"YOU DIDN'T WANT THE BEST BUT YER GONNA GET IT ANYWAY!! THE GREATEST BAND YOU'VE NEVER HEARD - FAMILY!!!!"

And I can hear it now: "Okay, Steve, ABlairican Pie did retrospectives on more respectable bands such as Rush, Black Sabbath, and Ozzy Osbourne, and now KISS - so why are you ripping him off? And why do a retrospective of a band that never did big business in America? Why not do a retrospective on a better known band such as Journey?"

Because the British band Family created some of the heaviest, loudest, most chilling, most poignant and most menacing music in the late sixties and early seventies. Also, they never set out to change the world or be innovative. Lead singer Roger Chapman explained that they were just arranging music as they felt it should be done. "It was naive and honest as that," he said.

And because Journey sucked.

And so here is their story through albums, as only yours truly can tell it - because no one else here knows it. Let us begin.

In the beginning, there was no Family; instead, there were the Farinas. The Farinas were a rhythm and blues band inspired by the Coasters, Fats Domino, and Ray Charles. The group was formed in 1962 by an odd lot of blokes in Leicester, England who loved all of those cool, hip American R&B acts. The Farinas consisted of Alec Woodburn on vocals, saxophone, harmonica and occasional piano and guitar, Richard Whitney on lead guitar, Timothy Kirchin on bass guitar, and Harry Ovenall on drums.

The Farinas had visions of stardom, just as a lot of British rock and roll and R&B groups did at the time, so the group's two leaders decided that they needed flashier names. Woodburn called himself "Jim King," probably in tribute to Freddie King, Albert King, and B.B. King, because Jim played a pretty mean blues harmonica. Whitney preferred to go by his middle name, John, but he soon became known by a cool-sounding nickname - "Charlie" Whitney.

Whitney, King and Ovenall (below) had all met at Leicester Art College. Another drummer would substitute for Ovenall occasionally in the early days, as Ovenall moonlighted in other bands in Peterborough, the Teenbeats and the Monarchs. Ovenall started out in The Teenbeats, whose other members were Rod Hurricane on lead vocals (born David Everett), Tiny B. Arthur on lead guitar (born Eric Bailey died circa 1975), and Jess T. Claymore on bass (born Colin Mitchell). Then he was in The Monarchs that included Peter X on lead guitar, Buddy Lay on rhythm guitar, and Dave X on bass. While playing in the Monarchs, Harry was also in the Farinas, so another drummer would sub for him when Ovenall was not at Art College in the holidays or on weekends when he went home to Peterborough to play in The Monarchs. Ovenall and a friend would go with him to help carry his drums, which he would take on the train.

Harry Ovenall had named the band the Farinas after Pininfarina, the Italian auto designer. The band went pro in April 1963 and toured the English Midlands, becoming regulars on the pub and club circuit. Perhaps inspired by the Beatles - who had released their first album in March 1963 - the Farinas cut a demo that featured a cover of the Isley Brothers' "Twist and Shout," as well as their own song "All You Gotta Do."

In 1964, The Farinas were able to cut a single in London. Their song, an original, was called "You Better Stop," a hard-edged soul tune that recalled Motown singers like Barrett Strong. The group was definitely aiming for a "soul and roll" sound.

"You Better Stop" was released on August 28, 1964 in England on Fontana Records.

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And where there's a single, there's always a B-side! This is the flip of "You Better Stop," a song called "I Like It Like That."

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As the Farinas began to gain a reputation in the English Midlands, they began to make a couple of changes in the lineup . . . staring with a change of bass players.

Richard Roman Grechko was the son of Ukrainian immigrants who had escaped that country after a decade of atrocities. Ukraine, then a Soviet republic, had suffered a famine created by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, followed by the Nazi occupation before the Red Army regained control of the region. The Grechkos escaped and made their way to Bordeaux, France, where Richard was born. Given that Great Britain was more accommodating to immigrants than most European countries, it was only logical that the Grechkos would make their way to England, ultimately settling in Leicester.

Young Richard was educated at Corpus Christi Roman Catholic Primary School in Leicester, where he excelled at - you guessed it - music. He played violin in the school orchestra, and he later learned guitar and bass, adding classical flourishes in his rock and roll playing.

By 1965, Tim Kirchin had lost interest in playing bass for the Farinas, deciding instead to find himself a nice girl and get married, then father and raise children. He was through with the music business. When the Farinas needed a replacement, Richard Grechko was happy to join the band. He decided that he needed a more rock and roll name, though, and by deformalizing his given name and lopping off the second syllable of his surname, he became . . . Ric Grech. :)

At the time Grech began playing in the Farinas, the group crossed paths with and/or shared the bill with a couple of other white-blues and blue-eyed soul acts that were gaining popularity in England. Two bandleaders who were seeing their fortunes rise were John Mayall and Spencer Davis. Grech got to know the young guitar player in Mayall's Bluesbreakers and the 17-year-old singer in Davis' eponymous group, who also played guitar and organ. Mayall's guitarist and Davis' singer became acquainted with Grech at about the same time the two musicians thought they should form a band of their own, but they weren't ready to break their commitments to Mayall or Davis at that time. Eventually, the guitar player and the singer would form a band, and when they decided they needed a bassist, they would call on Grech. They never even considered anyone else.

Oh yeah, the guitar player was a kid from Surrey named Eric Clapton, and the singer was a teenager from Birmingham named Steve Winwood. We'll talk later about the band they formed.

By 1966, the Farinas looked to expand their sound. Jim King had a soulful, lilting soul vocal style, but the band members decided that he needed to be complemented by a singer with a more raw blues-based approach. Charlie Whitney, in fact, had just the sort of bloke in mind.

Roger Chapman was a 24-year-old singer in Leicester who had been fairly well-known in the Leicester music scene. He achieved a modicum of notoriety at a talent show at Leicester's Palais de Dance when he beat out a competing singer, a balladeer named Arnold Dorsey, who would go on to become famous by a name he had taken from a German classical composer . . . Engelbert Humperdinck. :lol:

At seventeen years of age, Chapman - called "Chappo" by his mates - debuted at the Palais de Dance as the lead singer of the punningly titled Rockin' Rs (as in "rockin' arse"), and he later performed with Ric Grech in a band called the Exciters. Chappo later joined the Strollers and played gigs in Germany with that band.

Chapman had met Charlie Whitney at the Palais de Dance, and Whitney asked him if he could sing for a gig. Chapman was unavailable at the time, but he later joined the Farinas for a few gigs, and Whitney hoped to get him in the band. But Chapman hesitated, as he had a job painting houses and was unsure whether he could continue a music career. Until one day when Chappo was on the job, painting a house, and Whitney showed up and demanded he make a choice - him or house painting. And Chapman chose Whitney.

The Farinas got more than just a second lead singer. They got a wiry, spindly bundle of energy that was like a powder keg waiting to explode, as Chapman was a singer who put all of his energy into a performance. They also got what turned out to be an effective songwriting-team. Charlie Whitney and Roger Chapman were such incredibly imaginative composers that it would not be out of place to describe them as the Lennon and McCartney of Leicester. :)

By 1966, Great Britain was not the global colossus it had once been. Geopolitical power had shifted from London to New York, Washington and Moscow, and power in Western Europe had, thanks to Charles de Gaulle, had shifted to Paris. But London was now the locus of Western popular culture, and its influence in that sphere was summed up in two words - "Swinging London." London became the dominating influence in music, movies and fashion. In America, young men were inspired not by the Beach Boys to pursue a career in music but by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. It was not Tuesday Weld or Ann-Margret that young American women wanted to be like and young American men wanted to be with - it was model Jean Shrimpton and actresses Jane Asher and Julie Christie. Continental European directors such as Roman Polanski and François Truffaut were making their first English-language movies not in Hollywood but in London film studios such as Pinewood and Twickenham. And British film directors such as Lewis Gilbert were making acclaimed movies like Alfie. Aso, there was a new crop of young British actors - Sean Connery, Michael Caine, Terence Stamp and Peter Sellers - were becoming big box-office draws.

It was into this London that the Farinas arrived in when they realized that they weren't going to get anywhere if they stayed in Leicester. And so they arrived in Swinging London with a new name . . . the Roaring Sixties, named for a rock club in their hometown.

London even attracted a few American expatriates with its cultural and artistic renaissance, including a young record producer from California named Kim Fowley.

Although Family were destined to be small beer in the United States, they owed some of their success to a few Americans. An American record label, Reprise Records - funded by American singer Frank Sinatra - would sign the band to a recording contract. Jimmy Miller, an American record producer who would famously produce the Rolling Stones, would produce their first single and co-produce a couple of tracks on Family's debut LP. And Kim Fowley, while living in London, would assist the band then called the Roaring Sixties in recording demos of their songs. But Fowley, in addition to giving these Leicester lads his time and his attention, would give them something just as important . . . their name.

From left: Ric Grech, Charlie Whitney, Roger Chapman, Harry Ovenall, and Jim King.

Many pop acts have a gimmick, and some of the worst pop acts of all time became timeless icons more for their gimmicks - masklike face paint, Catholic accessories worn with slutty clothing, backwards baseball caps - than for their godawful music. When it came to adopting a gimmick, the Roaring Sixties were no exception. They dressed in Jazz Age-style pinstripe suits onstage and looked less like Louis Armstrong than Al Capone.

The Roaring Sixties alternated between working on demos with Kim Fowley and playing gigs on the pub and club circuit. One day, Fowley booked studio time with the band for an evening session, and it just happened to be right after a gig in London. The band didn't have time to change out of their stage suits - costumes, really - before heading to the studio, and because they wanted to be punctual for their studio booking, they headed straight to the recording studio without changing. When they walked in, Fowley took one look at their gangster getups and laughed. "Well," he said, "if it isn't the family!" :lol:

THe band members didn't know what Fowley was talking about. Fowley than explained to them that "family" was an American colloquialism to describe a group of gangsters - and, of course, different literal families tend to control the organized crime syndicates that gangsters operate in. Chapman and Whitney might have found Fowley's remark amusing at the time. But then, they thought, heck, why not use the name?

And so, in the fall of 1966, the Roaring Sixties became the Family.

The Family soon became a big draw in the London underground scene, and eventually they got themselves a manager - John Gilbert, filmmaker Lewis Gilbert's son. As time went by, the band dropped two things from their act - the gangster getups, and the definite article in their name. By 1967, they took to the stage looking like they'd just come off the street, and they were simply known as Family.

Twenty years after first adopting the name, Family had become forgotten so much - both in Britain and America - that a Minneapolis funk band named themselves The Family while being blissfully unaware that a blues-rock band from Leicester had taken the name first. Prince signed the Minneapolis group called the Family to his Paisley Park record label.

Left: the Roaring Sixties. From left: Charlie Whitney, Ric Grech, Jim King, Harry Ovenall, Roger Chapman.
Right: a promotional handbill for the newly renamed Family. From left: Charlie Whitney, Jim King, Harry Ovenall, Ric Grech, Roger Chapman.

In 1967, Liberty Records was a record label that was on the prowl for new talent in London. A piano player and singer from Middlesex named Reginald Dwight responded to an ad for Liberty looking for new and up-and-coming singer-songwriters that year, and it was at the Liberty auditions that he met a lyricist named Bernie Taupin. Reginald would later change his name to Elton John . . . you know the rest.

In fact, Elton John's career would later intersect with Family's and we'll look at that later.

It was also at Liberty in 1967 where Family got a record deal. Not quite ready yet to record a long player, the group instead cut a single, with help from members of Traffic and its principal member, Dave Mason. Producing the sessions for the single was Jimmy Miller.

The punningly titled "Scene Through the Eye of a Lens" was a psychedelic song that was in the vein of early Traffic, and it also borrowed elements from the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper album. It was a modest, yet important, beginning to the band's recording career.

"Scene Through the Eye of a Lens" was released in October 1967. Its B-side, "Gypsy Woman," is a heavy blues song with psychedelic touches.

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"Scene Through the Eye of a Lens" officially made Family recording artists. It gave them status. It gave them cache. It gave the prestige. But it also gave them a problem.

Drummer Harry Ovenall was becoming increasingly dispirited and disappointed with the musical direction that Roger Chapman and Charlie Whitney were taking with their songwriting and arranging. While their songs were becoming more innovative and daring, Ovenall preferred that Family remain grounded in blues and soul music. Like many music fans in 1967, Ovenall had a hard time getting into the new psychedelic sounds emanating from London and San Francisco because this new style of rock was increasingly divorced from black American music. Harry found the whole thing pretentious.

A second concern was John Gilbert, the band's manager. Ovenall didn't trust Gilbert, as he was convinced that Gilbert and his Dukeslodge management firm were ripping off the band. Within two years, Ovenall's suspicions of Gilbert were proven right. But for now, when it came to voicing concerns about Gilbert, he was in a minority of one.

A meeting of the band was called, and when it became apparent that Ovenall couldn't come to terms with what was going on with Family, he decided to leave the band. Chapman and Whitney, the acknowledged leaders of Family, now had to find a new drummer. So they went back to Leicester to find Harry's replacement.

Their choice would be a pivotal one.

Below: Harry Ovenall some time after leaving Family.

It didn't take long for Chapman and Whitney to find the right drummer to succeed Ovenall. Their choice was a 20-year-old bloke of short stature, almost looking like an elf. But his small physique and modest, unassuming presence belied a powerful, precise drumming style that would reshape Family in numerous ways.

Rob Townsend had spent his spent his teenage years playing in various Leicester groups such as the Beatniks, the six-piece band the Broodly Hoo and a band largely influenced by Motown . . . Legay. Not a typo; they were not named Legacy but Legay, named for their original drummer, Legay Rogers, whom Townsend replaced.

How much impact did this personnel change have on Family? Plenty. It would prove to be one of the most significant changes of drummers in rock history. The Beatles were a middling, decent pop band until Ringo Starr replaced Pete Best, creating the perfect chemistry that would turn the Beatles into the greatest rock and roll band of all time. When Neil Peart replaced John Rutsey in Rush, he brought to that band not just his powerful drumming and his command of triplets but a penchant for literary song lyrics that would turn Rush from a lead-footed power trio into the most innovative, most dynamic and most technically formidable rock trio ever. Replacing Harry Ovenall with Rob Townsend in Family was no different.

When Rob Townsend joined Family, he became the de facto leader of the band. Chapman and Whitney would create increasingly complex arrangements and give Townsend the seemingly impossible task of making them work with his timekeeping. He did, guiding the band steadily through middle tempos and propelling them through fast tempos. Townsend's style was strong and forceful, and with his small, skimpy drum kit, he could devastate drummers with larger sets. Just as Keith Moon was the most important element in the Who's chemistry, Rob Townsend was the secret weapon that made Family's incredibly powerful music work.

Below: Rob Townsend in 1967. :drummer:

Oh, mercy me, where are my manners? I overlooked the lyrics of the two songs on Family's first record. And that was wrong on my part, because as important as Family were becoming musically, they were also becoming significant lyrically.

So, without further ado, here are the lyrics to the two sides of Family's first single!

