by Andy Powell
Many a morning found me tramping through snowy woods to help her light fires and prepare for classes about Native Americans, or help set the tree taps for maple sugaring—a wonderful winter pursuit. I was a stranger in a strange land, and I was loving it. When Pauline was offered a permanent teaching position at a local private school I was more than happy to step into her snow boots for a few hours a week. I gamely learned a whole new set of skills, and it was fantastic for me for a while. Again, I made it abundantly clear that I was a musician, and that my profession and work would take precedence, but as long as they could accept my frequent flying trips, I’d love to give it a try.
This was an idyllic time for us, a two-year period of stability full of adventure for the kids and an appreciation of nature. We were getting to know the area and its history, which was so much more accessible and immediate than that of our own. I think this immersion for me in music, and in the culture and history of the old town that we’d found ourselves living in, was truly what we’d been looking for as a family. Without getting too romantic, one is never far away from the old New England traditions in the countryside here, the story of the pilgrims and their tough colonisation of this part of the world. There was just so much to learn. Our town had been named after John Read, who obtained an early grant for land constituting part of the new town. During the war against the British, General Putnam and the Revolutionary Army had actually camped in our town in the winter of 1778–79. The only battle in the state of Connecticut had taken place in Ridgefield, the town next to ours, with Benedict Arnold himself fighting on the side of the Continental Army. The original resident of the town was Chief Chickens Warrups, or Sam Mohawk, as he was sometimes known. As new immigrants ourselves—though not in any way comparing ourselves to those pilgrims of old—it somehow got me really thinking about our immigration to America and the commitment we’d made. We decided to become fully-fledged American citizens.
This gorgeous 250-year-old farm, where I found myself working part-time, had been bought in the 50s by an actress, Carmen Mathews, and I loved the idea of helping out on it. Country life was exactly what I needed at the time. I learned to drive a tractor, bale hay, milk cows, and tackle every kind of farm job you can imagine—and, in addition, I was able to give the kids that visited the farm on school trips very real experiences concerning the natural world and where the food on their tables actually came from. It was truly alarming how little these children knew about the food culture in their country, so it all felt like a very worthy cause. To the kids I became known as Farmer Andy. I was up each day at dawn, doing rock interviews, organising band travel, hustling gigs in the UK, where the time difference worked in my favour, via email and phone, and returning back home after my farm chores at lunchtime in my pick-up truck to communicate with our American agents and labels. I was doing all of this, working harder than I’ve ever worked in my life, and I was absolutely loving it—no, I was thriving on it all. I was playing evenings in the blues band, being a dad on weekends, mending fences on the farm, cleaning out pigpens, tending to a massive Belgian dray horse, playing open nights at the Saloon, and learning all about the newly important internet.
With three young boys with very active lives to keep organised, whatever they had going on—swimming, theatre productions, football on a Saturday, and of course music lessons—life was hardly dull. It was full on, 24/7, for both Pauline and me, and we loved it. I even became a chaperone on Friday-night school trips to our local ski mountain. Never again: after a few hours skiing, I’m ready to relax, but those kids were ready to party. The bus trips home were uncomfortable, let me tell you. If you’ve ever had a ride on one of those yellow bone-shaking American school buses full of kids on a sugar high, you’ll know exactly what I mean.
* * *
This was an extremely creative and busy time—a wonderful period, a renaissance. It showed me that there is more to life than just being a whingeing musician. That being said, at the same time I was formulating ideas with my neighbour, Roger Filgate, for some kind of forthcoming Wishbone Ash album project.
