“In the beginning they were children; in the end they were children. Children living in a six-dimensional city — a place of unparalleled horror.”
So begins the Story of Simon Simopath, an album many hail as the first concept album. In 1967, along with many psychedelic masterpieces released that year, a lesser-known band called Nirvana (not THAT Nirvana) stringed together a set of fantastic songs that formed a story. The album is the brainchild of Patrick Campbell-Lyons, an Irish musician who found himself in London in the early 1960s, and Alex Spyropoulos, a like-minded Greek-born musician. While both were absorbed in the thriving music scene in London, there were outsiders to the “scene”. Patrick Campbell-Lyons: “I had never been to the UFO club. I had no interest in Pink Floyd or the Soft Machine and I wasn’t doing LSD. We weren’t London clubbers or going to The Roundhouse dressed as hippies. I would more likely go to somewhere like Ronnie Scott’s where I would be lucky to hear blues or Mose Allison.”
The two drew their influences from a wide range of music styles. Campbell-Lyons, who previously formed the rhythm n’ blues band The Second Thoughts, listened to Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry and Howlin’ Wolf. As the music was changing around them, they added to their listening rotation albums by Frank Zappa and Tim Buckley. Spyropoulos, who had a strong background in classical music, introduced the world of modern avant-garde to Campbell-Lyons, who recalls: “Alex said to me this guy Stockhausen and mentioned somebody else as well, Terry Riley. So, in a way, I didn’t know anything of that world of experimental, electronic, avant-garde music. I think Alex before I met him, he was listening a lot to The Jazz Messengers and Miles Davis, because he didn’t have any blues or American music background, he had a European background.” Later on, this kind of experimentation would surface in their music, when they tried to expand the sonic palette of their sound in the studio: “We were making one of our demos and the idea came up that we would put something on the inside of the strings of the piano, to change the sound a little bit. What we did was: We had an electric shaver and we put it inside and it was moving around on the strings and we recorded it.
The two met at the end of 1966, a time when both of them were looking for the next chapter in their musical career. They remember that time vividly. Campbell-Lyons: “When I bumped into Alex at La Gioconda café in Soho, he told me he was a student at the London Film School round the corner at St Martin’s. We hit it off straight away. Both of us were unhappy at the collaborations we were involved in and we thought maybe we should work together and write a few songs.” Spyropoulos: “While following my studies in filmmaking at the LFTC (London School of Film Technique), I became friends with a guy called Ray Singer who was also a songwriter/musician and who impressed me a hell of a lot with his guitar playing and songwriting knowledge. I gradually gave up on my film studies and got attracted to songwriting in the middle of the flourishing pop music scene in the UK during its explosive sixties. It was precisely at that point in time that one day while sitting at a coffee bar, I met Patrick Campbell-Lyons. As a stroke of luck, while I was talking to myself saying: ‘Darn, I need a new lyric writer!’ he instantly replied: ‘I write lyrics!’”
That same serendipitous day their first song was born. Spyropoulos continues: “I invited Patrick to my home—a small attic flat at the top of a typical old London house—and played him the first verse of my song with the words:
Lonely boy your shadow is so sad
and your empty eyes like two sunsets upon the sky
if I talk about you I do not dislike you
all I wanna do is cry
all I really wanna do is cry
We clicked immediately! He wrote a second verse, resolving into a catchy chorus, and that was it!”
The song is Lonely Boy, which later appeared on the album The Story of Simon Simopath:
The two musicians started writing songs in earnest and peddling them to publishers and record labels. They quickly realized that they need a name for their outfit. Patrick Campbell-Lyons came up with the name Karma, which they both liked. However the next morning Alex Spyropoulos came up with his own suggestion, the one that won the vote. Campbell-Lyons remembers himself saying. “OK that’s a good name, we’ll be Nirvana.’ It was a good moment of inspiration.”
Their efforts to interest music executives in their music were fruitless to start. George Martin, Mickey Most and Denny Cordell said thanks but no thanks. The duo finally arrived at Island Records, where they met Muff Windwood (Stevie’s brother) shortly after he became Island’s A&R man when he left the Spencer Davis Group. After hearing a few notes from the first demo, Muff called Jimmy Miller into the room. Miller, who would soon become a celebrated producer with albums by Traffic, Blind Faith and Rolling Stones under his belt, immediately recognized the quality of songs he was hearing. Nirvana was quickly signed to Island, with label head Chris Blackwell inking the contract. Campbell-Lyons remembers the label and Blackwell fondly: “Chris was a special man: There are a lot of people who give you contracts, but there is nothing behind this. They give contracts to 10 people and then they’ll throw them like shit against the wall, hoping that one will stick on the wall. Island Records wasn’t that kind of label. Every member on Island Records who signed there felt like a family, because of Chris Blackwell, because that’s the way he made it and that’s the way it’s still today the most relevant and most inventive independent label that ever existed.”