"Scene Through The Eye Of a Lens"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

Sunset that's small as the sea waves,
Raindrops that sparkle like gems.
Look at the world as a picture,
Scene through the eye of a lens.
Of colors and hills of the rainbow,
Suddenly everything blends.

Forests incredibly glowing,
Gleams in a mystical light.
Grace of the mountains are standing,
Cloud top a shimmering white
A petticoat pedestal of flowers,
Suddenly everything's right.

Here on fields of grass and soft lace,
Maybe just because I'm all too blue . . ..

"Gypsy Woman"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

Well I said, tell me, gypsy woman,
Tell me what you see in your crystal ball.
Well I said, tell me, gypsy woman,
Tell me what you see in your crystal ball.
Tell me about my baby,
Does she really love me at all?

Well I said, tell me, gypsy woman,
Just what am I supposed to do?
Well I said, tell me, gypsy woman,
Just what am I supposed to do?
Do I need a mojo?
Do I need a hex to see me through?
Well this is what I say . . .

Well I said, tell me gypsy woman,
Tell me what the future lies ahead..
Well I said, tell me gypsy woman,
Tell me what the future lies ahead.
She said, "Before I tell you your future boy,
You've got to cross my palm with bread."

With a new single out, and with new drummer Rob Townsend on board, Family took Swinging London by storm. Along with Townsend's powerful drumming, Roger Chapman and Jim King both sang and played saxophone, creating a distinct visual presence to match their sonic contributions, Ric Grech offered up meaty bass lines and poignant violin passages, and while not a technically proficient guitarist, Charlie Whitney knew how to make a guitar roar like a lion.

With King and Townsend rooted in the blues, Grech being classically trained, and Whitney keeping to himself on stage and looking rather shy, Family set themselves apart from other bands, but it was Roger Chapman who defined the band's style with his bleating vibrato, his smashed tambourines, and his "idiot dancing" - moving about like a demented scarecrow. Chappo would be so into his performance that at one gig, he cut his forehead and didn't even notice the bleeding until the show was over. "It wasn't the drugs," Townsend later recalled of Chapman," it was him."

Family weren't for everyone, though. Their shows could be dangerous - not because of the band, but because of their audiences. For every concertgoer who loved their music, there was another who detested them. "Shouting matches would develop between them," Chapman later recalled. "I thought this was great! This meant we seriously had something new to offer. We were out on our own!"

The royalty of sixties British rock certainly took notice of what they had to offer. Among those who went to see Family perform were Graham Nash of the Hollies and Eric Clapton of Cream. Clapton even went to Whitney and offered to buy his guitar - a double-necked Gibson. As it turned out, Charlie's guitar was not for sale, and Whitney would eventually be associated with the double-necked Gibson more than any other British rock guitarist except Jimmy Page.

Nash and Clapton sang their praises for Family, but they also got a prized endorsement from one of the biggest names not just in British rock but in all rock. Said John Lennon (below) of the lads from Leicester, "They've got a fantastic blend of sound, the best I have heard in a long time."

By the end of 1967, Family were the toast of the underground rock scene in Swinging London and counted some of British rock's biggest names among their fans. They had come a long way from two years before, playing small venues in Leicester with tickets going for five bob each.

Unfortunately, their first single failed to make the pop charts, and manager John Gilbert went about looking for a new label for his artists. As noted, Family would end up on Reprise, the American label that Sinatra had founded.

But despite all of the buzz about Family, a recording contract with Reprise proved to be a hard sell. When the A&R guys of Reprise's British offices heard Family's demos, they were taken aback by Roger Chapman's vocal style. Someone at the listening session must have said, "LOOK HERE, MR. GILBERT, THAT CHAP SINGING ON THE DEMO SOUNDS LIKE A GOAT!" Not a "GOAT," as in "Greatest Of All Time," but a literal goat, the horned imperial-bearded barnyard animal normally used as a metaphor for sinners. In fact, he sounded to some people like an "electric goat" - a goat's bleating channeled through a Leslie speaker.

Chapman was perplexed by such appraisals. He explained that he was trying to sound like a cross between Little Richard ("Lu-CIIIIIIIILLE!!!")and Ray Charles ("What you SAY???"). In fact, Little Richard and Ray Charles were his two biggest heroes, and his great ambition was to be as good and as soulful as they were.

In the end, though, Roger Chapman did not sound like Little Richard or Ray Charles. He sounded like . . . Roger Chapman, a monumental feat for anyone. :)

Ultimately, Reprise decided to sign Family. Progressive rock was the latest innovation in rock and roll, and Reprise, in signing the most talked-about band on the London underground circuit not named Pink Floyd, clearly wanted to be a part of it.

As for Harry Ovenall, who had since left the band and returned to Leicester, he had no regrets. Family had shed its "soul and roll" sound, and he clearly did not want to be a part of prog. He went home to Leicester, got married, and quit music, opening an antique shop with his wife. As a song that Whitney and Chapman would later write goes, he was only doing whatever made him happy.

And Family had every reason to be happy with their new record deal - and they were. Not only were they getting ready to record their first long player, Dave Mason - the leader of Traffic - was set to produce it.

Below, top: Family, 1968. Foreground, from left: Ric Grech, Rob Townsend, Roger Chapman. Background, from left: Charlie Whitney, Jim King.
Below, bottom: Dave Mason, 1968.

Nineteen sixty-eight was the year where things really came together for Family. They spent much of the year touring England and performing on the same bill with the Jimi Hendrix Experience and opening for Tim Hardin.

In fact, Hendrix and his sidemen was said to be afraid to follow Family onstage because of the manic energy they'd generated.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience was afraid to follow these guys? :lol:

Well, yes. They didn't look fierce, but once they took to the stage, they played some of the most thunderous rock and roll ever heard up to that point.

Clockwise, from left: Charlie Whitney, Rob Townsend, Roger Chapman, Ric Grech, Jim King.

On July 19, 1968, Family released their first album, Music In a Doll's House, and it was immediately heralded as one of the best debut albums of the year by those who heard it. Only that other debut album conceived in a tiny abode, the Band's Music From Big Pink, surpassed it in acclaim.

Of course, Beach Boys fans insisted that Song Cycle, the 1968 debut album form Brian Wilson's songwriting partner Van Dyke Parks, was not only the best debut album of the year but the best debut album ever. The attention Parks got was mostly hype. But Family's debut LP lived up to the hype Music In a Doll's House received. It featured a curious blend of psychedelic arrangements and tape loops, orchestrated ballads, and some tough blue-eyed soul numbers. It sounded contemporary and old-fashioned at the same time, with modern electric instruments and a stately Victorian feel to it.

Music In a Doll's House was as important to rock in 1968 as the Band's Music From Big Pink. Like the Band's freshman effort, Family's first album presented a much more thoughtful and musicianly alternative to the excesses of much of the rock of the late sixties (albeit in a much different direction from that which the Band pursued). With Music In a Doll's House, the members of Family took a first step into a world all their own.

The sleeve of Family's debut album was as exciting as the music. The front cover showed the band members in whimsical, humorous poses in a Victorian dollhouse that, in some instances, made no sense, sharing their space with dolls (all female figures) or by themselves. Charlie Whitney sits on a bed in the top-floor bedroom playing banjo in a nightshirt while a maid doll looks in. Over in the next room, a doll looks down on a clearly embarrassed Ric Grech while he's taking a bath. :rofl:

Downstairs in the parlor, we find another doll looking in on Jim King as he watches TV . . . whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! What's a television set doing in a nineteenth-century dollhouse tableau? :eek:

And finally, at the bottom of stairwell, Rob Townsend is reading the funnies in his bloomers, while, in the kitchen, Roger Chapman - dressed as if he's about to join Lewis and Clark on their expedition to the Pacific - offers a cup of tea to a little girl doll.

Credit Julian Cottrell for the front cover photography, as well as his ability to insert Family into a dollhouse without the benefit of photoshop!

The back cover, photographed by Jac Remise, was as creepy as the fron tcover was clever. It depicts a doll on a toy tricycle along an unpaved country road . . . and the camera is positioned to create the illusory perspective of the doll being life-size! Considering the acid that fans must have been when listening to the album and looking at the cover, I suspect that there were many bad trips involved.

All of this creativity, though, made it clear that Family weren't just going to make competent, polished mainstream professional music. They were offering something entirely new and completely innovative.

Music In a Doll's House, as noted, was produced mostly by Dave Mason worth some help from Jimmy Miller. Also involved were engineers with names well known to serious audiophiles - Eddie Kramer and George Chkiantz.

Music In a Doll's House was the first British rock album to be issued by the United States on the Reprise label. Reprise, however, did not own the rights to the album's masters - Family manager John Gilbert did, and he licensed the album to the label. Gilbert - credited as an "executive producer" of Music In a Doll's House - would do the same with Family's next album. This would lead to great trouble in the compact-disc reissue age, as we will see later.

Charlie Whitney later recalled that Music In a Doll's House had been recorded on four-track tape. Due to that equipment, final overdubs were done live during the mix so mono vinyl copies had a different mix to the stereo version. Because of a pressing error, however, the mono record would jump the grooves during playback. Thus explains the lack of a mono version of Music In a Doll's House today.

Family's debut album only got up to number 35 on the British charts - sadly, it didn't chart in the U.S. - but it did have an effect on the musicians who heard it, as they would pursue elements of progressive and hard-blues-based rock going forward.

Family also had an effect on the Beatles, but the effect wasn't musical. When Music In a Doll's House was issued, the Beatles were seven weeks into the recording of their planned double album, and they had planned to name it A Doll's House, after Henrik Ibsen's play, to symbolize how the Beatles had become four separate individuals that were in a group only nominally. The release of Family's album caused them to drop that idea, and they ultimately titled their double album simply The Beatles, with a cover as minimalist as the title.

More recently, the dollhouse metaphor was employed for another LP title. In March 2022, southern Illinois indie rocker Stace England released his first album with the band Screen Syndicate, a project that bases music on the movies - Roberta Stars in The Big Doll's House, a concept album about the career of B-movie actress Roberta Collins. The Big Doll House was the 1971 women-in-prison movie that made Collins a cult heroine among the drive-in movie crowd. (This album deserves a thread all its own.)

Many older Beatles fans in America who owned Beatles records before 1987, when the British catalog became the global standard, are familiar with this title - "The Chase," a title of the closing film-score instrumental track on the Beatles' Help! LP. (Capitol issued Help! in the U.S. with just the seven songs from the movie plus five instrumentals from the film score, making it a true soundtrack album.) "The Chase" is a good enough title for a piece of incidental film music, but a song title? What sort of song would you have with a title like that? Family provided that answer with the opening cut of Music In a Doll's House, with terrifying song about a bloodthirsty woman going after her man like a hunter after a fox. The song begins not with an instrument or a vocal but a scream.

The brass and strings were arranged by one Mike Batt. Batt was eighteen years old at the time.

"The Chase"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

Ahh-hhh! Ahh-hhh! Ahh-hhh!
What is it now?
There's something I see in your face.
Feel like a fox,
Hounds close at heels at the chase.
Do I see blood in your eyes, babe?
Is it the end of the race?
Ahhhh, ahhhh, ahhhh!

Hunted me out, sapped me of strength and of will.
Showered affections, baited me, loved me until
My defenses and cautions were gone, babe,
And you did it just for the thrill.
Ahhhh, ahhhh, ahhhh!
Tally-ho, tally-ho!


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"The Chase" segues into a warm, soft, rechstrated ballad that no one in the London "underground rock" scene would have expected or even wanted. "Mellowing Grey" is the type of song one could imagine Johnny Mathis (below) singing! Fans who had heard Family live before they got signed to Reprise must have thought that Family had sold out. Au contraire! Not only were the lyrics more poignant than anything Family's fellow Leicesterian Engelbert Humperdinck ever sang, it also displayed Roger Chapman's versatility as a singer. "Mellowing Grey" it also put the Moody Blues' Days of Future Passed to shame. It took the Moody Blues an entire album to convey the theme of a single day from dawn to dusk. Family conveyed it in one song. This one.

And I still can't understand why no one ever brought this song to Johnny Mathis's attention.

"Mellowing Grey"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

Mellowing grey, in misty morning's day,
My thoughts turn to you, kingfisher blue.
Loveliness born, in velvet shades of dawn,
Joy from your eyes, soft summer skies.
All things within the world supreme,
I compare with the love that is my dream.

Mellowing grey, the veil of evening's day,
The dream that is you is midnight blue.
Your lips that evade a crimson charade,
I wait for the dawn from whence you're born.
All things within the world supreme,
I compare with the love that is my dream.

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Traffic's "Feelin' Alright," which Joe Cocker would cover for his debut album, and "Only You Know and I Know," frm Dave Mason's debut solo album, are the best-known songs that Mason wrote ("We Just Disagree," his 1977 hit, was written by Jim Krueger, a Mason sideman). One Mason-penned song not so well-known - outside Family's fan base, of course - was "Never Like This," which Mason give to Family to record on their debut LP. It is the only song Family recorded for an album that was written by someone outside the group. That includes covers; the only time Family ever recorded covers was for British radio shows.

"Never Like This"
(Dave Mason)

Wear Wellington boots when you tread into water,
But what do you do when she's finally caught you?
You just can't take off or go underground,
You just have to find yourself another way round.
Been through this before, but never like this.

Her mother is smiling across from the sofa,
Dad's watching the telly but taking no notice.
Instead he just plays with some bright-colored blocks,
Occasionally speaks of little-girl frocks.
Been through this before, but never like this.

Beginning to wish that you'd never met
The girl with the far-away look in her eyes.
But to your surprise she pours you some tea.
How many lumps - is it two, one or five?

You're suddenly find yourself glad that you came,
And you're sure that the room doesn't look quite the same.
And Dad's got you into his bright-colored blocks,
Whilst Mother still smiles in her little-girl frock,
And the girl with the far-away look in her eyes
Has now become very important in life.
Been through this before, but never like this.

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"Me My Friend" was the single from Music In a Doll's House, with "Hey, Mr. Policeman," the song that kicks off side two of the LP, as its B-side.

"Me My Friend" is the confession of a well-traveled man who's had many women but wishes he could take a spiritual journey and find himself a woman who would not just give him ecstasy but be someone he can truly love.

Ric Grech and Roger Chapman share lead vocals here.

"Me My Friend"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

Me my friend,
I have seen many lands, me my friend.
I have been far and wide,
I have sailed many a tide,
I have rolled many a ride.

But I wish, me my friend,
I could sail to the stars,
Have the gift to transport
My whole being, my whole thought
To a world of dreams,
My friend.

Me my friend,
I have loved many girls, me my friend.
I have told many lies,
I have asked many whys,
I have whispered many sighs.

But I wish, me my friend,
I could have 'til the end
Someone to love and hold
Through the warmth and the cold
Of my lonely years,
My friend.

Me my friend,
Me my friend. . ..

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Family performed a stripped-down rendition of "Me My Friend" on French television. The technical quality is reminiscent of an old Hollywood movie from the early thirties, but such was the case of television in continental Europe.

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This is the first of three instrumental variations of songs on the album. This variation of "Hey. Mr. Policeman" is a 23-second fast blues shuffle arrangement of the song (which appears later).

