1970s

Picture courtesy of Lionel Webb (Wooden bridge hotel)

Ten Years after with Chris Wright

ALVIN LEE – 1967 – Pre TYA Contract

He was persuaded to take up clarinet by his musically-inclined family.

But, after listening to a few of his parents ´Big Bill Broonzy records,Alvin moved on to the guitar. His first was a Spanish model, but he swapped it for an electric Guyatone when he was 13. He formed his first group then, the rock `n´ roll inclined Jailbreakers, after inspiration from his favourite guitarist Scotty Moore.

About his early playing, he says: “I learnt basically from a friend of the family. He taught me the major chords. But I didn’t take playing too seriously until I was 16. I had a Grimshaw then, and became more involved with music, both classical and jazz, although I also liked Chet Atkins. I turned professional as soon as I left school, and went through various scenes. You know, Chuck Berry, folk. That sort of thing. As far as money goes, I was getting by.”

The “getting by” stage ended when he formed Ten Years After, although he had done session work before then. This group, currently drawing record crowds to the Marquee, was his big break as far as becoming a name guitarist goes. Many consider him the best in Britain, and in the “B.I.” poll he finished a creditable 7th, a position which will no doubt be improved upon next year. He rates every guitarist in the jazz class, particularly George Benson, and Wes Montgomery. And he still likes Big Bill Broonzy, one of his first idols. In Britain, he admires the big league of Clapton, Hendrix and Green, but has a special word of praise for Thunderbird Albert Lee. And not just because he’s a namesake of Alvin’s.

His group is mainly involved with the blues, but he says that his musical taste are wide. “I can listen to most types of music if it’s good, but I do prefer blues and jazz. The one thing I do dislike in this business is the “knocking”. I just can’t see any point in it, and if you do knock other artists it can only make you unpopular.”

Alvin has little to say about guitars, as he’s very happy with his current model, a Gibson 335, which has a specially fitted Stratocaster pick-up. He’s been using it for three years, and it’s over ten years old. “I can’t see myself changing it in the near future, not even foe a Les Paul. It’s just that I’ve got used to it, and it has a good sound. Anyway, what’s the point of changing a guitar you’re happy with?”

For Alvin Lee, the coming year looks good, and one that can only enhance his fast-growing reputation.

Ten Years After Tour Schedule For 1967

Note: The listings start six months into the year

June 20, 1967 – Marquee Club, London England – Supporting The Savoy Brown Band along with John Lee Hooker

June 29, 1967 – Flamingo Darlington, England with “Cock-A-Hoop”
June 30. 1967 – Quay Club, Newcastle, England

July 1, 1967 – St. Helens Grammar School, England

July 2, 1967 – Jazz Club – Peterlee, England

July 4, 1967 – Play At Didsbury College, Manchester, England

July 5, 1967 – At the University of Reading, England

July 6, 1967 – At The University of Southampton, England

July 10, 1967 – Marquee Club, London, England

July 22, 1967 – Marquee Club London, England

August 12, 1967 – Play “The Ballroom Meadow” in Windsor, England – Ten Years After perform Before an audience of 20,000 at the 7th National Jazz Festival. The band receives a standing ovation!

August 18, 1967 – Marquee Club London, England

August 28, 1967 – Marquee Club London, England

September 4, 1967 – Marquee Club London, England

September 22, 1967 – Marquee Club London, England

October 6, 1967 – Marquee Club London, England

October – Ten Years After are filmed for a BBC Television Documentary dealing with teenagers and titled “The Butterflies”

October 16, 1967 – Play at The Blue Horizon in London, England

October 20 1967 – Marquee Club London, England

October 27, 1967 – Ten Years After release their debut – self titled record album

November 3, 1967 – Marquee Club London, England

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August 18, 1967 – Marquee Club London, England

August 28, 1967 – Marquee Club London, England

September 4, 1967 – Marquee Club London, England

September 22, 1967 – Marquee Club London, England

October 6, 1967 – Marquee Club London, England

October – Ten Years After are filmed for a BBC Television Documentary dealing with teenagers and titled “The Butterflies”

October 16, 1967 – Play at The Blue Horizon in London, England

October 20 1967 – Marquee Club London, England

October 27, 1967 – Ten Years After release their debut – self titled record album

November 3, 1967 – Marquee Club London, England

November 8, 1967 – At “Blaises” in London, England

November 10, 1967 – Marquee Club London, England

November 11, 1967 – Ten Years After play at the University of Brighton, England. They open the show for The Jimi Hendrix Experience

