1970 was a great year for small, ambitious and forward looking record labels. Releasing albums under the very broad umbrella of progressive rock, these labels catered to the growing interest among youth in music that did not conform to the clichés of popular music. In some cases these labels were small subsidiaries of the big names: Decca’s Deram, Phillips’ Vertigo, EMI’s Harvest. Others were independent labels: Island Records, Chrysalis Records, and one that will start off this article series with a number of albums released in 1970: Charisma Records, or better known as The Famous Charisma Label.
Tony Stratton-Smith, or Strat to people who knew him well, was a sports writer, journalist, author and a horse racing fan before becoming a manager of musical acts including The Nice and Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band. When he decided to start his own label, his business model was that of Berry Gordy’s Motown – bring management, agency and A&R all under one roof. Charisma’s booking agent Paul Conroy remembers: “Charisma was an amazing label. It was Strat’s vision and eclectic taste in artists, run by a bunch of talented people who all went on to do many other things. Strat was a very English eccentric – a one-off who gave people time and room to grow and make their mistakes.” Charisma’s first signing, and in part the reason to establish the label, was Van der Graaf Generator.
Van der Graaf Generator – The Least We Can Do Is Wave to Each Other
Stratton-Smith started managing Van der Graaf Generator (VDGG) twelve months before signing them to his newly found label, unsuccessful in finding another label that would record them. He first released Peter Hammill from an awful contract as a solo act with Mercury, for which he recorded the album Aerosol Gray Machine with members of the band. Stratton-Smith then founded Charisma in order to give Van der Graaf Generator and other bands he was managing a recording outlet on their own terms.
The band’s first album on the label, The Least We Can Do Is Wave to Each Other, was recorded at Trident Studios and released in February 1970.
The album was produced by John Anthony, his first production job for Charisma, before he became a house producer for the label. Reed player David Jackson remembers: “It was a revelation to work with a producer like John Anthony who actually made the music sound very different to that which we’d envisaged. I think we were very lucky to have John guide us through that record. He was very encouraging when it came to experimenting with overdubs.”
The album name is based on a quote by English artist and illustrator Francis John Minton: “We’re all awash in a sea of blood, and the least we can do is wave to each other.” In 1957, following mental issues and drug abuse, he committed suicide. Quite the inspiration, part and parcel of the VDGG story.
Peter Hammill wrote in the original sleeve notes: “Don’t listen when you’re hustling, because it won’t get in your head. Don’t listen when you’re angry, because you’ll smash something. Don’t listen when you’re depressed, because you’ll get more so. Don’t listen with any preoccupations, because you’ll blow it. And if you’re a perpetually angry, depressed hustler with set ideas, don’t bother, it wasn’t meant for you in the first place.” The band’s music is indeed an acquired taste for some listeners, but worthwhile for those who endure.
Keyboard player Hugh Banton plays a significant role on this album, using the organ to its full dynamic capabilities, from quiet interludes to bombastic runs. He said about his performance: “I was quite into monstrous organ music. There was a lot of modern French church organ music, which is just amazing stuff. That’s what my wife refers to as ‘mad organ music.’ It does have a religious base. So I guess that was my leaning, with a lot of discordant stuff. It just happened to suit Peter’s music, which I also think changed to fit us, in a lot of ways.”
A favorite track from this album is the excellent opener Darkness (11/11), composed by Peter Hammill. He wrote about this song in his 1974 book Killers, Angels, Refugees: “A song of numbers: although I am no numerologist, the circumstances of writing this highly instinctual song dictated its form and direction. It was composed on the night of 11th November, 1968, Remembrance Day, by chance. Some years before I wrote a novel which purported (with devastating failure) to be an Icelandic saga; on re-reading it, sometime after finishing these lyrics, I was struck by the opening sentence: ‘It was the eleventh day of the eleventh month.’ November is, of course, the month of Scorpio, under which sign I was born, and my life number is 11. It was, I suppose, inevitable that a song about fate should be wrought amid these conjunctions.”
Hammill was very much into the genre of sci-fi literature at the time, influenced by authors including Arthur C Clarke, Frank Herbert, Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov.
The song features David Jackson playing two reed instruments at the same time: “As soon as I saw a picture of Roland Kirk using two saxophones I thought ‘I must have a go at that’, as I had both an alto and a tenor sax. When I joined Van Der Graaf Generator it became easy to adapt this to Peter’s modal music.”
Melody Maker made it Album of the Month on its release and wrote: “This is one of those rare and precious albums which occasionally knock you flat on your back and make you think really hard for once about music.” In his column ‘Peel’s Thoughts’ in Disc & Music Echo magazine, John Peel wrote: “Musically its one of those records you can barely afford not to have close to you. Please try to hear it.”