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Family performed a stripped-down rendition of "Me My Friend" on French television. The technical quality is reminiscent of an old Hollywood movie from the early thirties, but such was the case of television in continental Europe.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot - this version of "Me My Friend" has different lyrics. Chapman would sing alternate lyrics for several songs when he performed them live.

Winter sucks. But Family's song "Winter," about how much the season sucks, is great!

"Winter"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

Winter time, it brings me down.
Ice cold wind, snow on the ground.
Soon I'll feel the summer breezes,
Watch it as it carefully seizes.
Thistle down, Send it round,
Slowly upward, slowly down,
Gently moving, never a sound.

Wish that I could hibernate,
Go to sleep and never wake
Until the sun comes shining once again.

Winter time, it brings me down,
Overcoats and scarves thrown round.
Cold dark nights, dense wintry gales,
Frozen feet in snowy trails.
Slowly homeward, trudging through
Wind and rain and hailstorms too.
Where's the sun, I wish I knew.

Winter time, it brings me down,
Ice cold wind, snow on the ground.
Winter time, it brings me down,
Overcoats and scarves thrown round.

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"Old Songs New Songs" is a funky blues jam that closes with a long instrumental fade out, which largely got cut from this TV presentation of the song in France (second video). But that wasn't the worst of it. Family had to deal with these annoying dancing girls in school uniforms getting in front of the band and mugging or the cameras.


"Old Songs New Songs"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

Fire is on, I'm getting warm,
My girl here, she lies sleeping.
The other door slips ajar, and it's my wife.
She's been peeping
While I've been leaping.
High gray stone walls, they all,
They all surround me.
Well, the tracker dogs came around while their masters howled,
Cowered, they find me,
Said I can't be found near.

Old songs, new songs,
Keep on singing.

A new day yesterday,
All gone, until tomorrow.
But I surely know a girl like her could only bring,
Bring me sorrow.
Much worse to follow.
All in all, I'm gonna do my best
To do the work that they hand me.
Well, I'm gonna do my best, so if I'm asleep,
Understand me.
Don't you underhand me, no.

Old songs, new songs,
Keep on singing.

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Side one of Music in a Doll's House closes with a 45-second variation of a theme of "The Breeze," which is in fact the penultimate song on side two.

Charlie Whitney - who was going by his middle name, John, in 1968 - composed the music to these three songs by himself, hence he got sole credit to the brief instrumental variations.

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Side two of Music in a Doll's House begins with "Hey Mr. Policeman," a lecherous white-soul tune about a man seeing his woman for one final time before going to prison. He'd kill for her. Did he? This song is as close to singing like his idol Ray Charles (below) as Roger Chapman ever got.

Ric Grech got part credit as a composer for this song.

"Hey Mr. Policeman"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman/Ric Grech)

Hey Mr. Policeman, one man at bail,
Can I see her one time, before I make jail?
I'd kill for that woman, I'd kill for that woman,
Kill for that woman, kill for that woman,
The things I don't tell.

Hey there, driver, wait for me here.
Don't stop the engine, keep out of gear.
Last time I see her, the last time I see her,
Last time I see her, last time I see her
In many a year.

Hey there woman, see me last time,
Don't care a nickel, don't give a dime.
I'd kill for you, woman, I'd kill for you, woman,
Kill for you, woman, kill for you, woman,
You call it a crime.


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Chappo and Charlie were likely inspired to write this song by looking out of a window while on acid. :lol: It's still a worthy song, as it invites the listener to consider the world beyond his or her little corner of it.

This song is both psychedelic and blues-heavy. Dig Jim King's harmonica!

"See Through Windows"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

See through windows, look at things.
Sunlight, shadows, cat's paws, lap wings.
Eyes see life's meaning.

Mist clear windows, look through them.
Snow melts, grass shows, doors open.
Eyes see life's meaning.

Real life's peculiar, way things are happening,
Mountains like embers, glowing and smoldering,
Following, wallowing, deep in the void . . ..
Slowly but surely you start coming close to . . . it.

Tears on the pane, windows mottled
Here through the rain, world looks bottled.
Eyes see life's meaning.

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The third and final instrumental variation of a song on the album. This one, of "My My Friend," is 23 seconds of a droning sitar.

We've already heard "Me My Friend," as that song was on side one. But the instrumental variation of the song is on side two. Meanwhile, the two instrumental variations on side one are variations of songs on side two. How do I explain that? Simple: It was the sixties.

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Ric Grech's musicianship takes center stage here, as he contributes cello on this track as well as a thundering bass line. Grech is probably the most underrated bass player in all of rock.

THis song was so powerful when Family performed it live, it became their signature song. But not for long. A song on their second album - which would also feature Grech prominently - would surpass it.

"Peace of Mind" is the first of two songs co-produced with Dave Mason by Jimmy Miller.

"Peace of Mind"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

Take your time, ease my mind,
Wait until my thoughts are blind.
See the sun, day has come,
That's the way that things are done.

There's no stopping, things are throbbing,
Still I find,
Peaceful feeling, cars are speeding,
Peace of mind, peace of mind.

I can feel things reveal
Peace within - now should I kneel?
Overrun, things to come,
Contented much to carry on.

There's no stopping, things are throbbing,
Still I find,
Peaceful feeling, cars are speeding,
Peace of mind, peace of mind."Peace of Mind"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

Take your time, ease my mind,
Wait until my thoughts are blind.
See the sun, day has come,
That's the way that things are done.

There's no stopping, things are throbbing,
Still I find,
Peaceful feeling, cars are speeding,
Peace of mind, peace of mind.

I can feel things reveal
Peace within - now should I kneel?
Overrun, things to come,
Contented much to carry on.

There's no stopping, things are throbbing,
Still I find,
Peaceful feeling, cars are speeding,
Peace of mind, peace of mind.

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The most innovative song on Music In a Doll's House is, perversely, its most dated. "Voyage" has a lot of backwards violin and electronic effects that were considered avant-garde in 1968 but considered jejune today. The lyrics have held up better, though, as it describes a trip of self-discovery, not unlike the Police's 1981 song "Secret Journey."

"Voyage"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

A veil unfolds across my eyes,
A shadow falls on open skies.
Seeds of doubt leave me without
Any idea of my whereabouts.

Where do I look for proof?
Who do I ask and what do I say
As I sail on my voyage of truth?

Curiosity quickens, questions arise,
Pick out the fools, show me the wise.
Who's to know and what's to show?
Is amber the step between stop and go?

Songs of seasons, sing them, sing,
But is summer winter, autumn spring?
What is time within my mind?
Is a red rose red to a man who's blind?

Where do I look for proof?
Who do I ask and what do I say
As I sail on my voyage of truth?

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"The Breeze" is about . . . just that. And it's sung from the perspective of the breeze itself.

The song describes how the breeze touches and flows through everything in its path. It's written to the rhythm of a ticking clock and the melody apes a mantel-clock chime. THis is the second of the two tracks co-produced by Jimmy Miller.

"The Breeze"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

Going through shops and bars and houses,
Blowing through stores and skirts and trousers.
Following taxis, hanging on buses,
Meadows, fields, in between rushes.

Nobody knows, nobody sees,
I am the breeze.

Blowing the dust from Sphinxes' smiles,
Scattering sands for miles and miles.
Cooling bathers lying on beaches,
Stealing through orchards of pears and peaches.

Nobody knows, nobody sees,
I am the breeze.

Whooshing my way through parks and flowers,
Gas works, bridges, cooling towers.
Caravans, horses, gypsy campfires,
Preachers' steeples, elegant spires.

Nobody knows, nobody sees,
I am the breeze.

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No album-closing song is weirder and more schizoid than the song that closes Music In a Doll's House. "3 x Time" begins with mournful saxophone solo and a stately backing for Roger Chapman's wistful look back at his life (at 26 years of age?), then it degenerates into a demented jug-band rave-up with Chapman vocalizing "nyahh, nyahh,nyahh-nyahh-nyahh, da-nah da-nah da-nah!"

And then, after a Beatlesque moment of silence, Family end the album with a brief instrumental sampling of the British national anthem - "God Save the Queen" in 1968, "God Save the King" today. The few Americans who heard this album in 1968 must have wondered why Family were closing with "My Country 'Tis of Thee." :rofl:

Queen would pull the same trick at the end of their fourth album, 1975's A Night at the Opera.

"3 x Time"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

There have been many blue yesterdays
Passed me by,
And as I sit here, my time goes fast
As I re-enact the past.
The past is gone but always very near,
Memories good and bad that I hold dear.

There have been many long nights
Awake after days,
And thought of time and all of its ways
And the melody that it plays.
The things I've done and all the friends I've met,
Now looking back, there's nothing I regret.

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I noted earlier that Family performed "Me My Friend" n television with different lyrics from the song as it appeared on record. The same thing occurred with "The Breeze" when they performed that song on BBC Radio. Much like Bob Dylan, Chapman would offer up different lyrics in songs when he performed live with Family, as if to find new or different meanings in them - for him, for his bandmates, and for his audience.

These are the alternate lyrics for the two songs as Chapman sang them live.

"Me My Friend":

Me my friend,
I have done many things, me my friend.
I have walked many lanes,
I have called many names,
I have played many games.

"The Breeze":

Jungle grasses bowing sweetly,
Following zebras so discreetly.
Shivering seas on backs of whales,
Adding wings to flying-fish scales.

Below: Family in 1968. Clockwise from top left: Rob Townsend, Roger Chapman, Charlie Whitney, Jim King, Ric Grech.

Wow! This is a long thread! Interesting though.:)

Family would tour Britain extensively to support Music In a Doll's House and also did a few BBC Radio sessions on top of that. In the early sixties, pop groups would regularly perform on BBC radio at a time when the national broadcasting network in the U.K. was stingy about playing pop records in general and rock and roll records in particular. In 1967, Radio 1, the Beeb's FM station playing the latest and the newest popular music, debuted on the air at the same time that, on the other side of the Atlantic, free-form commercial FM rock stations were being launched and, out in the North Sea, pirate radio stations were broadcasting to the island of Great Britain to play even more new records. But live performances on BBC Radio were still essential, and Family took advantage of that opportunity.

Below: Family. From left, Ric Grech, Jim King, Charlie Whitney, Rob townsend, Roger Chapman.

Wow! This is a long thread! Interesting though.:)

Thanks! It's going to get even longer. Music In a Doll's House was the first of seven Family albums.

I don't think it was the Fourth of July. In fact, I know it wasn't. :lol:

A little more than a month after Music in a Doll House's release, Family became trendsetters again, performing a free concert at Hyde Park. The date was Saturday, August 24, 1968. More free concerts in Hyde Park would follow.

Also, a week after Family's first (yes, first -they'd be back!) Hyde Park show, the first Isle of Wight rock festival would be held, pre-dating Woodstock in America by less than a year. Family would not be at that festival, though they would play the two Isle of Wight festivals that followed (more about which later). In fact, Family would be at two entirely different festivals while the first Isle of Wight festival was going on - the Tees Pop ‘68 Pop Festival on August 31 in North Yorkshire (where Charlie Whitney was born), which included appearances from, among others, Traffic, Joe Cocker, and the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band as well as Americans Ben E. King and the Amboy Dukes, followed by an appearance at the Bank Holiday Bluesology Festival on September 1 and 2 in Worcestershire where, I'm sure, the audience got sauced. :rofl: The Bluesology bill included the Move, Fleetwood Mac, Chris Farlowe and John Mayall and his Bluesbreakers - one of whom, Mick Taylor, would soon join the Rolling Stones.

As for the 1968 Hyde Park show, Family's set list included the Doll's House songs "Voyage," "The Breeze," "See Through Windows" and "Old Songs New Songs," plus a new song that had yet to be recorded . . . "A Song For Me." You'll be hearing about this little ditty much, much later. ;)

Charlie Whitney looked back on that Hyde Park concert with admiration for his confederate, Roger Chapman. "Chappo just went for it, giving everything physically for the crowd," Whitney said. "I think he fell off stage at one point." :rofl:

Below are pictures from the 1968 Hyde Park show.

In November 1968, Family released their third single, the A-side of which was composed by and had a lead vocal by Ric Grech (below). it was the first and only time Family released a song other than Whitney/Chapman composition as a single.

Grech's song, "Second Generation Woman," was clearly aimed at the pop market, as it bore a musical resemblance to the Beatles' "Paperback Writer" and the Monkees' "Last Train to Clarksville." Although it was well-received by Family fans, it did not make the British singles chart . . . but it came tantalizingly close. We won't hear it here just yet; as it would be included on Family's second album, which came out six months after, I'll save it for when we get to that LP.

The B-side, however, was a lovely Whitney/Chapman folk ballad about Leicester. Called "Hometown," it was a song lamenting the change that modern architecture and new highways had wrought upon the city at a time when other cities in both Britain and America were being upended by express-highway networks and new Modernist buildings that made people with taste want to barf. Ironically, Chapman sings about how people think he's changed just because he stopped wearing suits and started wearing hippie attire.

Leicester (below) is a changed city even more from when Family started there. It now has a population in which British-born whites are a minority and seventy languages are spoken. Roger Chapman and Charlie Whitney would have no trouble with that sort of change, as they have always been against racism. And modern Leicester is proof that the city is as welcoming to outsiders has it had been to Mr. and Mrs. Grechko, when the two Ukrainian refugees settled there to raise their son Richard.

"Hometown"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

Grass is gone,
There's only concrete to walk upon.
The motorway has been through and gone,
There's nothing here left to see.

Corner shop,
All that's left is an empty plot
Making room for an office block.
It's just a sign of the change of times.

Hometown, everything has been changed around.
Buildings so high, can't even spy
The sun going down.

It looks cold,
I see no sight of a barber's pole.
Even that one has been sold
To the city men with their "Vacant" signs.

How strange,
People thinking that I have changed,
But as it happens, I'm just the same,
It's just the cut of the clothes I wear.

Hometown, everything has been changed around.
Buildings so high, can't even spy
The sun going down.

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Family would tour Britain incessantly throughout the remaining months of 1968, but they also needed to get another album out. Music In a Doll's House was an unqualified success with London's alternative-rock scene and with the critics, but it was a commercial disappointment. Sure, it got on the charts, but at its peak chart position, there were still 34 albums outselling it that week. This next LP would not only have to be better, it had to sell better.

For Family's second album, manager John Gilbert (left) made himself a producer. Having your manager produce your album was not unheard of - Cream's debut album was produced by their manager, Robert Stigwood - but Gilbert's meddling in the band's artistic decisions seemed a bit unseemly.

Fortunately for Family, Gilbert's co-producer would be a real recording director - the best British recording producer, in fact, whose name wasn't George Martin. Glyn Johns (right) would co-produce the follow-up to Music In a Doll's House, and he had the bona fides to do the job. He'd already worked with every major British rock act of the sixties, including the Beatles, when he was their engineer for their "Around the Beatles" TV special. (He'd soon work with the Beatles again for a new live-in-studio album, and you know all about that.) Johns would provide a much more direct, straightforward sound for Family than that provided by the more esoteric Dave Mason, and Johns would help them set the standard for their sound going into the seventies. Thanks to Johns, Family would gain a bigger audience but keep their artistic integrity.

