by Andy Powell
These days, with Joe’s involvement, we’re a production entity in and of ourselves. A lot of the barriers that made recording awkward and lumpy in the past have been removed by the internet and electronics. The technology now means you can create magic. The trick of it is to retain that live feeling there in the room and to harness the electronics to deliver a great result. Joe is a child of that era. Like my own kids, he’s only known this world of magic. He loves making magic, and I think that’s how Joe sees the creation of music. And I love that passion about him.
So when you put these four forces together in a studio, you really have got a prodigious amount of talent. And we can have a laugh, too. The way of being in the modern Wishbone Ash was wonderfully captured in the French-made 2013 ‘rockumentary’ This Is Wishbone Ash. If you want to know what makes us tick—who oils the clock, who winds the hands, which one’s the cuckoo—that’s the place to go. The title might, on the surface, be a nod to This Is Spinal Tap (who could resist?) but it also says a couple of things that are subtle but crucial in a real-world context: ‘This Is Wishbone Ash’—not any other band that might operate with the name; and ‘This Is Wishbone Ash’—it really is how we are and how we create music that carries on from the earliest days and builds something new on those foundations, again and again.
* * *
When you’re working on an album there’s often a front-runner—a song that seems to define the flavour of an album and will end up almost naturally as the opening track. Ben’s ‘Almighty Blues’, on Bona Fide, was a no-brainer—a huge, ebullient stage song. ‘Eyes Wide Open’, on Clan Destiny, was largely one of Aynsley’s, with lyrics by me, and another great one to play onstage.
Should a listener be wondering if ‘Eyes Wide Open’ was a commentary on the constant headache of the Martin Turner situation that was in full swing at the time—well, they might be right. Ditto ‘Slime Time’ on the same album. There are, I suspect, a number of songs that have been drawn from that particular well of inspiration and emotions, releasing pressure, like opening a valve. Things that go on in one’s life inevitably give one pause for thought, and to an extent it all comes out in songs. A lot of it is pretty oblique: I might have taken inspiration from one set of circumstances, happening specifically to me, but I want the listener to be able to relate the phrases and ideas I’m using to their own lives.
If I’m talking about an ‘open season on my life’ by ‘clowns and reformers’ in ‘Eyes Wide Open’, I can be confident that a fair number of people listening will be fighting rear-guard actions themselves against their own set of clowns and double-dealers in their own lives and workplaces. Venting a universally applicable spleen is a lot more useful than whingeing in song about one or two named individuals. The most specific song in that regard might be ‘All There Is To Say’ on Blue Horizon, but you’d never really know the real inspiration without being told—or maybe you would, but none of this should get in the way of the song. The joy of creating and working within a team is an undeniable pleasure, and that feeling never leaves you.
Muddy and Ian Harris’s ‘The Power’, the opening track on The Power Of Eternity, is a celebration of the positive. And it really rocks. It’s a kind of mission statement. A good band has always got a ‘mojo’ about it, and ‘the power’ is just another phrase that sheds light on that mojo, in my mind. All of us could really get behind that idea. It’s a song of affirmation about what we are. I’ve had many conversations with Ian where I’ve talked about the power of music, and different elements of power or mojo that different bands have had. I remember when we both used to be fans of Arthur Brown in the late 60s: Arthur was one of the first true ‘rock’ singers (as opposed to rock’n’roll). So many people copped his operatic style and ran with it. Ian Gillan’s had an entire career with Arthur’s voice. I had the good fortune of playing with Arthur not so long ago, in Austria. He’s still got a name in Europe, and rightly so—he’s an incredible character and singer. Someone like that has a literal ‘power’. When I read Ian’s lyrics and tweaked them a little, even though I hadn’t written the song I could really sing it and make it my own. You become a part of it and it becomes a part of you.
To me, the most fantastic thing, which was there in the original classified ad for members of what would become ‘Wishbone Ash’, was the positivity. That for me has always been associated with the band. It’s been a creed to live by. One’s life is precious. You’re not going to want to continually fail with your life. You’re going to want to wake up every morning and think ‘I’m a success’, even though you might be going through a period where it doesn’t feel that successful. ‘Hope springs eternal’, to quote one of my songs.