Peter Hammill – acoustic guitar and lead vocals
David Jackson – tenor and alto saxophone, flute and backing vocals
Hugh Banton – Farfisa organ, piano and backing vocals
Nic Potter – bass guitar and electric guitar
Guy Evans – Drums and percussion
Van der Graaf Generator – H to He, Who Am the Only One
Following the release of The Least We Can Do Is Wave to Each Other, VDGG played a number of high profile shows, including a spot at the Tenth National Jazz and Blues Festival at Plumpton Race Track, sharing the day with Deep Purple, Yes, Colloseum, Caravan, Wishbone Ash and others. The hectic touring schedule proved too much to 19-year old bassist Nic Potter. After recording with the band in the early sessions for their next album, he left the band. It was decided not to replace him and rely on the pedal bass skills of keyboard player Hugh Benton.
On the strength of the positive reviews of their debut effort, the band continued to record their second album. Guy Evans remembers how they were juggling performance and recording schedules in those early days: “Because Charisma was always looking to strike budget deals with Trident for it’s less famous acts, most of the music on those three albums was recorded at odd hours in discontinuous short bursts, when down-time became available. We’d come straight to the studio bleary-eyed from all-night drives down the M1 from gigs in The North. But there was always strong coffee and free sandwiches available round the corner at Charisma. There was really no need to ever go home.”
In December of 1970 the band released the album H to He, Who Am the Only One, a complex, dark album. Peter Hammill, responsible for most of the writing credits, upped his game on this album. He later said: “ I was certainly trying to better myself as both a writer and a musician on that record and though the songs were very complex we all had great fun recording the album and felt we had certainly bettered our previous efforts.”
The cover art on the front of H to He, Who Am the Only One is by Paul Whitehead, the designer of the Charisma label’s logo. He talked about that cover: “I got together with Peter and we hit it off, we had the same kind of taste and ideas. I actually had a painting. I’d done that painting earlier for myself. I’m a Libra and that was my interpretation of the birth of Libra, I think it was called ‘Birthday’. The eye beam goes right down to London. I visualized my birth, that was me being born.”
Music magazines again raved about the album. In some cases the adulation of the band’s musicianship became too ridiculous, even to the band members. Reeds player David Jackson: “A few key writers in the UK music press were major fans from the beginning and I found that I was suddenly being hailed as an important musician, which I couldn’t easily adjust to. One poll in a music paper put me ahead of Miles Davis as an instrumentalist and I could not accept that at all.”
Friends magazine summarized well the impact of listening to the album: “Play this in the dark with the speakers wide apart and it’s devastating. They’re the kind of band who might have invented stereo had it not existed already.” The sound quality is indeed fantastic. John Anthony remarked: “I recorded it as a very high dynamic range, which they’ve got naturally – from Peter’s acoustic guitar and very soft voice to Peter really screaming out with the whole group blasting away behind him.”
A standout track from the album is The Emperor in His War Room. David Jackson tells a story about this track: “I was playing it to a girlfriend at the time. I wasn’t married to her, but she had small children, and the children came into the room and I rushed to the record deck. I lifted the needle off the vinyl, because I was so worried that the children would hear this music. I have to tell you that the music seemed so evil – and I had written it!” Peter Hammill explained the song in a manner that made it even more difficult to understand: “In retrospect I feel that these lyrics have one particular failing: in my efforts to illuminate the life of the Tyrant, horrific images bred and grew out of themselves, so that they became self-justifying, rather than explanatory. However, the matter was largely out of my hands, as the elements involved hang on the edge of memory (race or otherwise) and therefore have tendencies to self-direction. I can only hope that the system works in reverse.” Got it?
The second part of the song features an unmistakable electric guitar solo by Robert Fripp on one of his first sessions as a guest musician. Fripp came into the studio, having never heard the track before, and played two takes. A mix of both takes ended up in the final song. Hammill said of that session: “I didn’t know Bob before that session, but I knew I wanted to use him because he plays pictures, and that’s what I think it’s all about.” Fripp would go on to collaborate with the band again on their next album Pawn Hearts, and with Peter Hammill on his 1971 solo album Fool’s Mate.
Credits on this track:
Peter Hammill – lead vocals, acoustic guitar, piano
David Jackson – alto, tenor, and baritone saxophone and devices, flute, vocals
Hugh Banton – Hammond and Farfisa organs, piano, oscillator, vocals
Guy Evans – drums, tympani, percussion
Nic Potter – bass guitar
The Nice – Five Bridges
We move on to another band managed by Tony Stratton-Smith and later signed to Charisma. The Nice progressed rapidly in the late 1960s from being a backing band for American singer P.P. Arnold to a highly acclaimed symphonic rock group that featured virtuosic playing by all band members. They also saw chart success with singles that featured their interpretations to America from West Side Story and Tim Hardin’s Hang on to a Dream.