What do a goggle-masked female bass-drum player, a strongman, a bareback lady, and an action-figure-wielding midget have in common? They're all on the front cover of Family Entertainment, Family's second album, released in March 1969.

The title is both a pun and an irony. It's a pun on the band's name, and it's an irony because this album - like the circus performers on the front cover - is the farthest thing from family entertainment. Many of the songs refer to sex, drugs, death and radical politics. That was in keeping for the times, as rock and roll had long ceased to be finger-snapping pop songs for teenyboppers about boy-girl relationships and had become heavier and deeper all around.

The band members appear on the back cover. As for the front cover, they inevitably admitted that the front-cover photo was "inspired by" (read "ripped off from" :lol: ) the cover of the Doors' 1967 LP Strange Days - which, like Family Entertainment, was a sophomore release.

Would this get you to buy the album? :lol:

Family had made the Beatles change the title of their double album to The Beatles - before the fans changed the title to the White Album - when the title Music In a Doll's House pre-empted the Beatles' plans to call their double LP A Doll's House. Now, just as the Beatles had reacted to Family, Family reacted to the Beatles. Their new album Family Entertainment came with a poster and with the lyrics to the album's songs on the back, just as the White Album had a poster with a lyric sheet on the back.

The poster that came with Family Entertainment showed Family and the circus performers posing together, with the lady bass-drum player unmasked and ungoggled - hey, she's kinda cute! - and the bareback lady (with Roger Chapman's arm around her) amused by Rob Townsend, the drummer, taking her place sitting in the drum (being held up by a harness). Hey, Charlie Whitney is actually smiling! And he's normally a serious fellow. Along the edges of the poster are numerous headshots of the band members.

Ominously, however, Jim King and Ric Grech, on the left, are separated from their bandmates in the main photo . . . and (we're getting ahead of the tale a bit here) both King and Grech would be gone before 1969 was over.

Copies of the poster would soon find themselves on bedroom walls all across Britain . . . including the bedroom wall of one Farrokh Bulsara, an aspiring musician and singer living in the Kensington section of London. Bulsara would achieve fame in the mid-seventies as the lead singer of a glam-metal band. The band was Queen, and Bulsara would be known as . . . Freddie Mercury. ;)

Family Entertainment kicks off with "The Weaver's Answer," a song about an old man who asks the "weaver of life" for the ability to see his life as a tapestry. After days of asking the weaver what his cloth looks like, he sees the weaver's loom and finds himself getting closer to it, and only then does he understand why he's getting to see it now . . . because his tapestry is dne and his life is over. That is, he's about to die. :(

Ric Grech's violin solo at the end of the song signifies the old man's passage into eternal life in the next world.

This song had a profound effect on me. In fact, every time someone - including a friend or a relative - dies, I say that that person "received the weaver's answer." It's an expression that only I seem to use.

"The Weaver's Answer" immediately replaced "Peace of Mind" as Family's signature song, and it became identified with them as much as "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" was with the Rolling Stones. Although Family never did big business in the United States, there's one bright side to that - "The Weaver's Answer" was never played to death on American AOR and classic-rock radio. But "The Weaver's Answer" is indeed a prime example of "classic rock."

Roger Chapman always hoped that Ray Charles would cover "The Weaver's Answer," but it's unlikely that Charles knew about the song . . . or the band that wrote and recorded it.

"The Weaver's Answer"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

Weaver of life, let me look and see
The pattern of my life gone by shown on your tapestry.

Just for one second, one glance upon your loom,
The flower of my childhood could appear within this room.
Does if of my youth show the tears of yesterday?
Broken hearts within a heart, as love first came my way.

Did the lifeline patterns change as I became a man?
An added untold aura blends as I asked for her hand.
Did your golden needle sew its thread virginial white?
As lovers we embraced as one upon our wedding night.

Did you capture all the joys, the birth of our first son?
The happiness of family made a brother for the one.
The growing of the brothers, the manliness that grew,
Is it there in detail? Is it there to view?
Do the sparks of life grow bright, as one by one they wed
To live as fathers, husbands, apart from lives they'd led?

Are my lover's threads cut off when, aged, she laid to rest,
My sorrow blacking out a space upon our woven crest?
A gathering for the last time as her coffin's slowly lain,
Ash to ashes, dust to dust, one day we will regain.
Does it show the visits of grandchildren, on my knee,
But only hearing laughter when age took my sight from me?

Lastly, through these last few years of loneliness, maybe,
Does by sight a shooting star fade from your tapestry?
But wait there, in the distance, your loom I think I see,
Could it be that after all my prayers, you've answered me?
After days of wondering, I see the reason why
You've kept it to this minute - for I'm about to die!

Weaver of life, at last now I can see
The pattern of my life gone by shown your tapestry.

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In their book "The Worst Rock and Roll Records of All Time," Jimmy Guterman and Owen O'Donnell wrote, "A list is not a song."

Well, they obviously never heard Family's "Observations From a Hill." ;)

"Observations From a Hill" is a song listing numerous sights and sounds Charlie Whitney took in while on a hillside overlooking Leicester. The song is unique in this respect: Jim King sings lead on it, giving Family fans a taste of what the band sounded like when they were the Farinas and before Roger Chapman (who sings backing vocals on this song) joined.

Neither Whitney nor Chapman was satisfied with King's delivery on this track, and when "Observations From a Hill" was included on a greatest-hits compilation, it was a remade version with a lead vocal from Chapman, done after King left the group. Fortunately, the original version with King on the lead vocal has been allowed to remain on Family Entertainment.

"Observations From a Hill"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

Chimney tops, rooftops, higher than tree tops,
I stood there on a hill.
Sky blue, slate blue, cold as the wind blew,
Leaves that never stay still.
Buildings jagged and clustered,
I remained unflustered.

People are strolling, cars only rolling
Down man-made paths of gray stone.
Children are larking, dogs sometimes barking,
Break sleep of old folk alone.
Church organ, choir sing hymn life,
Sunday eve, quarter past five . . ..

These are observations from a hill.

Towers and flowers, phone lines and road signs,
All these things come into view.
I look to the valley and there by a shalley,
Suddenly I see it's you.
You're beckoning me to follow.
Maybe I'll come down tomorrow . . ..

These are observations from a hill.

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"Hung Up Down" is an example of how Family's music worked. The arrangement takes two diametrically opposed styles and blends them together. The lilting, lighthearted madrigal melody is complemented by an angrily malicious vocal from Roger Chapman backed by a guttural bass line. Te song is an attack on the warmongers and the moneyed interests who profit from them. Remember, the war in Vietnam was still expanding.

"Hung Up Down"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

What the hell, bad eggs don't smell
When glossed with sleek perfume.
So who's to cry that politicians lie,
When you know damn well that they do.

(CHORUS)
Well, maybe they're hung up down,
Next stop they'll maybe turn around,
('Cause they're) every other way that I want them to be.

Well, is it so sad when men turn bad
To rob and steal from friends,
While men who count large bank amounts
Make wards for their own ends?

(REPEAT CHORUS)

Well, the grossest spew of World War Two
Turns some men right inside out.
Yeah, but make 'em ride, make 'em ride with coal black hides -
They're not so pure throughout.

(REPEAT CHORUS TWICE)

Every other way, every other way that I want them to be . . ..

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This track was Family's first proper instrumental. Not a variation on a theme of a song on the opposite side of the album, this was a fully composed piece of music that was unrelated to anything else on Family Entertainment.

Written by Charlie Whitney, "Summer '67" was an effort at re-creating the peace-and-love vibes of the summer of 1967 sonically. The reunited Jefferson Airplane tried to achieve that lyrically on their self-titled 1989 album and came up short. Sometimes the music gets the point across better than the words.

Whitney was Family's resident hippie, and he would have fit in with the gentle people of San Francisco in the summer of 1967. Roger Chapman, by contrast, would have fit in with street fighters of Detroit in the summer of 1967; as the band's resident tough guy, he was a perfect foil for Whitney.

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Ric Grech, like most bassists (and like two lead guitarists, George Harrison and Ace Frehley), was the dark horse in his band. He too wanted to contribute songs to his band, and so it was quite a surprise Grech got not one, not two, but three songs on Family Entertainment.

The first of Grech's three songs on the album, "How Hi-The-Li," was an indictment of political leaders that contained drug references. A song like this in the late sixties was not unique. What was unique was that it was critical of Communist leaders, like Chinese Prime Minister Chou En-Lai (below), Mao's right-hand man, and the leaders of the countries of the Soviet sphere (the "Eastern Bloc"). Back in those days, the counterculture saw the capitalists as the bad guys.

It makes sense that Grech would go after the Commies. Grech was an Englishman only by virtue of his parents, who fled Ukraine when it was still a Soviet republic and also fled Stalin's brutal regime, eventually making it to Leicester. Grech was one of the lucky ones whose parents made it out from behind the Iron Curtain, and he knew it.

"How Hi-The-Li" lampoons Chou by wondering if he's a heavy pot smoker and opines that the Warsaw Pact leaders don't have their heads on straight. But beneath the jokes, Grech's lyrics make it clear that he and his bandmates want to turn the whole world on not necessarily to drugs but to the truth, and to reality.

"How Hi-The-Li" is the only Grech-penned Family song with Roger Chapman singing lead; Grech sang his other two Family songs himself.

"How Hi-The-Li"
(Ric Grech)

And we'd like to know if Mr. Chou En-Lai,
He gets high with all the tea in China.
And if the Eastern Bloc is really straight or not,
Or are all the heads in Asia Minor.

(CHORUS)
We only want to break the chains of society,
Put the people back on the road to reality.
We only to want to turn the whole world on.

And the politicians start to speak, trying to make themselves clear
To the ones who can't diagnose the symptoms of verbal diarrhea.
And the ministers of state who preach their words of hate,
We suggest they change their religion before it's too late.

(REPEAT CHORUS)

We only want to turn the whole world on . . ..

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"Second Generation Woman," the second Ric Grech song to appear on Family's second album, was a second helping of Family's previously released second Reprise single.

Ha ha! Anyhow, "Second Generation Woman" might have been Family's most commercial song - single or album cut - to date. It wasn't a dreamy song like the band's Liberty single, "Scene Through the Eye of a Lens," or a stately tune like their first reprise single, "Me My Friend." Musically, as noted before, it was a fast electric rocker recalling the Beatles' "Paperback Writer" and the Monkees' "Last Train to Clarksville."

Lyrically, though, the song would be seen as offensive today, as the words celebrate a woman who doesn't have to be forced to love you and "comes to you without a fight" and "looks good to handle from a personal angle." So even though the music recalled the Beatles and the Monkees, the lyrics purely reflected the Rolling Stones. This testosterone-driven approach to rock and roll - known today as "**** rock" - was the coin of the realm in the late sixties and the early seventies, as rock and roll was still a man's world then (though all-female bands like Fanny tried to break the glass ceiling).

Though, Grech, who sings lead here, acknowledges female supremacy in one aspect: She "smokes like a man, getting higher than I can."

So why is "Second Generation Woman" stil la great record? Because it rocks, man! Although the song is Grech's, Charlie Whitney is the big star on this track, thanks to his incredible guitar and organ solos.

"Second Generation Woman"
(Ric Grech)

Smokes like a man, getting higher than I can,
She knows how.
She's ahead of her time but she don't give a damn.
Why should she?
She looks good to handle from a personal angle.
Second generation woman, yeah.

Last thing you gotta do is force her into loving you,
No need to.
She knows when the time is right,
Comes to you without a fight.
She wants to.
She looks good to handle from a personal angle.
Second generation woman, yeah.

Second generation woman, yeah.
She's a woman that won't let you down,
Just as long as she's around.
You don't have to worry.
She feeds you loves you, lets you know she digs you.
She's in a hurry.
She looks good to handle from a personal angle.

Second generation woman, yeah.

Last thing you gotta do is force her into loving you,
You don't have to.
She knows when the time is right,
Comes to you without a fight.
'Cause she wants to.
She looks good to handle from a personal angle.
Second generation woman, yeah.

Second generation woman.
She's a second generation woman,
You know that she digs you.

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"From Past Archives" is a song about yearning to put differences aside and "return to harmony." At first glance, the song appears to refer to the world coming asunder, as it certainly was in 1969. But the reference to "three years gone" suggests a more personal matter; three years before 1969 was the time Roger Chapman joined the band at Charlie Whitney's urging. "From Past Archives" appears to be a personal plea from Chapman to Whitney - or possibly one of the other band members (except for Rob Townsend, who hadn't yet joined the band in 1966).

Musically, "From Past Archives" - you know it's Family because even the title is unique - goes between different forms, starting out with a blues harmonica riff from Jim King before settling into a folk-rock arrangement, ultimately culminating into a classical crescendo - and if that weren't enough, it cuts to a hip jazz interlude midway between the song, fading out with that same jazz arrangement.

And if all that weren't enough, Chapman overdubbed a call-and-response vocal to his own lead vocal in the third verse.


"From Past Archives"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

Why can't we forget, forgive and be
Returned to harmony,
Singing our song, dueting as one?

It took time as pictures very hard to find
And melodies divine,
Completely in tune, became flat so soon.

Three years gone, and still, still I'm holding on,
Hoping that the song
From past archives will soon be revived.

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Family didn't just love American soul music. They were also into country and western, and "Dim" was their first attempt at making a serious C&W song. It still has a but of Englishness to it, but that's what made Family so quirky.

"Dim" is about a blinded country boy on his way to town to have a good time. While it's not clear whether he's only temporarily blind or he has permanently lost his sight, one thing is obvious; he wants to permanently lose his virginity. Chapman might have been thinking again of Ray Charles, a blind musician who was infamous for sowing his own wild oats - and who also loved country music..

"Go on round to the 46," I believe, refers to an address number of a club in London.

Below is the studio recording of "Dim"; below that is a clip of Family performing the song on the British TV show "How Late It Is."

"Dim"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

I can't see you, but you can see me
Waiting along the road,
Thumbing a ride to get into town.
Hey, where'd you get the automobe?
See you around the corner, wait for my flame to burn.
My eyes are dim, I cannot see,
I know there's a good time waiting for me.

Making me scene, just a-groovin' around,
Making what chicks I can.
I drink what I like and I dance what I do,
I'm getting right through to the band.
See you in the corner, wait for my flame to burn.
My eyes are dim, I cannot see,
I'd sooner feel you, babe, feeling me.

Think I'll leap around a bit
And sow my seeds somewhere.
I'll go on round to the 46,
Gonna do the things that I dare.
See you on the corner, wait for my flame to burn.
My eyes are dim, I cannot see,
You'd better not take that thought from me.

That thought from me, yeah,
You know you'd better not take that thought from me.
You got to feel it.

-hS41Ii1pu8


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"Processions" is a song written entirely by Charlie Whitney - the only occurrence in Family in which either or Whitney or Chapman gets a sole composer credit for a song (not counting instrumentals, of course). I can only guess that this must have been a very personal song for Whitney (pictured below) to write.