The band is, for me, now, like an abstract entity—an altar, a confessional. I think it’s like that for the others in the band, too, otherwise they wouldn’t keep on doing it. We all view it as a very precious thing that has a life of its own, and all we do is add to it. We bring gifts to the altar, we nourish it, we nurture it, and it gives back to us tenfold. That’s very much the way I see it. It transcends anything the greater music business might think about us. We’re really operating outside of the so-called music business now, creating our own opportunities to interact with the people who want to hear us.
In the wider world, people still associate the name Wishbone Ash with four or five particular individuals from the 70s—I know that, I accept that, and, beyond writing this book, there’s nothing I can do to change that perception. But it was apparent to me in court, with regard to the other guys from the first line-up, that they really had no idea what kind of career Wishbone had in the present. They seemed to think I was running a tribute band—just out there earning a living. I even read one quote from Ted Turner about how he did not wish to deprive me of my livelihood but that, really, the band’s name should reside with the original members. How considerate of him. They didn’t equate it with artistry, with me having the same kind of philosophy about being in the band as I had when I was twenty-one, all this by virtue of never having quit the band. It was sad to hear this, but it was an eye-opener. We all are, after all, products of the lives we have led.
To me, there’s no difference between being in the band now or in 1970. Every time I help to create a new body of work under the banner of Wishbone Ash I’ve got to have the same outlook. It hasn’t always been as easy—there have been many obstacles along the way—but it has to have a sense of occasion about it, a sense of euphoria. The band has been my sustenance, like tapping into a life force. To me, it is the gift that keeps on giving. It is ‘the power’. It’s a beacon of positivity in my life and, in however great or small a way, in the lives of others, too. And I’ll keep the beast alive as long as I can, as long as feels right.
Mum and Dad, courting in the 40s.
Me aged five.
One of my first professional gigs, at the Ovaltine works social in Kings Langley, Hertfordshire, with friends John Cleeve, Johnny Carlisle, and Richard Larman.
With cousins Eddie, John, Mike, Barry, and Carol and my brother Len.
With Barry and Mike, and my homemade guitar, at a family wedding in the mid 60s.
Steve Upton cooking crabs to celebrate Ted Turner’s twenty-first in Wildwood, New Jersey, August 1971.
Pauline and me in Austin, Texas, 1971.
Goofing around backstage in the 70s.
Receiving gold discs for Argus and silver discs for Wishbone Four. The presentation was made by TV personality Janet Webb after our Christmas concert at Alexandra Palace, London, December 22 1973.
Family support: Mum; Pauline’s parents, Vera and Jack, and her sister, Rosemary; Pauline; and our son, Richard, at Hemel Hempstead Pavilion, February 1980.
In Memphis with two newly acquired 50s Korina Flying Vs.
Me and the V.
Equipment transport, Indian style, December 1981.
Trevor Bolder, Laurie Wisefield, Steve Upton, and me c. 1982.
Onstage during the early 80s with a vintage Gretsch
guitar.
Braving the cold in Red Square, Moscow, December 1987.
Me, Steve, Andy Pyle, and Jamie Crompton, 1986.
With Ted at the Berlin Wall, 1989.
In an acoustic mood (courtesy of Richard Powell).
Roger Filgate, Martin Turner, Mike Sturgis, and me in the mid 90s.
With Ray, Bob, and Mark Birch in the late 90s.
Bob Skeat, Ben Granfelt, Ray Weston, and me in 2002.
The Warrior—you never know when he’ll turn up.
Loyal crew Daniel Vetter and Chris Boast.
Checking lyrics with the Mudster at Le Triton, Paris, May 2015.
Lawrence, Richard, Aynsley, and me at the wedding of Aynsley and Tara in Tuscany, June 2014.
TTaking time out at Sherwood Island, Westport, Connecticut.