In 1969 the band was offered a commission by the Newcastle Arts Festival to work with an orchestra conducted by Joseph Eger. They composed The Five Bridges Suite, which was inspired by five bridges that span the River Tyne between Newcastle upon Tyne and Gateshead. Keyboardist Keith Emerson wrote in the sleeve notes: “The natives of Newcastle will know that their high level bridge supports on the upper level the trains, and on the lower level the cars. Having seen this bridge it suggested to me, as it did Lee and Brian, a certain mechanical counterpoint which when expressed musically let me divide the trains and cars between my right and left hands. The final bridge is basically the second which I scored for a quintet of saxes and brass involving Alan Skidmore, Kenny Wheeler, John Warren, Pete King and Joe Harriott.”
Emerson told New Musical Express in 1970 how he got the inspiration to write the music: “I can remember writing the Five Bridges Suite. We were coming back from Ireland by Aer Lingus and the engines were droning and all of a sudden all these melodies were coming to me across these drones. So I got out the airsick bag, drew five lines across it, put a treble clef at the front and that was the beginning of the Five Bridges Suite. I had the whole suite down in a week, I worked incredibly fast. It got so bad that I’d go to bed and still have the dots in my head. I was writing in the bath, on a bus, at a bar, sitting on the toilet, eating.”
The suite is a fantastic melding of classical music and rock. It premiered on October 10th 1969 and was recorded the following week at the Fairfield Halls in Croydon. The recording was included on the album Five Bridges, released in June 1970. By then The Nice was no more. Earlier that year the band toured the US, where they shared a bill with King Crimson. Keith Emerson met Greg Lake and the rest is history.
Brian Davison – drums, percussion
Keith Emerson – Keyboards
Lee Jackson – vocals, bass guitar
The Sinfonia of London orchestra conducted by Joseph Eger
Genesis – Trespass
Another band that was signed to Charisma Records proved to be one of their most successful acts as the 1970s saw them producing some of progressive rock’s most praised albums. We are talking, of course, about Genesis. After releasing their debut album From Genesis to Revelation in 1969, they replaced their drummer and signed a contract with Tony Stratton-Smith when he saw them performing to 12 people in the upstairs room at Ronnie Scott’s club. In 1979 Stratton-Smith said this about Genesis: “There are certain bands you see just once and they get so many areas of your mind stimulated. They had it all going that night. In a way, I think the timing of it was right. I was hungry for a band I could really be proud of and they were looking for a manager they could rely on. And they had some astonishing attitudes, foremost among them the belief that they would never make it as a live band. And here we are today, for the second year running, Genesis have been voted the best live band in the world by Melody Maker readers. Genesis really felt that they would be writers, spend as much time in a recording studio and remain a mystery beyond that.”
Retreating to the country, the band came up with music that put them on the frontline of Progressive Rock’s increasing list of bands, in part influenced by King Crimson’s milestone album In the Court of the Crimson King. In his book ‘My Book of Genesis’ the band’s roadie and close friend Richard MacPhail recalls the sessions at the cottage: “Ant [guitar player Anthony Phillips] was the musical giant. Something people always forget is that back then, he was far and away the most developed writer and the others followed him. The other crucial element was Tony’s skill as a keyboard player and arranger. He was classically trained and like Guitar George in the Dire Straits song, he knew all the chords. Steve Hackett would later describe him as ‘the chord king’. He knew a lot about harmony, how it functions within a song, and when someone would suggest going from this phrase to that one, he would think for a while, play his keyboard and figure out how to link them together.”
In October of 1970 Genesis released their second album Trespass, a remarkable departure from their debut effort. Like other albums on Charisma, it was produced by John Anthony, who provided an anecdote about the band in an interview with Melody Maker, December 1970: “Often I go down and sing with the bands in the studio. Like, with Genesis’ singer Peter Gabriel, who lacks confidence when he goes into the studio. It helps him to build confidence in his singing.” The things you learn about early beginnings.
The album cover is again by Paul Whitehead. It originally started as a pastoral image of a mountain to fit the style of the majority of the tunes on the album. But then the album closer The Knife was added, a complete shift of mood and style from the rest of the album. Whitehead was asked to re-design the cover, but was reluctant to do so, suggesting other ideas “such as spilling a bottle of ink over it, burning it, and doing different things to it that would corrupt the image.” He had a eureka moment while visiting an art exhibition: “There was an Italian artist showing his work. His thing was slashing the canvas with a razor blade. ‘Bingo.’ I said to the band, ‘Why don’t we get a knife, the knife you’re talking about, and slash the canvas and take a photograph of that.’ They said, ‘You wouldn’t slash the canvas.’ I said, ‘You’re damn right I would.”