November 12, 1967 – Saville Theater in London, England

November 17, 1967 – The Marquee Club London, England

December 1, 1967 – Manor House – London, England

December 8, 1967 – Marquee Club – London, England

December 22, 1967 – Marquee Club – London, England

November 8, 1967 – At “Blaises” in London, England

November 10, 1967 – Marquee Club London, England

November 11, 1967 – Ten Years After play at the University of Brighton, England. They open the show for The Jimi Hendrix Experience

November 12, 1967 – Saville Theater in London, England

November 17, 1967 – The Marquee Club London, England

December 1, 1967 – Manor House – London, England

December 8, 1967 – Marquee Club – London, England

December 22, 1967 – Marquee Club – London, England

Ten Years after at the 7th National Jazz and Blues festival, windsor
1967 September – Roundhouse, London. Designed by Martin Sharp

Ten Years After

Release of Ten Years After’s first album: October 27th 1967

Two years before their performance at Woodstock 1969, the band released their debut self titled album. It was fresh, raw, passionate and left the listener feeling exhausted after the last track called “Help Me” was finished. What the album represented was the high energy of their live set at that time. All they had to do was go into the studio, get it down on tape.

ALBUM TRACK LISTING

  1. I Want To Know (McLeod)
  2. I Can’t Keep From Crying Sometimes (Al Kooper)
  3. Adventures of a Young Organ (Churchill)
  4. Spoonful (Willie Dixon)
  5. Losing The Dogs Lee / Dudgeon)
  6. Feel It For Me (Lee)
  7. Love Until I Die (Lee)
  8. Don’t Want You Woman (Lee)
  9. Help Me (Sonny Boy Williamson)

REMASTERED BONUS TRACKS

  1. Portable People
  2. The Sounds
  3. Rock Your Mama
  4. Spider In My Web
  5. Hold Me Tight
  6. Woodchoppers Ball

THE REAL REVIEW:

I Want To Know 2:12

Right from the start this song is an outstanding toe-tapper, more of a jazzy swing number with a blues base and an intense rocking guitar riff, with plenty of tastefully played guitar solos included. There’s also some great, but very muted piano work by Chick Churchill, although his organ interludes are short burst of sporadic fills that resemble Alan Price’s work with the Animals. The bass sounds like simple plodding along, but in fact is essential to the overall feel and emotional texture of the song. The drums are as strong and as brash as the guitar work, but yet subtle, as they don’t obstruct Alvin’s nasally meek / high vocals.

Special Note Of Interest:
This song was written by Paul Jones, front man for the 1960’s rock band “Manfred Mann” who’s big hit at that time was “Do-Wha-Diddy-Diddy” (Dum-Diddy Do”) and the famous “Mighty Quinn the Eskimo”. Later on they also hit it big with “Blinded By The Light” as Manfred Mann’s Earth Band did a cover of this song that was written by Bruce Springsteen and appeared on his “Greetings from Asbury Park” album. In 1977 Manfred Mann’s Earth Band took this song right into the number one position.

Paul Jones is now the host of BBC 2 radio show. But back during the time his “I Want To Know” song was written, he was going through a divorce, so he needed to disguise his real name for credit on this tune. Thus the Paul Jones pseudonym is McLeod.

According to Ric Lee: “We found “I Want To Know”, together with “I Can’t Keep From Crying”, and the archetypal Willie Dixon number, “Spoonful”, while searching various blues compilations for material to make up our live sets.

These tunes, together with a selection of other stuff, were first played in a bedroom at the Madason Hotel, Sussex Gardens in London, where we were living at the time, in a vain attempt to secure a record deal by auditioning for a small time A & R scout from Island Records. He wasn’t impressed. As I recall though, our performance was quite remarkable, considering that the A & R guy and the four of us were cramped into a largish bedroom; the drum kit squeezed into a corner and the amps and speakers balanced on beds”.

Continue Reading for Full Review

HISTORIC NOTE:

Music Producer Mike Vernon, formed the Blue Horizon Label. This in order to provide him with an outlet for his beloved blues music and now the entire catalogue is very collectable. In the beginning the records on this label were primarily sold by mail order, this was back in 1965-1966. In the spring of 1967 Fleetwood Mac were signed on to Blue Horizon Records, which in turn prompted a sensational distribution deal with the major record label CBS.

Ten Years After, were four unknown lads, from some still unheard of – dirty murky industrial town / city located in the Midlands of England – where soon after, Ozzy Osborne, “Black Sabbath” would also be formed. Jon Lord from Deep Purple and Stevie Winwood came from this same area of England.

According to Ric Lee: “Ten Years After”, our first album for the Deram label, released on vinyl October 27, 1967, and was a collection of studio recordings of our live set.