I’d met Roger when he was working in a local music store, one of four gifted brothers who’d all been brought up single-handedly by their redoubtable mother, the renowned concert pianist Agatha Filgate. I took him on as a crewmember first, during the last months of Ted’s tenure. We’d hang out and play guitar together. My youngest son Lawrence took up piano lessons with Aggie, who would often give wonderful musical soirées in her large, bright conservatory full of cosy couches, overlooking a lake and featuring two amazing old Steinway pianos. Visiting Russian virtuosos would perform, tea and cakes would be served, and the Filgate brothers would lighten things up with a Beatles rendition or two, before older brother Wit blew your mind with a banjo piece, complete with mid-song de-tunings. Downtime for Roger and me would involve little fishing expeditions by canoe out on the lake where I would get to understand and experience the blissful summertime in Connecticut, which reaches a peak in mid August, when it seems that the natural world is abuzz with activity: lily pads, bullfrogs, turtles, fish, birds. This place was really getting to me, and I was forming bonds with the countryside that have had a lasting, permanent impact.
We enlisted the help of Tony Kishman, from Tucson, Arizona—a huge fan of the band with whom I’d kept in touch throughout the years. He was always picking my brains about songwriting and recording. By that time he’d done an album in England with Chris Neil—coincidentally, the same guy who had produced Dollar’s ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’ back in 1979, its groove very similar to Wishbone’s version of ‘Come On’. Tony was both a singer and a writer. I told him I wanted to go down the route of getting a dedicated singer—namely him—into the band. By way of preparation, Roger and I did a couple of exploratory recordings at Active Studios in New York City with a session guy on bass and Rob Hazard, a Connecticut native, on drums. Tony is actually a fine musician—he plays bass, guitar, and piano—and he eventually came on board as both bassist and vocalist in a live context, with Roger and me on guitars and (on Mervyn Spence’s recommendation) a third American, London resident Mike Sturgis, on drums. Before we knew it we had a new band. Mike was an incredible player and all-round great guy with a sunny but direct Wisconsin disposition. He’d toured the world with A-Ha and also played in Asia—but not any version featuring John Wetton.
At one point, before Mike was involved, Tony came down to Connecticut and we played as a trio, with Roger, at a garden party held by a friend, artist/painter Don Messer, who owns a fabulous and huge New England barn. Ted flew in from Chicago and it was a lot of fun. Subsequently this 200-year-old barn became a substitute work studio for Roger and me to write what became the Illuminations album. After Ted baled on us, Roger and I set up a demo studio on the upper level where we could throw open the huge upper shutters. Pigeons would fly in and out as we recorded our ideas. Another location we used was an old converted stable block in Norwalk, Connecticut, which had been a feed supplier and a hatchery for some kind of fowl. Not the healthiest of environments, but we took what we could get. I particularly remember us getting into the monster riff in the song ‘Mountainside’, which had Roger working the Taurus bass pedals and Rob Hazard on drum duties. I’d constructed the lyric while working in the fields at the farm. They came together in one single outpouring, and I memorised them as I worked. Inspired by Steve Upton’s battle with fatherhood, the song had, and still has to this day, bags of commitment in every way.
* * *
Shortly after this latest incarnation of Wishbone Ash had been more or less forged we started to get offers of work overseas. As a performing entity, Wishbone Ash was reborn. To be precise, it was reborn for our UK fans at the end of March 1995 at a Leisure Centre in Rotherham, South Yorkshire. This was a venue utilised by the Classic Rock Society in the UK and run by two former police officers, Andy Yates and Martin Hudson. We were very warmly received by an audience that had been mourning the disappearance of lead guitar in rock music of
late. We took this as a good sign for the future.
One week later, we found ourselves at a small club in Geneva, recording a live album on digital multitrack while at the same time producing a live TV show performance in a brand new, state-of-the-art, high-definition video format. Once again we were ahead of the competition when it came to using the latest technology. Released almost exactly a year later on our agent Martin Looby’s Hengest Records label, Live In Geneva contained no new songs but unveiled a whole new sound. And it would mark the start of a whole new chapter for Wishbone Ash.
Toward the end of 1995 there was a point where Tony couldn’t make a particular tour in the UK. I was still on speaking terms with Martin Turner so I called him up and asked if he was interested in filling in for Tony, which he was happy to do. It might seem curious that Martin was up for this, given that we’d asked him to leave only a few years earlier. But when he was asked to leave there was no big fight about it—it was really more of a mutual understanding. He wasn’t really taking band life seriously, and he didn’t really ‘believe’ at that point. He thought rock music was dying, having picked up on some kind of general feeling in the business. It was getting extremely hard to market ‘rock music’ as we knew it.