"Processions" is about a small boy enjoying a day at the seashore and learning from a fortune teller that his life will be adventurous and magical before going off to build castles in the sand and play with a toy boat. But, as Jimi Hendrix once reminded us, sand castles sooner or later fall into the sea, and "Processions" uses that inevitability to symbolize how what we envision for our futures and how our futures turn out are two entirely different things.

And on the piano - the late, great Nicky Hopkins, who played keyboards for just about everyone in sixties and seventies British rock.

First-person narrative here: I went to Ocean City, New Jersey for the first of eight times as a boy in the summer of 1969, the year Family Entertainment was released. I was three years old that summer. I liked to build sand castles. This song could have been about me.

"Processions"
(Charlie Whitney)

A small boy, bucket in hand,
Building castles in the sand,
Thinking of his life that lies ahead.
An engine driver, sailor, why not a king
Of the sand castle, as the gypsy woman said.

Taking a ride on a dinkie rail, a green engine that's old
Could be a royal procession through big city streets,
Waving to the crowds from a sand carpet of gold,
Shaking hands with the VIPs one meets.

Sailing a toy boat in a rock pool, thinking that it could be
The Queen Mary passing the Cape Horn tip.
Oh, something majestic, sailing worldwide seas . . ..
"Attention, please, I'm the captain of this ship."

After all these thoughts and more, the boy returned to find
That the sand castles had been washed into the sea.
Head in hands, eyes full of tears
And a mixed-up mind,
The gypsy woman can't foresee the years.

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"Face In the Cloud" is the third of Ric Grech's three songs on Family Entertainment. Like "Second Generation Woman," Grech sings lead. Like "How-Hi-the-Li," the title is not directly mentioned in the lyrics. But like both songs, it reveals Grech's obsession with drugs. Grech, overall, was okay at writing songs, but the three songs he contributed this album show why he's better remembered as a bassist than as a songwriter - he couldn't write lyrics from a point of view other than an immediate one.

"Face In the Cloud" was an obvious pun on "face in the crowd," and it describes what Grech saw on his "journey" (his acid trip). It's still an pleasant song, with a lovely melody, some wonderful imagery, such as "mountains before me reaching to heaven," and a decent Grech lead vocal.

Roger Chapman contributes a responding backing vocal, Nicky Hopkins is back at the piano (come on, you can tell its Hopkins when you hear it!), and the melody is carried primarily by a sitar. Hey, it was the sixties.

"Face In the Cloud"
(Ric Grech)

Taking a journey, expecting to try,
Not certain of things bound to happen.
Just reach out and hold the hand of a stranger,
Leading the way to eternity.

Wandering aimlessly, exploring new fields,
Enjoying such beauty never experienced.
Mountains before me reaching to heaven,
Hiding the face of a girl in the clouds.

Tasting the fruit, reaping the profits,
Coming down slowly from the height of my dreams.
Collecting my thoughts, remembering sadly
The face of a girl in the clouds.

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No album closed with a more weird song than Music in a Doll's House, as no one knew what to make of "3 x Time." "Emotions," about how feeling emotions says much more than anything you could express verbally, was in fact the perfect closing song - not just for Family Entertainment, but for any album. It showed how well Family responded to Glyn Johns in the studio, producing a track that was comparable to the Rolling Stones' closer for Beggars' Banquet, "Salt of the Earth." And yes, Nicky Hopkins (below) played on this track.

Ric Grech, who co-wrote the song with Charlie Whitney and Roger Chapman, shares lead vocals with Chappo.

"Emotions"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman/Ric Grech)

Emotions you feel, around you they steal,
Saying much more than mere words can.
When choirs sing, emotions they bring,
Explaining much more than few words can.

(FIRST CHORUS)
Strange, when loneliness holds you
Like a cloak that surrounds you.
Contentment to fear, enchantment to tears.

Drops, it's the same, playing one game,
Stealing their way into take you.
Stranger to see emotions run free,
Seeing what being they make you.

(SECOND CHORUS)
Chains within and about you
Like a cage, bars to hold to.
Remembering the times as the years slip behind.

(REPEAT FIRST CHORUS)

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While Music in a Doll's House was well-received by critics and the London alt-rock scene but had only mediocre sales, Family Entertainment was an unqualified success, being well-received in the British rock press and reaching number six on the British album chart - Family's first top-ten album.

Glyn Johns proved his mettle as a producer with this LP. THanks to him, Family were able to produce an accessible, mainstream sound without compromising their artistic integrity. They'd not only kept up the quality of their sound, they'd improved on it.

Not to put to fine a point on it, but the lads from Leicester were on top of the world.

(Family, 1969. Seated: Jim King. Standing, from left: Rob Townsend, Ric Grech, Roger Chapman, Charlie Whitney.)

In March 1969, everything was going wonderfully for Family. They had a top ten album in their home country, they were becoming regulars on BBC Radio's live-music shows (the photo below is taken from one of those sessions), and they were thriving while the top three acts of the sixties were floundering. The Beatles had recorded an album of live studio and open-air performances only to be too disinterested in going through them and mixing the best takes, the Rolling Stones had taped a TV special that wouldn't be aired until 1996 - 1996! - because they'd been upstaged by their guests the Who and Jethro Tull, and, over in America, Bob Dylan was getting lazy, working on an album of songs full of corny country-and-western lyrical clichés (Nashville Skyline). Family were leading the pack. They were on a roll. And soon, they'd follow the Beatles and the Stones in making their American debut at the Fillmore East in New York.

Then the roof caved in.

Family were about to get a lesson in how, sometimes, when everything is going wonderfully, it all can turn very bad very quickly. :(

It all started when bassist Ric Grech, thinking that better opportunities to bolster his reputation as a musician were elsewhere, decided to leave Family for a new band being formed by some old friends of his . . ..

Back in 1965, when Eric Clapton was playing in John Mayall's Bluesbreakers and Steve Winwood was with the Spencer Davis Group, the two young musicians got along well and had a strong musical connection. They'd wanted t ofrm a band, but their respective commitments to Mayall and Davis precluded them from doing so. Clapton went on to co-found Cream and Winwood joined Traffic. At the beginning of 1969, Cream had broken up and Traffic had also fallen apart. Now both free agents, Clapton and Winwood had a perfect opportunity to form a new band, and they started jamming together at Winwood's house in the English countryside to see f they still had the chemistry. Realizing that they still had it, they agreed to form a new band. "Eric named it Blind Faith," Winwood recalled, "because that's exactly what he had in the project."

The two musicians decided on a trio, with Clapton on lead guitar, Winwood on keyboards, rhythm guitar and vocals, and a drummer to be determined. The original intent was for Winwood to play bass chords on his organ with one hand and play melodies with the other, like Ray Manzarek in the Doors. But this proved to be unfeasible, so the group needed a bass player. Remembering Grech from his days in the Farinas, they immediately decided to ask him to join Blind Faith. They never considered anyone else.

Grech immediately accepted the offer, meaning he would soon be leaving Family.

What Grech didn't realize when he agreed to join Blind Faith, however, was that the band was doomed before he even showed up for his first rehearsal.

Before the call went out to Grech, Ginger Baker, hearing that Clapton and Winwood were jamming and looking to get a new band off the ground, beat a path to Winwood's house and more or less muscled his way into Blind Faith. "You need a drummer," he told Clapton and Winwood. "Look, I can play pretty good. There aren't many drummers who are better than me."

Baker was indeed a masterful drummer, even though he wasn't a masterful grammarian. But Clapton didn't want him in the band. He was looking to work with different musicians after his quarter-decade stint in Cream, and he feared that having Baker in Blind Faith would cause the public to see the new band as Cream with a name and personnel change - that is Cream Mark Two.

Alas, Winwood wanted Baker in the band, being impressed with Baker's skills and convinced that the music would benefit. Clapton relented and let Baker join the band, but he'd lost interest in Blind Faith before Grech even got there. Clapton had hoped to start anew and make a clean break from Cream, known for their incessant soloing and their indulgent music, wanting to concentrate on simpler music similar to what the Band were doing. Baker's inclusion put that agenda in doubt.

Also, with Clapton, Baker and Winwood in one band - Grech was relatively unknown at the time - Blind Faith would be seen as a band of established stars banking on their celebrity as well as their talents - a "supergroup." Blind Faith wouldn't get much of an opportunity to develop their own sound or identity with the expectations for them so impossibly high.

As for Family, they could certainly survive without Grech and get a replacement as they were preparing to go forward to tour the United States.

There was just one little problem - Grech somehow forgot to tell the other members of Family that he was leaving. :eek:

Family were completely left in the dark about Ric Grech's imminent departure even as they were preparing for their American debut in New York, scheduled for Tuesday, April 8, 1969. The first sign that something was amiss, while stories about a new band being formed by members of Cream, which had split up, and Traffic, which had also split up, were circulating, came when Roger Chapman was reading an interview with Jimi Hendrix (below), who was asked why he thought so many bands like Cream and Traffic had broken up. Hendrix replied, "People have got to move on, these bands split, like Family."

Huh? Come again? Family weren't splitting. In fact, as it would turn out, Family would be the only band represented in Blind Faith that was still together. So where did Hendrix get that idea? Chapman - and Charlie Whitney, for that matter - had no idea. But there were rumors going around.

Chappo and Charlie were only able to put two and two together when Ric Grech and Family manager John Gilbert told the band that Grech was living to join Blind Faith - on April 7, 1969, the day before they were supposed to make their American debut at the Fillmore East in New York City, opening for Ten Years After.

"Obviously, Ric had told [Hendrix] and hadn't told us," Chapman said. "The rumors are flying and these four berks at the back know nothing about it." Grech told his bandmates that he would stay on until they could find a replacement, but that was cold comfort for the others. Chapman was particularly livid at Grech for not giving the band adequate notice: "He could have bloody told us before the tour began!"

And unfortunately, things were about to get even worse.

Family had been thrown off course by Grech's last-minute announcement, but they still had the ability to deliver the goods. On March 3, 1969, they had just recorded a set of songs for BBC Radio's Top Gear program, which included this spellbinding cover of "I Sing Um the Way I Feel," by the great American bluesman J.B. Lenoir, who had died from injuries sustained in a car crash two years earlier. (Lenoir was probably better known in England than in the U.S.)

Their only hope for the debut American concert in New York was to simply be this good. But, alas, it was not to be.

"I Sing Um the Way I Feel"
(J.B. Lenoir)

God made man, of His own will,
That's why I sing my blues,
I sing them the way I feel.
You love your babe, I love mine,
You may hurry if you want to,
But I'm goin' to take my time.
(Take your time, take your time)

The girl look good and it takes my breath,
The way my baby love me,
Oh, I just can't help myself.
Oo-wee!
I love these girls, like a baby child,
And if they take my life, I'm gon' give it with a smile.

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The Fillmore East (below) would be the first of Family's many stops on its first U.S. tour. Overseeing the tour was the tour's manager, Peter Grant, who would soon become famous for managing Led Zeppelin. Family would be opening for another British band that was already becoming established in the States - Ten Years After.

Things were going wrong before the band even took to the stage. They had had trouble getting the proper work permits and visas before leaving Britain, and Grech's betrayal still weighed heavy on the others. The consternation had an adverse effect on their spirits - not a precursor to making good music in a live show. So when Family began their set on the Fillmore East stage, with Grech so thoroughly stoned he could barely play, the band were subsequently horrid. Chapman finally lost his cool and angrily threw his microphone stand to the side of the stage. To make matters even worse, Family's equipment had been damaged in New York, putting them even more off balance. Inevitably, the audience, which were there to see Ten Years After, booed the lads from Leicester.

The date was April 8, 1969. It was Family frontman Roger Chapman's twenty-seventh birthday. Chapman - still alive and about to turn 82 years old as of this writing - would not die physically and follow Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison into the 27 Club, but on that fateful Tuesday night, he died professionally. This was one birthday he'd soon wish to forget.

Chapman was so frustrated that he couldn't get any positive vibes from the audience like he had done back home in show after show that he finally lost his cool and angrily threw his microphone stand to the side of the stage.

It's too bad that Fillmore East impresario Bill Graham happened to be standing in the wings when that mic stand came hurtling toward him. :eek:

Fortunately, the mic stand missed Graham by a few inches or so, and the group was later able to convince him that Chapman hadn't deliberately aimed the mic stand at him, but the damage was done.

"Obviously he was shocked when he saw how I dealt with the microphone; it was absolutely unusual and he was totally startled," Chapman said. "So he ran down the corridor and pulled down all of our posters. Well, we understood one another afterwards in spite of that, and we did several concerts for Graham later, but I think several other concert organizers and other people in the music business followed Bill's example because he was an important person in the business, and expelled us."

Family couldn't do much more than try to recover from their Fillmore East disaster. They were still in New York City a week later, playing a two-night engagement (April 15 and 16) at Steve Paul's club The Scene, in the basement at 301 West 46th Street in Midtown Manhattan (shown below, as it is today). Fortunately, they were much better, as Billboard's Fred Kirby described them in his review of the band:

"The difference in Family was striking. Where the group had been loose, they were together. Where they had been languid, they were sharp. Where they were unsure, they were comfortable. The [Reprise Records] artists displayed the high degree of musicianship that had raised expectations for their first U.S. tour. They were especially good in driving material, such as 'The Weaver’s Answer' and 'Observations From A Hill.' Among the strong points were the strange, strong, tremulous voice of Roger Chapman, Rob Townsend on drums, Jim King on saxophone and recorder, Ric Grech on violin and bass guitar and [Charlie] Whitney on lead guitar."

Thanks to Family ticking off Bill Graham, however, none of that mattered. Graham was already well on his way to blackballing and blacklisting Family for being unreliable and undependable. Roger Chapman and Charlie Whitney, as the band's acknowledged leaders, might have thought that a solid show in another Big Apple venue would reverse their fortunes for the better, but if they did think so, then they were wrong. Graham had more influence that most other promoters, and he'd given them a Nero-like thumbs down - and other promoters followed his lead. For the rule that mainstream, middlebrow show business follows is the same rule that rock and roll follows, and that is: You don't get a second chance at a first impression. :(

And even if Steve Paul, the owner of the Scene, would have gladly had Family back, it didn't matter. He was forced to close his club three months after Family played there when he had a fall-out with the New York mob. :eek:

Family soldiered on through the United States, following yet another showbiz adage: Always do your best, even in a losing cause. By the time they reached the Midwest, Peter Grant found them a replacement for Ric Grech. He was another Englishman, working with a rock band in, of all places, California.

John Weider, Family's new bass player, was the first member of Family to have grown up somewhere other than Leicester. Born and raised in London, Weider was an interesting choice to replace Grech. He started his professional career as a guitarist as a teenager. He had been a member of Johnny Kidd and the Pirates, replacing Mick Green. To understand what a big deal that is, Mick Green was the original British rock guitar hero - before Eric Clapton, before Jeff Beck, before anyone. Pete Townshend has cited Mick Green as an influence.