APPENDIX 1
WISHBONE ASH AT THE BBC
BY COLIN HARPER
We’ve researched this appendix by bringing together information from several sources: the BBC Written Archives Centre (WAC) in Caversham; the BBC Sound Archive database; legendary sleeve designer Phil Smee’s collection of BBC Transcription Discs; the BBC Worldwide printed catalogue of available syndication material; Ken Garner’s In Session Tonight (BBC Books, 1993) and The Peel Sessions (BBC Books, 2007); the BBC’s Project Genome online digitisation of Radio Times; and various Wishbone Ash fan sites, bootleg information sites, and other online resources.
Information gathered for us by my friend Hannah Lawrence from the BBC Written Archives Centre material has provided the backbone to this appendix, but no BBC-related source is ever quite complete, hence the need to piece the jigsaw together from several. Even then, the odd anomaly will persist (like the 1977 Glasgow Apollo concert). There may yet be missing information or something we’ve got wrong—particularly in the matter of working out what was broadcast on UK In Concerts and what appeared on the often divergent US syndication discs—but we think this digest of Wishbone Ash’s adventures at the BBC is pretty close to the truth.
The official CDs on which BBC recordings of Wishbone Ash appear, to date, are: BBC Radio 1 Live In Concert (Windsong, 1991); Live At The BBC (Band Of Joy, 1995), reissued as On Air (Strange Fruit, 1999); Live Timeline (Receiver, 1997); Distillation (Repertoire, 1997); Tracks (Talking Elephant, 2002); and the second disc of Argus: Deluxe Edition (Universal, 2007). The broadcast versions of the two 1971 Old Grey Whistle Test tracks appear on the DVD Phoenix Rising (Classic Rock Legends, 2004).
The Broadcasts
All the shows listed below were on BBC Radio 1 unless noted. Correspondence quoted is sourced from the BBC Written Archives Centre.
Sounds Of The Seventies
Rec: 6/8/70
TX: 19/8/70
Presenter: Bob Harris
Producer: Jeff Griffin
Engineer: Phil Stannard
Studio: Paris Theatre, London
Tracks: Errors Of My Way / Phoenix / Blind Eye
Note: ‘Blind Eye’ was recorded but never broadcast. Bob’s other session guests that week were Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Early in June 1970, Wishbone Ash were booked for a ‘Trial Broadcast’ through the BBC’s Light Entertainment Bookings department. A document extant at WAC from this time, from Miles Copeland, provided the BBC with information on the band for their files. The band’s agent (‘pending authorisation’, which meant that the band members had to confirm this in due course) is given as Myles [sic] A. Copeland, 21 Marlborough Place, London, NW8.
A note dated June 23 from one Mary Ramode to Jeff Griffin, at the ‘audition unit’, confirmed that Wishbone Ash had been engaged to appear in ‘Sounds Of The Seventies (Bob Harris)’ and were to record a session from 3pm to 6:30pm on August 6 at Studio Paris [Paris Theatre] on Lower Regent Street, London. The note goes on to say that this is to be treated as a trial broadcast, in lieu of an audition: ‘Will you please ensure that a copy of the recording [is sent to the Audition Unit] immediately, so that it may be submitted to the production panel for an early decision. A personal report from the producer in charge is also necessary.’
On July 3 a contract from Light Entertainment is signed regarding the session. The producer is confirmed as Jeff Griffin and the fee is £40—which no doubt came in very handy at the time. On July 9 the members of Wishbone Ash wrote to Patrick Newman, the Light Entertainment Booking Manager at the BBC, appending their four signatures, with that authorisation they were looking for: ‘This is to confirm that all members of Wishbone Ash are under management contract to Miles A Copeland III … and that in future all contracts [with the BBC] should be signed by him.’
Newman’s assistant, one Marjory Lipscomb, wrote back via Miles on July 24, acknowledging the above letter: ‘Perhaps you would kindly clear up one thing for me, and that is how do Wishbone Ash want their cheques to be made out; should they be made payable to you or to the group? This is not clear from the authority received.’