So, with all that in mind, it was very good of him to fill in for Tony at pretty short notice, but it was understood that it was on a contractual basis—it wasn’t another reunion. Things did, inevitably, get a bit fuzzy among the fans and in the media. The first thing we did in Britain was Tommy Vance’s cable TV show, The Bridge, on VH-1. Martin and I were interviewed, and the four of us played a song from Argus (‘Leaf And Stream’) and a song from the still forthcoming Illuminations (‘The Ring’). Any viewer—and you can see it online—would come away with the impression that Martin and I were both very much still in the band.
Martin didn’t make it particularly easy, though. We would turn up at his house in Southfields, near Wimbledon, having agreed to meet at two o’clock for pick-up, and he’d keep us waiting out there in the car for forty-five minutes while he was ‘finishing me lunch’. He’d make sure we really paid for his time. You could never get past the ego with him. But at the same time it must have been awkward for him because he was having to eat humble pie, in a way. There were new people involved, there was new music to play. He was not calling the shots. Mike Sturgis in particular was not willing to take his shit, and nor was our agent. I remember a rehearsal session in Putney, his locale, where as usual he arrived late, making some lame excuse about taking his son to a football match. He went straight into berating Mike about what he defined as a ‘snotty’ snare-drum sound (whatever that meant). Mike was not about to listen to this nonsense as Steve had so patiently done years before, and simply said, in his very direct but polite Midwestern way, while looking down his nose, arching an eyebrow, ‘Excuse me?’ It spoke volumes, and M.T. was put in his place.
Illuminations was still a work in progress at that point, but during that tour we did try to see if Martin could become a part of the recording process. To explain the thinking behind my strangely inclusive approach is to put the situation in context. I was very mindful of the respect that I wanted to pay Martin, and I was trying to produce an album that would resonate with the fans. Why not open things up to ex-members, just as I had when Ted had started out being involved in the early writing for Illuminations, especially someone as important to the DNA of the Ash as Martin?
It didn’t work out. We booked a session at John Sherry’s new studio by the Thames. Martin came down, having travelled just a few miles from his home while we’d flown over from the States. He arrived with Gary Carter in tow. It was all very awkward, and it was obvious that Gary was fully in Martin’s thrall. Martin was grandstanding in front of us all, and young Gary in particular. We watched as he grappled unsuccessfully with the bass parts that we were hitting him with. I believe the song was ‘Top Of The World’. Martin was waffling on about having pulled the bass out from under his staircase, having not played it for years. He was actually boasting about this. Roger looked on at his one-time idol, mouth widening in disbelief at what was going on here. He’d imagined Martin would be the epitome of professionalism, not some bumbling oaf. John Sherry, who’d set up the session and was now keen to try to find a new deal for the band he’d managed, was understandably nonplussed. Personally, I was mightily miffed, and this only confirmed my feelings through the years that no real serious involvement with Martin would ever be possible again.
* * *
Live In Geneva, recorded a year before, slipped out in March 1996. John Sherry once again bowed out. Sadly, events overcame him. He’d contracted cancer, and was to pass away in an unbelievably short period of time. John had been our agent and later our manager through good times and the bad, but mostly he had been a good friend and confidante to me, often displaying the patience of a saint. He went to extreme lengths to accommodate equally extreme egos. He had done something unheard of in the business: he had managed to get us re-signed to a major label, MCA Records, that had previously dropped us. Quite a feat. His was a sad loss.
Under the auspices of a new manager, Martin Looby, Geneva was a terrific recording of a live performance by the full new version of Wishbone Ash: Roger Filgate, Tony Kishman, Mike Sturgis, and me. The French TV film of the show was broadcast but never released on home video, although a bootleg version of the album did later appear. Just as had happened with 1980’s Live In Chicago recording, we were duped and double dealt, this time by a German outfit that released the album on multiple occasions.