Weider later joined Eric Burdon's New Animals, the faux-Animals lineup Burdon had put together between the dissolution of the original Animals and the founding of War. By the early spring of 1969, Weider was living in California and working with a local band called Stonehenge (not to be confused with the Hungarian heavy-metal band of the same name), which would later evolve into Crabby Appleton.

Although Weider also played bass, he was more of a six-stringer. His experience as a bassist was limited to being a reliever in concert performances when Burdon fired bassist Danny McCulloch from the New Animals; Weider would alternate between guitar and bass with a guitarist who had just joined the band, a bloke named Andy Summers - who later helped form the Police.

Grant recruited Weider for three reasons. First, he was British. Second, he was available. Third, he, like Ric Grech, also played the violin. Grech's violin contributions to Family had become an essential part of the band's sound, so that was a huge plus.

Weider became a member of Family on April 26, 1969 - five days after his twenty-second birthday - debuting with the band at their concert in Detroit, where they shared the bill with Canned Heat. Weider, the first replacement member to join Family since they released their first LP, would not be the only one - there would be four more, in fact - but he was the only replacement member of Family to debut in America.

It was awkward, to be sure, to become Family's new bassist when the band was in the middle of a crucial American tour with only rudimentary ability with the bass and no experience playing Family songs. Weider was a quick study, though, and he soon acclimated himself to the band. In time, he would contribute bass lines and violin solos as memorable as anything Grech had contributed.

From Detroit, it was on to New England. Family then played in Boston on the same bill as Poco.

Then, just a couple of weeks after John Weider made his debut as Family's new bassist, Roger Chapman made his solo debut in Canada.

Unfortunately, it wasn't of the musical sort.

During the U.S. tour, Chapman lost his visa, and American customs officers - who were as hostile to English rock musicians as they were to Mexican migrant fieldworkers, if not even more so - deported him to the nearest Commonwealth realm country, which just happened to be next door. Chapman was eventually sent home to the U.K. The other members of the band were already home (except for Weider, who settled his affairs in Los Angeles before returning to London), having had to give up on the tour without their principal frontman.

The failure of Family's tour had consequences that reverberate to this day. Family would never do big business in the United States. They would never get airplay on classic-rock radio apart from the Sirius XM Deep Tracks channel and a couple of hip college and Internet stations. To most Americans, they'd be remembered as the band Ric Grech left to join Blind Faith, if even as that. And, of course, they would never be nominated for, never mind inducted into, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. (Roger Chapman is thrice eligible for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame - as a member of Family, as a member of Streetwalkers, the band he formed with Charlie Whitney after Family broke up, and as a solo artist. But - and this has happened to me - you mention Roger Chapman to an American and that person will say to you, "Roger Chapman? The guy who shot John Lennon?")

In May 1969, none of that was evident, of course. And, alas, Family's troubles in 1969 didn't end with their first American tour.

Family regrouped in Britain and went back on the road in their homeland, doing a couple of TV shows as well as concerts. But more trouble was afoot.

Harry Ovenall, Family's original drummer, had left the band before they signed to Reprise and recorded their first album in part because of his suspicions of manager John Gilbert. He didn't think that Gilbert had Family's best interests at heart. By 1969, Gilbert's mismanagement of the band had caught up with him.

As with Music in a Doll's House, Gilbert's management and production company, Dukeslodge, had owned the rights to Family Entertainment and merely licensed it to the record company, That might have been a good arrangement when Family was a new band with an album that couldn't get higher on the charts than number 35, making them a small risk for Reprise, but when the second album peaked at number six, Dukeslodge (whose office was in the posh London townhouse shown below) was making tons of money at the expense of not just the record company but the band. Family had every right to ask why they weren't seeing more of those quid for themselves.

But the American tour only showed just how ineffective Gilbert's management had become. A manager is supposed to look out for his clients. When his artists tour a foreign country, it's up to him to get the visas, handle the work permits, and handle the promoters. Gilbert had screwed up all of those things when Family went stateside, allowing them to fall by the wayside. Despite their failure in the U.S., Family were still successful back home, remaining a big draw on the road, and they needed a better way to manage their affairs. So, when they had the opportunity to tell Gilbert that his services were no longer needed, they did so - in spades.

And how did they replace Gilbert? Family would manage their own affairs and look to the Beatles' Apple Corps and Allen Klein - then representing at least three Beatles - as an example of what . . . not to do.

And I'll explain what they did soon enough.

Meanwhile, Blind Faith were moving forward.

As Eric Clapton had predicted, the public did perceive and expect his new band to be a reincarnation of Cream once it was known that Ginger Baker had joined as the drummer. Along with Steve Winwood from Traffic, Blind Faith was now being seen as a "supergroup" full of high-caliber all-star talent that was generating a lot of buzz and was expected to generate a lot of superb music. And managers Robert Stigwood and Chris Blackwell were expecting them to generate a lot of something else - money.

Blind Faith had hoped to spend a lot of time rehearsing and coming up with enough good songs to record an album when they were good and ready, but their managers wanted them to put out a record as soon as possible and tour as soon as possible to take advantage of their multi-million-dollar potential. (Note that they saw their multi-million-"dollar," not their multi-million-"pound," potential; Blackwell and Stigwood saw America as the place where Blind Faith would make all the money.) Even Ginger Baker was eager to go out and make some money. With each passing day, Clapton's heart was less and less in the band.

To answer charges that they were all about the dough, Blind Faith staged a free concert in Hyde Park in London on Saturday, June 7, 1969, to show that it was in fact about the music (well, at least Blind Faith had started that way). During the concert, one fan near the stage yelled out to Clapton, "It's not Cream, Eric, it's Blind Faith. Play what you like!"

Clapton seemed relieved. At least one fan got what he was trying to do. But that fan would prove to be in a very tiny minority.

And Ric Grech, the bass player who had come from Family - remember Family? This is a thread about Family - was quickly becoming overshadowed by the stars he shared the stage with - both in Britain and, when they got there, America. He was the Jose Carreras of Blind Faith - there was Clapton, there was Baker, there was Winwood, and then there was the other guy.

Below: Blind Faith playing at Hyde Park.

Blind Faith went on a tour of America in the summer of 1969 with their debut album released both in the States and in the mother country. The music was good but unspectacular, and the material had to be stretched out to fill a long player. There were only six songs on it, and one of them was a cover - of Buddy Holly's "Well All Right." In other words, it was a lot like Cream's final album.

The most artistic element of Blind Faith's debut album was its sleeve. But - wouldn't you know it? - it was banned in the United States, despite having been designed by an American, as it showed a naked eleven-year-old girl holding a model spaceship that looked almost phallic. The cover below was used for the U.S. market.

Ric Grech got a few fine moments on the LP, mainly his violin playing. But his bass playing? Trust me, listen to the first two Family albums to get a idea of how great a bass player he was. There, he worked in concert with drummer Rob Townsend; they worked well as a rhythm section because they respected each other's boundaries as ensemble players. Here, Ginger Baker was so into himself that Grech's bass lines could barely stand out. Grech already knew that Baker was in the band when he got the offer to join; didn't all of those onstage performances and onstage fights Baker had with Jack Bruce teach him anything? At least Grech didn't hate Baker, as Bruce certainly did. But Baker's desire to be the bride at the wedding and the corpse at the funeral didn't help.

Clapton was thoroughly disgusted. Doing two-hour shows, padding out the material, dealing with egos - this really was Cream Mark Two. At one point he went to Winwood and told him, "It's not the band we planned, is it? It's a successful group, but it's just Cream songs and Traffic songs and long drum solos!"

But no Family songs. Certainly there were no requests for "Second Generation Woman" from the concert audiences that were still looking at Ric Grech and playing a challenging guessing game called "Who Is That Guy?"

And, just as soon as it started, it was over.

During Blind Faith's American tour, Eric Clapton had become friends with the duo that was the tour's opening act, Delaney Bramlett and his wife, the former Bonnie Lynn O'Farrell - Delaney and Bonnie (below, left). Their laid-back, ensemble-oriented, down-home country-blues-flavored rock was just the sort of sound that Clapton had hoped Blind Faith would cultivate, and he decided to join them and their entourage when Blind Faith's tour ended. And the end of the tour was the end of the band. The only thing Blind Faith lived up to was its name.

Clapton would go on to work with Delaney and Bonnie's backing musicians to make his first solo album, and with three of them - Bobby Whitlock on keyboards, Carl Radle on bass, ad Jim Gordon on drums - would record a classic album, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, as Derek and the Dominos.

As for Ric Grech (below, right), he and Winwood joined Baker for his Air Force project, and he later joined a reconstituted Traffic in 1971, playing on the The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys LP and writing that album's song "Rock and Roll Stew" with Jim Gordon. He had finally become a star.

Unfortunately, Grech didn't stay in Traffic long. Winwood had to let him go. Playing interfered with his drinking. :( After another five years of performing as a session musician, Grech retired from the music business and returned home to Leicester.

Richard Roman Grechko, Ric Grech, died on March 17, 1990 of alcoholism-induced liver failure. He was 43 years old. :(

Those weren't necessarily the best days of Family's lives. But the band continued on through 1969, and they were able to get it together musically even as they were in disarray organizationally. They began and ended the summer of 1969 with two noteworthy festivals in Britain. The first was the free Hyde Park concert of multiple acts headlined by the Rolling Stones on July 5 (four weeks after Blind Faith's free concert - a coincidence, you'll agree) and the second Isle of Wight festival at the end of August. The second Isle of Wight festival has been called the British Woodstock, though it was probably better than Woodstock - better - not just because Family performed there but because Bob Dylan performed at Isle of Wight '69 - his first gig since his motorcycle accident three years earlier. Dylan had accepted an offered to perform at the Isle of Wight mainly to have an excuse to visit the island itself.

Rob Townsend looked back on the festival fondly. "We saw The Who, who were incredible, the Moody Blues, Free and Marsha Hunt," he said. "Somehow we got into the press enclosure, even though we didn’t have passes. We were right at the front of the stage, and wouldn’t move. And everyone was anxiously waiting for Bob Dylan. It was a really big thing at the time but as it happens we were slightly disappointed. On the day of our performance it was the sheer number of people that was amazing. There was also a big back stage area and I stood behind Keith Moon, white his roadie . . . topped up his glass with copious amounts of whiskey and coke. Seeing Moonie play so close up was an incredible memory."

There are no photos of Family performing at the Isle of Wight 1969 festival, but there is this photo of the band in attendance - from left, Jim King, Rob Townsend, Charlie Whitney, John Weider, Roger Chapman.

John Gilbert had screwed Family in so many ways, but I think this not-so-bright idea is what got him fired as their manager.

In September 1969, Family performed a show at the Royal Festival Hall in London billed as "An Evening of Family Entertainment" in which the band tried to emulate the theme of the Family Entertainment album cover. Not the music - the cover. They had a couple of circus acts to open for them.

:facepalm:

And not even something like this . . .

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. . . but a striptease artist. :eek:

And not even a striptease artist like this!

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But was there any other family entertainment? Yes - a bullwhip artist and a plate spinner.

A plate . . . spinner.

:eek2:

Oh yeah, the punters were really going to dig that!

:facepalm: :facepalm:

"That was another of Gilbert’s ideas," Roger Chapman recalled. "It was a bit of a damp squib, really."

I'm sure!

You know, 1969 was a really weird year for Family . . .

Even as Family were trying to get their bearings straight through losing Ric Grech to Blind Faith, a failed U.S. tour, management troubles and ill-advised collaborations with third-rate buskers, Family still remained relevant - so much, in fact, that Melody Maker invited Roger Chapman to offer his opinions on the latest records, including the Beatles' Abbey Road.

Chapman's comments on Abbey Road - already being heralded as a masterpiece on both sides of the Atlantic - were published in the September 27, 1969 issue of Melody Maker. Here's what he said:

"In the past the Beatles have been able to borrow things and put themselves into it. This is a bit too obvious though. And 'Maxwell' doesn’t make it for me. This is really a drag because I really dig the Beatles. This is an inferior version of '“When I’m Sixty-Four' . . .. 'Oh Darling' doesn’t make it at all. They’d better turn up with something good soon. 'Octopus’s Garden'? It’s Ringo. Ha ha! Now if any other group did this, it would be a complete washout. No, I can’t get into this at all."

And he didn't stop there:

"Ever since their last LP they have been making records as if it is something they have to do because they are the Beatles. Maybe the whole thing has got beyond them. If this album had been by anybody else it would have been a complete washout. The Beatles have been a major influence on the whole music scene, but I don’t see them being an influence anymore."

As wrong as he may have been about an album that dictated the direction of rock for at least ten years after its release, Roger Chapman was right about this much: The Beatles were losing their touch and risked losing their relevance as well. Chappo knew it. So did the Beatles. Within seven months after Abbey Road was released, Paul McCartney announced to the world that the Beatles were finished.

I mean, ponder that - the Beatles were done and Chapman called it before anyone else.

In October 1969, Family released a new single.

"No Mule's Fool" was a song about a country boy and his mule taking it easy on a hot summer day. It was peculiar to release a song about summer in October, but then Family was a band whose members didn't care what people thought of them. That's what their fans liked about them.

"No Mule's Fool" was the first Family single to make the UK pop chart, but it was officially designated a non-hit. In America, a single is considered a hit if it makes the top forty chart positions no the Billboard Hot Hundred - 40 became the standard based on the number of 45rpm records a jukebox in the late fifties and early sixties could hold at once. In Britain, a single is considered a hit if it makes the top twenty chart positions in the national singles chart.

"No Mule's Fool" only got up to number 29.

It's a tough league back in the mother country.

This record marked the debut of John Weider on a Family disc, and he put his own personal stamp on Family's sound with his violin solo on this song.

"No Mule's Fool"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

A dusty day in this old town,
A hazy yellow eye looks down,
A buzzing bee's the only lazy sound.
I take grass, he hits the hay,
The two of us drift through the day,
A butterfly, a sigh, and it's flick away.

I know we're lazy, lots of people say so,
But one day they're gonna see
We're only doing whatever makes us happy.
We're sitting here, me and my mule,
We make our own rules, and it's cool.

I know we're lazy, lots of people say so
But one day they're gonna see, see, see,
We're only doing whatever makes us happy.
We're sitting here, me and my mule,
We're nobody's fool, and it's cool.

I close my eyes, yeah, I feel all right,
Must be close to 95.
Got my shade from a good old hat that's made from hide.
One more day in God's good sun,
We won't move for anyone.
Spend your lazy days and ways just turning on.

I'm looking down, there's my old mule,
A stubborn nag, but no, no one's fool,
He's my only friend and he's cool.

My old mule,
Nobody's fool.
No, no no, nobody's fool,
My old mule.

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"Good Friend of Mine" was the B-side of "No Mule's Fool," and it may have actually been the superior song on this record in this case, the "B" in "B-side" may mean "better." The song is about a star-crossed working-class bloke who's reunited with his old schoolmate, who'd gone on to lead a charmed life.

But wait! What was that sound on this flip side? A vibraphone? No one in Family played the vibes. It was in fact a session musician who would soon help write Family's next chapter.

"Good Friend of Mine"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

Well I heard that the world you have travelled,
News came by on the grapevine.
So I hope you don't seem to be simple, no,
Cause you were a good friend of mine.

