers them as milestones in the groups development, he still remembers the albums as the time in which Ten Years After’s popular image became a hard-and-fast conception of a methedrine-fast blues-boogie lick machine.

“That was alright as long as it was what we wanted to do,” he says, “but after a while we really got tired of it.”                       Perhaps nothing so cemented Ten Years After’s image as their infamous appearance at the Woodstock festival in 1969, where they tore down the house with their incredible version of “I’m Goin´ Home.” Lee looks back at that memorable gig with considerable sadness, noting that “the festival did more to lock us into an inescapable image than anything else. For many people it was their first exposure to our music, and since we were so good that night, that’s all everyone who saw our act remembered. “I’m Goin´ Home.” – I think we’ve played that song ten thousand times – I’m tired of doing it all the time.”

But the public wasn’t tired of it – it in fact begged for more of the same, and with the prospect of an incredible superstar act upon them, their record company began to put pressure on Ten Years After to record more “stompin´, screamin´boogie numbers, and to do it more frequently.

This clashed violently with the band’s leisurely but dedicated pace, and thus a trail od bad blood and bad vibrations was begun.

Throwbacks:

One “forced, contrived” album followed, then the band split from Decca to Chrysalis and a new measure of artistic freedom. They recorded A Space In Time, a radical change in direction but something the band was very proud of and enthusiastic about. Tragically it failed to impress an audience screaming for more boogie, and the record company soon made its wishes known on the group’s musical direction. The result was two “throwback albums,” journeys back into the old style but without the heart that characterized the earlier labours of their kind. After Rock and Roll Music to the World (1972) and Ten Years After Live (1973), through, Lee decided to make a break with everything; he retired to his country estate, recorded a radically different album with Mylon LeFevre, and has now progressed to the point where only “positive vibrations” influence his life.  

New Vibes:

“My musical tastes have matured and so the album is much deeper than anything Ten Years After has done,” Lee offers in explanation of the album’s format. “It took seven weeks to complete, and like my album with Mylon I produced it at my own studio.”  “There’s a lot less hard-rock and a lot more simple rock and roll,” he continued. Some of the songs are extremely personal in nature, such as “Nowhere To Run,” which details how the band came to feel trapped by the popular conception of their material. The title track similarly details the long climb back from the depths of despair and disillusionment with the music biz to a situation where “Positive Vibrations” dominate their lives.

”There’s a love song called “Without You” on the album”, Lee continued, as well as a “good ole fashioned rocker on which I used a guitar to play saxophone lines. We wired it up so that the signal would overload the recording console, and ended up getting a perfect simulation of a baritone sax. It was something I really looked forward to doing, and I’m quite pleased with it.”

  As long as Lee looks forward to his work, work that he wants to do and can put his soul into, then fans of Ten Years After can look forward to different kinds of albums, but always albums that capture the heart and soul of the band that made the boogie famous. “We may never again go into a heavy boogie trip-the vibes just aren’t right,” Lee notes. But as long as the vibes are right and the resulting music reflects it, Ten Years After’s many fans will doubtless have no problems relating to any new directions their favourite band might wish to pursue. 

  Article written by Gordon Fletcher

17.

MS    7/6/74  

Ten Years After and Alvin Lee & Company  -  In Flight

Alvin Lee has come a long way from being the energetic youth let loose in Studio 2 at Decca’s Recording Studios in West Hampstead. The album he was laying down then with Chick, Leo Lyons and Ric Lee was titled after the group, “Ten Years After.” That was in 1967. Ten Years After had spent part of it constantly filling London’s Marquee club and had achieved a standing ovation from some 20,000 people at the 7^th National Jazz and Blues Festival, Windsor. Seven years on the rumours circulate of Lee leaving Ten Years After to pursue fresh pastures with the Alvin Lee and Co. band. London’s Rainbow saw the initial appearance of Alvin Lee And Co. band. Neil Hubbard, Alan Spenner, Tim Hinkley, Mel Collins, Ian Wallace and the Kokomo singers provided a goodly diet of right funky music.