A couple of months later I toured the UK and Ireland with Blue Law, promoting our album, Gonna Getcha, which was also released on Hengest in the UK. Later on, we would play a couple of festivals in Holland and Belgium. At our London show at the Bottom Line, Miles Copeland of all people turned up, with Martin. Miles came into the dressing room and roughhoused with me but Martin stayed away. He was there simply to observe. Ironically, a few years later he was to use a British blues band as his means to get to grips with bass-playing again and plot his course trying to reinvent himself.
* * *
Back in Connecticut that summer, at Unicorn Studios, where we had started recording Illuminations in earnest, it became apparent that Tony could only come in for brief periods of time. He was still doing the Beatles tribute show, which he’s always done, and it got to the point where it was difficult to juggle the two. Mind you, he didn’t need much time in the studio, recording all the vocals for the album in a mere two days. Tony was the singer; he was playing bass by default but he’s not really a ‘rock’ bass player, more of a pop bass player. Roger had worked out the bass parts already, so I said, ‘Why don’t you just do it? You know the kind of sound we’re after. We’ll figure out how to do it live later.’
Roger was a huge fan of Chris Squire—I’m a moderate fan—so he wanted to use a Rickenbacker bass like Chris. So much for sorting out the bass problem.
I also wanted to have good production values, so I enlisted the help of John Etchells, the famous engineer, who had worked with George Harrison, Queen, Pet Shop Boys, and Sham 69. John said, ‘Yeah, I’ll do it for a small amount of money. My wife’ll come out and we’ll have a bit of a holiday and I’ll record the drums.’ So that’s what we did. John recorded all the basic tracks, with Mike Sturgis joining the party. At last we were getting somewhere.
Aside from Tony’s musical moonlighting, we had two problems standing in the way of a full-scale rebirth of Wishbone Ash as a recording entity: firstly, the funds to record something to the standard I felt we needed to, and secondly, a record label to take us on.
I’m a big fan of National Public Radio when I’m home in the States, and one day I heard an interview with a female folk singer. She was talking about how she’d put the word out to her friends and followers and had actually self-funded an album. I thought it a great idea. This kind of thing didn’t really have a name at that time—it was long before the likes of Kickstarter and PledgeMusic, w
hich are now almost standard mechanisms for would-be recording artists (new or long-established) with a reasonable following of keen supporters to circumvent the need for bank loans or record labels.
Marillion are often cited as the first ‘name’ act to record and release an album through fan-funding, which they did very successfully with Anoraknophobia in 2001, but Wishbone Ash were there in 1995–96, in the very earliest days of the internet, doing exactly the same thing with what was to become Illuminations. I’d done all this work over the years with Wishbone Ash fanzines and I’d always kept in touch with fans. Maybe it’s time, I thought, to get the fans involved. So that’s what we did. I put the word out through the fanzines and also through our website. Before long we’d raised something like $20,000. I naively said to everyone, ‘We’ll give you a 15 percent return on anything you invest.’ These days, people don’t give anything except perhaps free concert tickets, a round of golf with your favourite star, or dinner with the band! But, actually, we were able to do that: pay John Etchells, pay the studio, give everyone a return, and list everybody’s name on the album itself. We were back in business again, and it was truly exciting.
The label that took us on was HTD—it stood for something, though nobody at the time found out what it actually was. It was run from a garage in leafy, suburban Bexleyheath, Kent, belonging to one Barry Riddington, along with his business associate Malcolm Holmes. Barry and Malcolm are great characters. (It was Gary Carter who introduced me to them—I was still on good terms with him at that point and I do owe him a debt of gratitude there.) Only recently, in researching this book, I asked Barry what the letters stood for, and he laughingly told me the story. He and his partner had had a similar problem to us in thinking up a name for their new venture. In desperation they’d simply settled on the name Henry The Duck, disguising it with the first letters of each word to give it some gravitas.