We were just friends back in school days,
We shared cigarettes, girls and wine.
You got lucky, came into some money.
You were a good friend of mine.

You know I left school and earned money,
Things went by more worse than fine.
But you could afford to be educated,
You were a good friend of mine.

Said, I worked like a slave 'til my dad died,
My mother and me, we went crying.
We still prayed out to the chaplain, Lord,
You were a good friend of mine.

Me, I married my wife in the kitchen,
All our food, it came off the bread line.
I guess you're what they call a gay bachelor, yeah.
Anyway, you're still a good friend of mine.

Now you hear me, we will be together,
We're gonna go to your place or to mine.
We need to live and be happy and healthy,
And of course you're a good friend of mine.

I said we're healthy, my, my, my,
You're still a good friend of mine.

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Near the end of 1969, Family did some serious housecleaning in the hope that the disasters of the year be forgotten and never brought to mind as they looked to 1970.

First was their business affairs. With John Gilbert gone, Family set up a new production company - Bradgate Bush, Ltd., named for Bradgate Park in Leicester (below, left) and the Shepherd's Bush neighborhood in London (below, right). No management company would ever own the rights to their recordings anymore. Now the band would. Bradgate Bush would license the masters to the record company, and the band would make all of the money.

The band then hired a chap from their hometown of Leicester, Tony Gourvish, to run the company and manage the band. The band members no longer were beholden to a manager; now their manager was in addition to running their business affairs, running the company they owned. In short, the band members were the manager's bosses.

The Beatles should have been this savvy when their business affair were unraveling at the same time.

At the same time, while Family continued its association with Reprise Records in Great Britain, they ended their association with Reprise Records in the United States. Family now had a new deal in America with United Artists Records, a sister label of Capitol in EMI's American operations. The reason for this was unclear. Reprise may have been unhappy with Family's failure to sell any records in the States and dropped them from their American roster . . . or, United Artists (UA) may have given the band a sweeter deal with a big advance. Whatever the reason, UA would be the band's stateside label for the rest of its existence.

The second big housecleaning change for Family was another personnel shakeup.

Jim King (below) had been essential to Family's unique sund. Whereas a firth member of a quintet would be a keyboardist or a rhythm guitarist, King had been a saxophonist and a harmonica player, and so Charlie Whitney and Roger Chapman had become acclimated to writing songs with King's instruments in mind. As late as 1969, King was exploring more avnat-garde ways of playing his saxophone, much like jazz musician Ornette Coleman.

Alas, King was getting more heavily into drugs - so much, he made Ric Grech look like Mary Whitehouse by comparison. (Explanation: Mary Whitehouse was an extreme social conservative in Britain who wanted to roll back British popular culture back to the pre-skiffle days of the 1950s, when the strongest narcotic the British people indulged in was tea. She was the U.K.'s answer to the antifeminist homophobe Phyllis Schlafly in the U.S. and was lampooned on Pink Floyd's Animals album.) The members of Family got high on a regular basis, but King got so high it would take him forever to come down. Whitney and Chapman loved King as a friend and respected his musicianship, but he had become so much of a stoner that they had no choice but to let him go.

It was comparable to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards firing Brian Jones from the Rolling Stones a year earlier. Just as Jones had founded and named the Rolling Stones, King had co-founded the Farinas, Family's forerunner, with Charlie Whitney. His departure meant that Whitney was the last founding member of the original Farinas still in Family.

Family had begun recording its third album before King was fired, and so none of the overdubs King had contributed were used, making their october 1969 single the only Family release to feature both King and John Weider. When that album (relax, I'll get to it) came out, many of the songs sounded different from what Whitney and Chapman had envisioned when they originally wrote them. And that was due to King's replacement.

Below is a July 1969 BBC performance of one of the new songs that would appear on the new album a few months later - "Drowned In Wine." The song would sound dramatically different on record, but this early version, with King's haunting saxophone riffs, is chilling.

It begins with an interview with Chapman conducted by BBC's Brian Matthew. :)

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After leaving Family, Jim King would form a band called Ring of Truth with British bluesman Victor Brox (though that effort really didn't go anywhere) and he collaborated with drummer and John Mayall alumnus Aynsley Dunbar, who would later relocate to San Francisco and become a founding member of Journey and later join the Jefferson Starship. King would remain a working musician, performing in pubs and clubs and he preferred the lack of being in the limelight; he was one of rock's quintessential introverts.

King died three months short of his seventieth birthday in February 2012. News of his death was overshadowed by that of Whitney Houston, who died at about the same time, but in fact even if Whitney Houston hadn't died at that time (or at all; she should have still been alive today!), King's death still would have gone unnoticed, which would have suited him just fine. By 2012, Family had in fact been largely forgotten outside their cult fan base (myself included in that cult) . . . because, according to writer Hugh Gregory, of King's exit from the band. Many people believe it was Ric Grech's departure that caused Family to fail to make the big leagues of rock stardom, but Gregory offered this cunterpoint in 1994: "That the group failed to survive was partly due to the later absence of Jim King, whose meaty sax solos provided the ideal counterpoint to Chapman’s vocals and Whitney’s guitar work."

Below is a video of King playing a 76-second harmonica riff in 2003. he still had it.

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In the autumn of 1969, Family welcome its new member, John Michael Palmer.

Born in Worcester, England, Palmer - nicknamed Poli - had been in several small-time bands, such as Deep Feeling (which included future members of Traffic and Spooky Tooth) and Blossom Toes.

Palmer was an even more curious replacement for King than John Weider had been for Ric Grech. Weider may not have been as seasoned a bass player as Grech had been, owing to his preference for the six-string guitar, but like Grech, he did play bass - and violin. But whereas Jim King had played saxophone and harmonica, Palmer played neither of those instruments. He played the vibraphone, the flute, and keyboards. (King did play occasional piano for Family, but calling King Family's original keyboardist would be like calling John Lennon or Keith Richards bassists just because they had played bass on a couple of songs in their respective bands.) Palmer's main qualification to replace King, apparently, was because he was a friend of King.

To make matters more complicated (as things were for Family in 1969), Charlie Whitney and Roger Chapman had to re-arange the songs planned for their third album. Which one of Palmer's instruments would be more suitable where a saxophone solo or a harmonica riff had been planned? That was something they had to figure out - and quickly - if they were going to deliver their next album early in the new year of 1970.

And all this was on top of their decision to produce the album themselves, with help from engineer George Chkiantz. Despite universal acclaim for Family Entertainment and Glyn Johns' sterling contributions to that album, John Gilbert had taken the liberty of doing the final remix for that LP, which Whitney and Chapman did not like. (As I untie the knots of the story of Family in 1969, it's becoming easier and easier to see why Family were more than eager to dump Gilbert, who was evidently something of a control freak, as their manager.)

Palmer immediately went to work on the group’s new album, their third, and rose to the challenge, transforming songs with his different instruments. In fact, Palmer, more than any replacement member in Family's history (there were five, not counting Rob Townsend) would be the most important replacement member ever to be in the group. Not only was Palmer in Family longer than anyone else who came in as a replacement (three years), he completely changed the group's sound, more often than not for the better. That was just fine with Family, who were never the same band twice. Family Entertainment, despite having the same lineup as Music In a Doll's House, was nothing like the earlier LP, and this new LP - slated for an early 1970 release - would be nothing like Family Entertainment.

In fact, thanks to the new LP, 1970 would be Family's year.

The year 1970 was a bummer for rock and roll in so many ways. The Beatles announced their breakup. The Rolling Stones were still reeling from the disaster that was Altamont. And Bob Dylan, four years after making rock's signature double album with Blonde on Blonde, released what is still considered the worst double album of all time - Self Portrait. It was also the year of Canned Heat guitarist Blind Owl Wilson's death, Jimi Hendrix's death, and Janis Joplin's death. Also Mariah Carey's birth. (Note to Mariahphiles - just kidding!)

But 1970 was still a good year for rock and roll overall, thanks largely to Family, who would release not one but two albums that year. And the first of them was not only one of the best albums of they year, it may even be one of the best albums of the decade.

A Song For Me, issued on January 23, 1970, is an act of defiance from a band that refuses to surrender to the adversity that Family had endured throughout 1969 - the sort f adversity that would have devastated other groups - and comes back stronger and sharper than ever. The ten cuts on A Song For Me are an eclectic mix of country, folk, twelve-bar blues, and brutally hard rock in which conventional rock and roll boundaries are outlined and subsequently smashed. Annihilated, in fact. "Their third exciting and highly varied LP trip," read the review in the February 14, 1970 edition of the British trade magazine Record Retailer. "The vast instrumentation at the command of these five men is impressive because it is used strategically; they eschew gimmickry. Despite widely publicized change in group personnel, they remain one of the most popular bands in Europe. The album, thoughtfully produced by the group, has considerable aural impact."

The band posed for numerous photos for the album cover looking serious but ultimately chose a candid shot of them during the photo session enjoying a laugh for the front sleeve. (The LP title, which does not appear on the front, instead appears on the back and in the gatefold.)

Those doubting Thomases who thought that Family were through after Ric Grech and Jim King left, after their failed U.S. tour, and after their separation from John Gilbert were about to realize that Family were going to have the last laugh.

(Below: Clockwise, from top: John Weider, Rob Townsend, Poli Palmer, Charlie Whitney, Roger Chapman.)

A Song For Me roars out of the gate with "Drowned In Wine," a chilling song when done with Jim King now turned into a scorching rocker with, off all things, a flute - an amplified flute that sounded like an air-raid warning - courtesy of Poli Palmer. (Palmer's flute playing reportedly made Jethro Tull leader Ian Anderson want to hone his own already -impressive flute-playing skills.) The other key instrumental highlights in "Drowned In Wine," all about paranoia and pressure to conform, are Charlie Whitney's brutal guitar and John Weider's thick heavy bass lines, and Rob Townsend's drums anchor the song perfectly, but the icing on the cake was Roger Chapman.

A Song For Me was the first album that Patrick Little, a Family fan in Michigan who set up "Strange Band," one of the earliest Family Internet sites (no longer online), bought, and when he first heard Chapman sing, he said he thought to himself, "What is this singer doing here?" The answer, he later concluded: ROCK AND ROLL! :) :D Not only is the song a brutal assault on the senses, it stops at the very moment the music begins to get too intense for anyone to handle - with a full volume slash that cuts everything off abruptly.

ROCK AND ROLL! :) :D

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"Drowned In Wine"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

After the turn, you finally learn to play along.
Your feelings are blind, so you don't really mind if it's right or wrong.
Fall in line. . ..
No, they won't let it stand on the back of their hand,
Won't take a cave in the mine.

See what they've done, the end's just begun to filter in.
The end is in sight, and the thought of a fight now is wiltering.
Yours and mine . . ..
They won't let it stand on the back of their hand,
Won't take a cave in the mine.

I could cry help,
But I'd much sooner fend for myself.
Don't wanna feel like I'm drowned in wine,
Hate every thought of having to fall in line,
Just want to grow, just want to grow and share what's yours and mine.

As sure as I see, they're looking at me with glasses on.
And as sure as I feel, I know they're for real and the gas is on.
Well, I'm drowned in wine,
No, they won't let it stand, no no.

Don't wanna feel like I'm drowned in wine,
Hate every thought of having to fall in line,
Just want to grow, grow and share what's yours and mine.

After the turn, you finally learn to play along.
Your feelings are blind and you don't really mind if it's right or wrong.
Well, I'm drowned, drowned in wine,
No, they won't let it stand, no.

No, they won't let stand, no,
I say they won't let it stand, no.
Well, I'm drowned in wine, yeah.
Say, I'm drowned, drowned, drowned in wine.

(Family, at the time of A Song For Me. From left: Charlie Whitney, Rob Townsend, Poli Palmer, Roger Chapman, John Weider.)

The second track on A Song For Me, "Some Poor Soul," is a low-key acoustically based song about a nocturnal scene in a wooded area surrounding a pond. Everything looks peaceful on the surface, but there is tension and danger just below it, a point of fact that Family convey brilliantly with its music and lyrics. The suspended seventh-chord at the end is particularly effective. And one incredibly descriptive line - "A hungry, bloated toad sits ugly and alone" - tells you all you need t know about the toad and its fellow pond denizens. Charlie Whitney and Roger Chapman were proving themselves more and more as the Lennon and McCartney of Leicester even as the original Lennon and McCartney had just ended their songwriting partnership.

"Some Poor Soul"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

Moon-soaked sky looks down,
Giving what it has to give.
A crack of twigs may be poachers,
A poor soul ain't got long to live.

A rustle and a crackle,
And a rattle with a shuffle.
Oh, you listen to scurry and the hurry of the . . .
Of the furry-footed people.

Through the trees a glimmer,
And a shimmer on the water,
And a skimmer making tracks across the pond . . ..
A hungry, bloated toad sits ugly and alone.

Shady wooded hollow,
Well, it shivers in the evening.
And the owl waits with baited breath . . ..
Oh, the silent hungry talons.

Moon-soaked sky looks down,
Giving, giving what it has to give.
A crack of twigs may be poachers.
I said, some poor soul ain't got long to live.

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(Family, 1970. Top, from left: Charlie Whitney, John Weider, Poli Palmer. Bottom, from left: Rob Townsend, Roger Chapman.)

"Love Is a Sleeper" is a steaming blues-rocker that demonstrates how Family were sometimes innovative by necessity. It was written with Jim King's harmonica in mind, and in March 1969, Family - then with King and with Ric Grech still in the band - performed the song as intended on a BBC radio show. When it came time to properly record "Love Is a Sleeper" for disc, Charlie Whitney and Roger Chapman rearranged it for Poli Palmer's vibraphone. Vibes on a such song seemed to be an implausible idea - the wrong sort of instrument for the wrong sort of song. But it worked fabulously. There was voodoo in the vibes, and Palmer did that voodoo that he did so well. ;)

It was now 1970. The sixties were over, and now that the Beatles were gone, Family were now the most innovative and most groundbreaking band in rock and roll.

"Love Is a Sleeper"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

Love is a sleeper locked in a room,
Waiting for someone to waken it,
Holding a key for a heart that's immune,
Frightened it's not really making it.
But sooner or later it feels through the cold,
All the warmth and the tremors that's shaking it.

Love is a sleeper, no one can deny.
I know, I've been so tired many times.

Love is a sleeper content by the sea,
Gazing so gently, so far away,
Waits for the tide and the moon to agree,
So pulled by the force that we hide away.
But the beaches are empty more often than not,
And left on its own it's a castaway.

Love is a sleeper, no one can deny.
I know, I've been so tired.

(REPEAT FIRST VERSE)

Love is a sleeper, no one can deny.
I know, I've been so, so tired.

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"Stop For the Traffic - Through the Heart Of Me," A Song For Me's fourth track, finds Chapman making his way through the center of Leicester and enjoying being the center of attention. :lol:

This song is distinctive for its backwards guitar. I don't know if Whitney recorded it straight and fed the tape in backwards or played the chords in reverse. The echoey intro is fascinating.