Had the band passed the audition? The powers that be (or were) were keen to find out: twice during August and September 1970, Margaret Gibbs of the Audition Unit wrote to Jeff Griffin asking for both the tape of the broadcast and his report on the band’s worth so that it might be put before the ‘Production Panel’. Eventually, Griffin either gives in or gets around to it. The Production Panel listened to the tape at some point, probably late in October (their report was stamped ‘received 29/10/70 by Light Entertainment Bookings’). They had this to say:
Audition report (as referenced above) on Wishbone Ash, with feedback from the named producers.
Jeff Griffin: ‘An exciting new group featuring two lead guitarists, bass and drums. They use original material—one of these ‘Phoenix’ being a really outstanding composition and performance. Their vocal work is pretty good but their strength really lies in their arrangements and instrumental ability.’ PASS
John Walters: ‘A very competent 4 piece progressive group which could develop into a major talent.’ PASS
Bernie Andrews: ‘One of the few new groups in 1970 to offer something really original and worthwhile on the progressive scene. The two guitarists work very well and the whole band sounds very together.’ PASS
On November 10, Marjory Lipscomb, Assistant to the Light Entertainment Booking Manager, wrote to Miles Copeland, giving him the good news: ‘We are pleased to confirm that their performance received favourable reports and that their name has been added to the list of those available for broadcasting generally.’ A copy of the audition report, albeit with the comments as anonymous, was enclosed. The letter confirms that the songs performed were ‘Errors Of My Way’ and ‘Blind Eye’—though Griffin had referred to ‘Phoenix’. Ken Garner’s book In Session Tonight, based on extensive research, including ‘Programme as Broadcast’ files at WAC, lists all three tracks as having been recorded but ‘Blind Eye’ as having not been broadcast. One assumes Marjory was only partially informed when writing her letter.
The copy of the letter held at WAC contains this further typed comment from Doreen Davies, who was Chief Producer and later Head of Music at Radio 1:
YES—Doreen Davies 9.11.70
Excellent lead singer. Well-rehearsed and they sound experienced. Not too way-out—a thick exciting sound, first-rate musicians. Harmonies good in choral work. Progressive programmes only.
John Peel’s Sunday Concert
Rec: 19/11/70, 9–10:30pm
TX: 29/11/70; repeated 2/12/70
Presenter: John Peel
Producer: Jeff Griffin
Location: Paris Studio, London
Tracks: Vas Dis / Phoenix / Where Were You Tomorrow
Note: This was a one-hour show that Peel fronted during 1970–71, none of which survive at source. Wishbone Ash shared the bill with The Faces, who performed five songs. A poor quality off-air copy apparently exists. The contract for the show was issued on October 30. The fee was £48. The repeat on Wednesday December 2 was, confusingly, under the Sounds Of The Seventies banner. ‘Vas Dis’ and ‘Phoenix’ appear on Live T
imeline.
Disco 2 (BBC2 TV)
Rec: 2/12/70
TX: 5/12/70
Presenter: Mike Harding
Producer: Granville Jenkins
Tracks: Queen Of Torture / Errors Of My Way
Note: Very few episodes of this BBC2 predecessor to The Old Grey Whistle Test survive—and this isn’t one of them. According to its Radio Times billing, this edition also featured James Taylor, filmed ‘on a recent trip to Britain’, and ‘Wishbone Ash, a new four-piece group whose music is described by John Peel as ‘original, exciting and beautifully played’. Wishbone Ash probably played two or three songs live in the studio.
A contract from Television (Light Entertainment) was signed on November 24 for the programme, the performance to be recorded 3pm on December 2 at Television Centre. The fee was £50, with the band’s contact address as follows: Scope International, 27 Dryden Chambers, 119 Oxford Street, London, W1. (Miles Copeland isn’t mentioned by name but that was his management company at this time.)
The Peel endorsement above actually came from an interview he gave to Melody Maker a couple of months earlier, where he said, ‘I heard Wishbone Ash for the first time, and haven’t been so impressed with a relatively new band for a long time. Their music is original, exciting and beautifully played.’