Ten Years After – 1967 - Self Titled Album – Produced By Mike Vernon

Co-Produced by Gus Dudgeon:

Gus just finished producing Zoot Money’s “Big Roll Band” called, Zoot Live At Klooks – Kleek, recorded on May 31, 1966 for EMI. His next opportunity soon followed, when he was asked to co – produce Ten Years After’s eponymous debut album with Mike Vernon. This 1967 Decca release included the song, “Losing The Dogs” which Gus co-wrote with guitarist Alvin Lee. After this effort, Gus was well on the road to establishing himself as an independent producer. During this time he started working with the Bonzo – Dog – Doo – Dah – Band, which was an avant-garde musical comedy group.

Mike Vernon spoke about the challenges he had while recording Ten Years After’s first album. “The plan was to make that record as live sounding as possible, but back in those days it was not that easy to do, because there were so many restrictions in place that had to be followed to the letter. “Everything was always, “Well, you must do it this way, you must do it that way, you must always have the microphone only so far away from the actual cone of the amplifier, and the amplifier must only be turned up to three or four, in order to get the optimum sound reproduction!” We did not realize how big of a challenge this was going to be, thank God we had a young engineer who became a very famous producer, Gus Dudgeon.

Gus was always ready for a good challenge and up for any occasion that was called for. In 1969 Gus worked with David Bowie, and they released a single called “A Space Oddity.”

Keith Christmas did an excellent job playing acoustic guitar on that song. Later on, Keith opened the show for Ten Years After on one of their many tours.

Ten Years After – Debut Album 1967

This is the hot debut album by an English blues group who perhaps never quite reached the top of the mountain at the time, but for my money, they still count among the classics today.

Singer and guitarist Alvin Lee along with Leo Lyons, Chick Churchill and Ric Lee, give a warm, intense and very personal touch to much of the standard material on this LP, which certainly has that lively edge, you sometimes can hear in original performances. My personal favourites are their dynamic treatment of Sonny Boy Williamson’s “Help Me” and the hectic starter, “I Want To Know.” Alvin shows his ability to blend bluesy guitar riffs with smoking jazz phrasing on this album. While Chick Churchill adds much of the uniqueness to the easily detectible Ten Years After sound. This record was their best, because of a beautiful freshness in sound and attitude which has never faded.

The first album was, in fact, basically our live set. We didn’t have to think much or write anything and the album was recorded in two days.

The album was officially released on October 27, 1967 but Decca Records only pressed one thousand copies of the LP and they sent them all to the label’s Manchester branch, making it unavailable in the rest of England for weeks.

At the age of 23, I realized that the giant record companies were not as big as we thought.

When I left New York in the middle of August, to return home after a nine week trip, I knew that it was only a matter of time before Ten Years After would be one of the biggest groups on the American Circuit.”

Enter Ten Years After: Traditional, Moody and Emotional……Says It All:

TEN YEARS AFTER – Released October 27, 1967 (as Deram SML – 1015)

Their self titled first album – What’s missing is exactly what makes this album so perfect.
Producers: Mike Vernon / Gus Dudgeon

Engineer: Gus Dudgeon – who later went on to become the producer of David Bowie’s ”Space Oddity” and a large portion of Elton John’s hits.

Leo Lyons remembers: “That Gus Dudgeon had been in the engineer’s chair at Decca studios when, ironically, we had failed an audition there some months prior to making this first album”. Similarly, we had auditioned for BBC Radio about the same time, which was another route into the business. If you were on radio, the record companies and publishers would hear you and get interested. Just as with Decca, we failed our audition for the BBC in the same glorious fashion”.

Not long afterwards however, at an all-nighter at the London Roundhouse, John Peel, a respected BBC Radio One DJ, saw us, around three in the morning, on a bill with the Jeff Beck Group. From this show, John, became a champion of the group and invited us to do sessions for his show, which we did and that increased our popularity enormously.

So much for auditions!

Mike Vernon: Our producer Mike Vernon, at that time a staff producer for Decca which is Deram’s parent company, was also producing John Mayall and Fleetwood Mac. An avid blues fan, Mike persuaded Decca to Sign us, following our unique performance at the seventh annual Windsor Jazz and Blues Festival where we had received a standing ovation for our performance.

We put the first album out, which did O.K., and then we heard of a place called America, which we had never even thought about (…). So we got an American Tour together and the whole thing went zoom!!!”

They did a seven week U.S. Tour, which was also the start of seven years on the road, with very few breaks in between.

Alvin Lee, is widely considered as being in the elite hierarchy of legendary guitar players. He is a true innovator that took rock guitar playing to new levels of excitement.

Melody Maker – October 21, 1967
Friday, October 20th, 1969
Friday, November 10th, 1969
Friday, November 17th, 1969
John Gee