Blackwell knew a good thing when he saw one, and quickly booked Nirvana to a recording session at Olympic Studios in June 1967. One of the first songs they recorded was ‘Tiny Goddess’, a song Alex Spyropoulos composed on a harpsichord, influenced by Baroque composer Tomaso Albinoni: “This became our main flag for trying to impress record companies while playing it live on just a simple guitar, all around the main record companies looking for a deal.” The song in its original form included Jimmy Miller on drums. Campbell-Lyons recalls working with Miller: “I think Chris might have spoken to him about getting interested in producing Nirvana, but he didn’t think we were funky enough because Jimmy was a drummer as well, but he did play drums on a couple of tracks. If you have the box set, there is an outtake of Tiny Goddess, he is playing drums on it and it’s like 10 times better than the original.”. But Blackwell, who was impressed by the mega hit ‘Whiter Shade of Pale’ by Procol Harum, released a month earlier, insisted on an orchestral arrangement. Another recording session followed, producing this gem that was released as a single:
But Chris Blackwell was not as interested in singles. This was a golden year for albums that demanded listeners to pay attention to the full record, start to finish. In the spirit of the times, he asked the band to come up with material for a full album. Blackwell later wrote this about Nirvana in his autobiography ‘Islander: My Life in Music and Beyond’: “Before Traffic, the first British rock band to release an album on Island was called Nirvana. Muff had brought these guys in, and they gamely auditioned for us at Basing Street on acoustic guitars. We made up our minds that we would sign them. I asked them a few questions—how they imagined their sound, did they want to do what we’d done with Traffic and work in the country, did they think they needed an orchestra—and was abrim with optimism, eager to get their first album out as soon as I could. The Story of Simon Simopath was one of the very first concept albums. It was by a few weeks the first rock album that linked songs together following a character from life to death.”
Indeed, the album loosely follows a character from life to death. It may not be the most coherent story you can find, but a story line is spelled out at the back of the album cover. At the time they signed to Island records, Patrick Campbell-Lyons and Alex Spyropoulos realized that the songs they put in front of the Island executives had a thread, some kind of connection. Campbell-Lyons recalled the songwriting process: “I remember a conversation we had that songwriting was a bit like going against the Law of Physics, shall we say, because that’s what it is: You make something out of nothing. You have a guitar, you have a piano and then… magic, you create something out of thin air. In the process of that entire situation, we were very much in a spiritual state of mind about these things, as much as we were in the ‘60s and we were deeply involved in the culture of it on many levels.”
The main character of the story was originally named Simon Psychopath, and the two dubbed the project as “a pantomime for grown-ups”. Spyropoulos remembers how the concept developed: “After three or four songs, Patrick saw a story developing in his mind about an innocent child born in a rather sterile and unfriendly world, which he decides to leave behind, embarking on a fantasy journey as a ‘Lonely Boy,’ while meeting a Pegasus in the sky in ‘Satellite Jockey,’ Magdalena in ‘Pentecost Hotel,’ a marriage in ‘Do You Take This Man,’ and so on through various extraordinary adventures to end with a crazy party in 1999.“ Campbell-Lyons adds: “This character Simon came out of the song ‘Wings of Love’ which also inspired the sleeve artwork.” Here is the song, which opens the album:
One of the most important factors in the sound of Nirvana was the orchestral arrangements dominating many of the songs on The Story of Simon Simopath. Blackwell hired arranger Syd Dale. The well-connected studio veteran brought with him other musicians to the recording studio, including Herbie Flowers on bass (later the bass player on Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side”) and Clem Cattini who played with The Tornados and The Kinks. Campbell-Lyons talked fondly about Syd Dale: “A big part of everything we did on those first two albums was down to Syd Dale. We got on well and would sit with him discussing ideas, like throwing in, ‘This could be good if we had two double basses playing together.’ Next day, we’d be in the studio with a 36-piece orchestra and rhythm section. We had the best players, our own Wrecking Crew.”
For me the highlight of the album is the song “Pentecost Hotel”, featuring psychedelic surrealist lyrics and innovative approach in musical composition. Campbell-Lyons, who wrote the lyrics, said that it was written after he had a dream of an out-of-body experience where he was looking at himself from above. He continues: “Then for some reason it was all happening in water. The dream became lucid and there was water in, I felt that I was in the ocean, but I was still aware that I was looking at myself and on the bottom of the ocean, on the seabed, there was a wooden boat about 10 meters long, not big, and of course, it had been out there for a while and there was fish swimming inside, it was sandy, the broken mast was still on it and the name on the side of the boat was Pentecost Hotel.” When asked about what songs he is most proud of, Alex Spyropoulos did not hesitate: “Pentecost Hotel. Our magical and inventive arrangement, thanks to Sid Dale, intensified the fantasy, enthralling our audiences as we then stood out amongst all other pop songs at the time.”
In order to be able to perform the complex arrangements on stage, Nirvana hired four more musicians to form the Nirvana Ensemble. They added guitarist Ray Singer, who was Alex Spyropoulos’ writing partner before he met Patrick Campbell-Lyons, Brian Henderson on bass, Sylvia A. Schuster from the Royal Academy of Music on cello and orchestral arranger Michael Coe on French horn and viola. All six appear on promotional material by Island Records. Campbell-Lyons recalls a funny episode when Nirvana where in the BBC studio and who comes in but Jimi Hendrix with his Experience: “Jimi Hendrix started looking at the cello player, Sylvia Schuster, and her instrument. He sat down in front of her and he was looking at this and said: ‘What is this?’ He hadn’t seen a cello in his life. He didn’t know what it was, as a musical instrument.”
Sources
Leave a Reply