The album closer, The Knife, features one of the band’s most aggressive tracks and it quickly became a live performance highlight. It is a tour de force performance by all band members and especially for Peter Gabriel. Keyboard player Tony Banks on the tune: “Peter and I had written The Knife together. The organ sounds a bit more like The Nice, and the song was originally called ‘The Nice’.”
Shortly after the album release the band went through lineup changes. Here is an interview with Peter Gabriel in January 1971, describing an intermediate lineup: “Since the album was made we’ve lost percussionist John Mayhew and lead guitarist Anthony Phillips, who was one of the original four. We’ve had one or two drummers in the past, and we’ve now got Phil Collins, who actually played the part of the Artful Dodger in the West End production of Oliver Twist. Anthony was very good indeed but he was getting very depressed on the road, so Mick Barnard had replaced him on lead guitar.”
Credits:
Peter Gabriel – lead vocals, flute, accordion, tambourine, bass drum
Anthony Phillips – acoustic 12-string guitar, lead electric guitar, dulcimer, vocals
Tony Banks – Hammond organ, piano, Mellotron, acoustic 12-string guitar, vocals
Michael Rutherford – acoustic 12-string guitar, electric bass guitar, nylon guitar, cello, vocals
John Mayhew – drums, percussion, vocals
Rare Bird – Rare Bird
In 1970 music journalist Richard Green wrote in New Musical Express: “Imagine, if you can, a conglomeration of the best qualities of Led Zeppelin and the late lamented Mothers of Invention, plus a smattering of the classics, all mixed in with an extra high standard of musicianship and a group with two keyboards and you get some idea of the aims of Rare Bird, one of the most promising units to arrive on the British scene for a long time.”
With its unique instrumentation of a guitar-less rock band with two keyboard players, Rare Bird was indeed, rare. Influences abound on that outfit, one of then being label mates The Nice and their keyboard wunderkind Keith Emerson. Drummer Mark Ashton added: “Rare Bird is a mixture of classical influences and romanticism, plus a touch of funk. Quite honestly we are a pinch off every group on the scene! No – what I mean is we are influenced by all kinds of music, and Graham has been to university and is an expert on classical music.”
Organist Graham Field formed the band in 1969 and after a few lineup changes they settled on a quartet that included Steve Gould on bass and vocals, David Kaffinetti on electric piano and Mark Ashton on drums. They were one of the first to sign with Tony Stratton-Smith, who remembers: “Graham Field and the boys walked in off the street and laid a demo tape on me. It happens all the time. Only this time it was good, very good.” On the strength of this demo, he hooked the band with house producer John Anthony, who quickly ushered them into a recording studio. He recalls: “I found them to be well rehearsed, good fun and quick in the studio, which was a bonus. And as a result, the album turned out to be better than I’d imagined it would be.”
The band’s debut self-titled album was released at the end of 1969, and has the honor of being the first LP released by Charisma Records. As an album it did not make waves in the record stores, but it did produce a successful single with the song Sympathy. The hit peaked at number 27 in the UK early in 1970 and later topped the charts in Italy and the Netherlands. The song, featuring the passionate vocals by Steve Gould and the fine organ accompaniment of Graham Field, was deemed a standard album track when it was recorded. Mark Ashton: “None of us in the band even thought of it as a single, let alone a hit. It was John Anthony who heard the potential in this track. He worked especially hard on it and created such a fine sound that even today it still comes across so well.”
The song became a popular feature on a number of TV stations. Rare Bird performed it on BBC’s Top of the Pops on a program that also included Jethro Tull, Blodwyn Pig, Canned Heat, Badfinger, Shocking Blue and Mary Hopkin. Not a bad crop. They also performed the song on German TV’s popular show Beat-Club:
You may have noticed the unlikely sight of three bass drums in front of Mark Ashton. In a conversation with music critic Chris Welch in Melody Maker, Ashton talked avidly about his setup: “I’m going to use three bass drums when we go to the states in May. I don’t think the idea has ever been used before, except by Louis Bellson. As I sit so low and have a low snare drum, it will give me space to move my knees. It works because I tried it out using pedals and moving my feet. Each bass drum will be a different size and the idea will be to get different tones, not more volume.” Welch was stumped: “Making suitably aghast noises I made a quick check and twice added up Ashton’s legs. Definitely only two.” Music journalists knew their humor back then.
Sources:
vandergraafgenerator.co.uk – Excellent resource or all things Van der Graaf Generator
Rare Bird – Beautiful Scarlet, The Recordings 1969-1975 box set booklet (Esoteric Recordings).
Leave a Reply