"Stop For the Traffic - Through the Heart Of Me"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

Stop for the traffic, maybe I can see
Remains of a flower, stump of a tree.
Shaking hands with people
Who are smiling desperately,
They're tryin' to win over through,
Through the heart of me.

Buildings tall, people small, maybe they can't see
That the sun keeps shining down over lil' ol' me.
Well, I'm walking down the main street,
Their eyes just can't see.
They're tryin' to win over through,
Through the heart of me.

(REPEAT FIRST VERSE)

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"Wheels" was a song Whitney and CHapman wrote with help from Ric Grech in late 1968 or early 1969, and Family had performed it on the BBC in March 1969. The song was written and arranged for Jim King's harmonica and wasd now reconstituted for Poli Palmer's flute. But a new instrument was also evident - a banjo, played by Charlie Whitney.

Wheels itself is, as I hear it, a song about trying and failing to achieve personal fulfillment ("Losing out slowly, I'm trying to make good"), as the wheels get stuck in the proverbial mud.

"Wheels"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman/Ric Grech)

I'm holding a bubble no one can believe in,
They look through and distort their views.
They say it's all right and they add with a wink,
But the wink has the smile of abuse.

I'm holding a mirror no one wants to peak in.
It's cracked, they say with a wearisome moan,
The crack is a path, just there for the seeking.
Look harder, the pavings are shown.

(CHORUS)
Losing out slowly, I'm trying to make good,
Wheels keep on grinding, grind slowly to mud.
Yeah, slowly to mud.

I wished for the earth and I got me a piece,
My integrity down, my soul for the lease.
No one can repeat what my mouth tries to speak,
Forsaking the bit, not seeing the leak.

(REPEAT FIRST VERSE)

(REPEAT CHORUS)

Wheels keep on, keep on rolling . . ..

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An obvious pun on Songs For Swingin' Lovers!, the title of Frank Sinatra's 1956 album (Sinatra, of course, had founded Family's label, Reprise, although Songs For Swingin' Lovers! was a Capitol release), "Song For Sinking Lovers" is a rumination of a dying relationship.

Whitney and Chapman were cleverly able to come up with four rhyming words for two lines, thought they cheated at one point with a pair of lines in which the second line relied on assonances. Even more interesting was the thick, corn-syrup-like banjo riff that permeates the song, with the drums slipping in and out of the mix as well as two bridges - the first with a smoldering slow-tempo blend of violin and bass (both played by John Weider), the second a with a violin rave-up by John Weider anchored by Whitney's folksy banjo picking.

The songs definitive ending symbolizes the narrator' desire to shut out memories of his soon-to-be former lover from his consciousness.

"Song For Sinking Lovers"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

That perfume in the air is like the one she'd wear,
And her hair, it always took time to repair.
My watch of late, it brings to me the times I'd wait,
By the gate her way from work did indicate.

(FIRST CHORUS)
Occasionally, I think of things
When a cold, hard bell inside me rings.
Just in time I can pull the blind
And shut it from my mind.

This cigarette I smoke reminds me of a joke
That we spoke on mornings, when we first awoke.
My walk upon the grass, right now it brings to pass
When she'd ask if everything we'd got would last.

(REPEAT FIRST CHORUS)

(REPEAT SECOND VERSE)

(REPEAT FIRST CHORUS)

(SECOND CHORUS)
Occasionally, I think of things
When a cold, hard bell inside me rings.
Just in time I can pull the blind and shut it!
Shut it out . . . shut it out from . . .
Shut it out from my mind.

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This post required me to post two songs at once - and I even joined them in a single video so you get the full effect of the first song cutting directly into the second without interruption.

"Hey - Let It Rock" is a short parody of middlebrow supper-club music commonly associated with the English middle class, with Roger Chapman as the compère for the light entertainment. Then at his exhortation to "let it rock," the record switches to the hard, swinging rockabilly of "The Cat and the Rat."

Rockabilly went out of style in the United States, where it originated, but it remained popular in Britain, which is why Queen's 1980 number-one rockabilly hit "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" sounded so fresh and contemporary even at that time. Here, Family let loose with a sound that would likely have gotten Ten Years After's Alvin Lee to stand up and take notice. "The Cat and the Rat" is proof of what Brian Setzer of the Stray Cats once said of rockabilly: "It's the most menacing music. Heavy metal is kid's stuff compared to it."

My only complaint about "The Cat and the Rat" is about the line "You get the cat and the rat if you got a big sack / Beat 'em to death in your own little trap," which certainly must have offended the RSPCA.

"Hey - Let It Rock"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

Light up a candle, think about flame,
Hang up the washing and think about rain.
You look at the doormat to see if there's post,
Nothing for breakfast, just tea and cold toast.
Thinking of everyday things,
Everything swings.

Waiting for Christmas to see what it sends,
You look in the library to see what it lends.
Freeing a bird that wanted to fly,
Laying down sleepy, heaving a sigh.
Wind up the hands on a grandfather clock,
You're digging the music - hey, let it rock!

--

"The Cat and the Rat"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

You can jiggle a cat and slap on a rat
But you bet your sweet life you won't make it.
Yeah, the odds are against, it's a barbed-wire fence
And you're caught by the a**, you can't shake it.
You get the cat and the rat if you got a big sack,
Beat 'em to death in your own little trap, whoa whoa.

(Well, you're) caught in a storm, your shoes, they got worn,
You're insane at the rain but can't break it,
Yeah, you think of the ones now, the impotent johns,
Glad you're alive, you can shake it.
You get the cat and the rat if you got a big sack,
Beat 'em to death in your own little trap, yeah.

You can kick at a cat and stomp on a rat
But you bet your sweet life you won't make it.
Yeah, the odds are against, it's a barbed-wire fence
And you're caught by the a**, you can't shake it.
You get the cat and the rat if you got a big sack,
Beat 'em to death in your own little trap, yeah.

(REPEAT SECOND VERSE)

You can shake it!
You can make it,
You can make it, you can shake it, whoa, yeah yeah . . ..

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You know it's a Family instrumental because of the incomprehensible title. Written by Charlie Whitney and John Weider, the instrumental is named after 93 Oakley Street in the Chelsea section of London, where the two men lived at the time. The "J" probably refers to "John", Whitney's given middle name and Weider's given first name.

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A Song For Me closes with the title song, but before I get to the proper 1970 release, posterity dictates that I must play you first Family's March 1969 performance of the song on BBC Radio, which, of course, was done when Ric Grech and Jim King were still in the band. As powerful as the studio recording sounds - and we'll get to that - this early version is frightening. :eek: And it rocks! :cool:

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The monumental closing title track of A Song For Me is Family's longest cut ever - nine minutes, twenty seconds. It's also one of the nastiest performances ever committed to a commercial recording. (This modified version of the original 1969 song has a composer credit for everyone in the band in 1970 except for Poli Palmer.)

Against the backdrop of a blistering electric riff, Charlie Whitney sprays notes from his guitar like bullets from a machine gun while John Weider's violin passages rush out like ghosts from a haunted house. As Poli Palmer bangs on his piano with full force, Rob Townsend's drums explode all over the stereo spectrum. Topping it all off is Roger Chapman's incendiary vocal, shredding whole verses while drowning out everyone else. As "A Song For Me" progresses, the initially medium tempo picks up for a rousing finish comparable to the Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again" of a year later.

A hell of a way to end an album! :D

"A Song For Me"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman/John Weider/Rob Townsend)

I was waiting, I was singing,
I was standing patiently.
Who would wait this long for me?
Who's gonna sing a song for me?

I was smiling, I was walking,
Open mind to open miles.
Who will crack me a crooked smile?
Who's gonna climb my . . . who's gonna climb my . . .
Who will climb my crooked stiles?

I was crying, I was stumbling
Over broken-glass-laid tracks,
Following ancient portrait maps.
Who could tell me . . . who could tell me . . .
Who could tell the paths from cracks?

I was talking, I was shouting.
Listen please, now don't you turn away.
Who turns deaf to what I say?
Who's gonna paint my . . . who's gonna paint my . . .
Who's gonna paint my portrait gray?

I was crying . . .
I was stum-, stum-, stumbling
Over broken-glass-laid tracks,
Following ancient portrait maps.
Who's gonna tell me . . . hey, who's gonna tell me, yeah . . .
Who could tell the paths from cracks?

I was waiting . . .
I was singing, too.
I was standing patiently.
Who would wait this long for me?
Who's gonna sing?
Hey, who's gonna sing?

A song for me . . .
Hey, a song for me . . ..

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A Song For Me (the gatefold and back cover of which are below) was a huge hit for Family in their homeland. It was widely praised and peaked at number four on the British album chart, the highest chart position a Family album would reach. Family were now on top of the world when it came to British rock.

However, A Song For Me would occasionally strike a sour note. Because it was the first Family album to be self-produced by the band, they were still getting the hang of recording and mixing, despite help from engineer George Chkiantz. Some of the instruments were improperly recorded in an effort to emphasize John Weider's bass when Wieder himself had trouble anchoring the rhythm. So, the production could have been better. But this was a minor quibble.

A greater issue was the American release of A Song For Me. UA's first Family release in the States was softened a bit by adding the single "No Mule's Fool" - using it to kick off the album instead of "Drowned In Wine" - rearranging the orders of some of the other tracks and dropping "The Cat and the Rat" entirely. Incomprehensible.

Fortunately, reissues have corrected this situation, and digital remixing has also enhanced the album's better qualities for CD. giving listeners a chance to hear just how important A Song For Me is. It's not only one of the best albums of 1970; it just may be the best album of 1970.

How great is A Song For Me? I actually remember the day I bought this album at the now-defunct Borders Books & Music chain. It was Thursday, May 16, 2002. I took it home and listened to it. I then listened to it three more times before the following THursday. How many albums would you want to listen to four times within a week?

This was a life-changing album for me because it showed just how innovative a band could be and how many possibilities rock still offered when the Beatles were no more.

As soon as A Song For Me was in the record stores, Family went out on the road and played one gig after another. And not just in Britain. Family stopped in France to play songs from the new album on television, and then they went on to the United States in March and April for their second American tour - which worked out much better this time. They played the Fillmore West in San Francisco on Easter Sunday, March 29, 1970 (with a photo of Charlie Whitney, John Weider and Roger Chapman shown below from the concert) and played Carnegie Hall on April 28 (practice, practice!) in a bill that included folkies Pete Seeger, Peter, Paul & Mary, and Arlo Guthrie.

During their 1970 American tour, Family even played two dates in my home state of New Jersey, including one date in my home county of Essex. But, being four years old, I was to young to attend the show.

It was a perfect place for Family to play, as New Jerseyans are known for being tough, coarse, nasty, easily offended ("Who you callin' a bitch?") and not only don't suffer fools gladly, they don't suffer fools at all. In other words, just the sort of people Roger Chapman would feel at home with. :lol:

Yo! Fuhgaddaboudit! :censored:

On Thursday, April 23, Family played Upsala College in East Orange, which is adjacent to Newark. Upsala was already famous for its campus radio station, WFMU-FM, which was one of the first radio stations in America to play the Beatles' White Album. And, for those of you keeping score, East Orange is the hometown of singers and distant cousins Dionne Warwick and Whitney Houston, country singer Eddie Rabbitt, and folk singer Janis Ian.

The following day, Friday, April 24, they played Trenton State College, which was not in Trenton proper but in suburban Ewing Township. The school started out as a teachers' college, though listening to Family at this concert certainly must have given the students a real education.

Upsala College closed in 1994 and its campus was redeveloped as a housing subdivision. WFMU-FM moved to Jersey City. Trenton State College adopted the name The College of New Jersey in 1996.

(Family, 1970. From left: Charlie Whitney, Roger Chapman, Rob Townsend, Poli Palmer, John Weider.)

When Family returned to Europe in May 1970, the played more dates in Britain before moving on to Germany and then the Netherlands, where, on Saturday, June 27, they played the Kralingen festival in Rotterdam.

Roger Chapman soon became famous for what critics called - "idiot dancing" - a form of movement characterized by spastic motions, stiff poses, tarantella-like steps, and bits of smashed tambourines everywhere. :lol:

Below is Family's Kralingen appearance where they did a scorching version of "Drowned In Wine," preserved for posterity in the documentary film Stomping Ground. :cool:

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This is an interesting retrospective on a British group few understand have a connection with big names and scenes back in the day.

This is an interesting retrospective on a British group few understand have a connection with big names and scenes back in the day.

Absolutely! Not just with Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood, but - as we will see soon - Elton John, and through their last bassist, Rod Stewart. They even shared the bill at times with Chicago and (later) America, as well as a group called Fritz that included two unknown (in 1970) pop-rock musicians named Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks.

They also had their supporters in the media, such as DJs John Peel and Bob Harris in Britain and rock critic Robert Christgau in the U.S. :)

Family also made their way through Germany in June 1970 ,stopping over in Bremen to tape an appearance on "Beat-Club," one of the best pop shows on Western television and an excellent source for numerous performances from the icons of the first generation of classic rock. Family performed "The Weaver's Answer" in this "Beat-Club" appearance that was far more fierce than their take of the song on Family Entertainment. This is some of the most ferocious rock and roll ever played by anyone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meRGXyxeO9U

Germany is probably where Family found their biggest audience outside Britain, and Roger Chapman has remained incredibly popular there since he began his solo career.

And then Family brought their newly re-arranged take on "The Weaver's Answer" to Britain's - and the world's - biggest music festival of the late sixties and early seventies - the 1970 Isle of Wight festival, which drew more spectators than Woodstock the previous year.

The complications of setting up this festival meant that there was no chance that the festival organizers could make any money from it, and political and logistic difficulties on top of all that ensured that this Isle of Wight Festival, the third annual festival there, would be the last for 32 years. It has been an annual occurrence since 2002, except in 2020 when COVID - or, as the French call it, le Co-vide! - forced its cancellation that year.

The Isle of Wight 1970 festival ran from Wednesday, August 26 to Sunday, August 30. Family performed their set on Friday, August 28.

"The Weaver's Answer" would become a staple of Family's live shows and become to Family what "Stairway to Heaven " would be to Led Zeppelin. This is why. :cool:

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And yet, while all of this was happening, Family managed to record a new single!

Like most British bands in the sixties and the early seventies, Family tried to keep singles and albums separate from each other as much as possible, though singles would sometimes be included no subsequent albums. "Today" was a single-only song, composed as a quiet ballad with a clear intention of getting a hit in the Top Twenty.

The song was a mournful reflection of the present coupled with a desire to continue on. Given that a lot of the positive energy that had fostered the counterculture in both Britain and America was now in 1970 waning, it's likely that "Today" was influenced by all that.

Coincidentally, "Today" was released in April 1970 - the same month that Paul McCartney announced to the world that the Beatles were finished. It made the single all the more appropriate.

"Today" is distinguished by a subtle slide guitar that might very well have influenced George Harrison's solo career as he was getting it started.

Incredibly, this song didn't make the British singles chart. :eek:

"Today"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman/John Weider)

It could be near you,
It should be clear too.
Bend your way,
Today.

One thing we're showing,
We know it's growing.
Bend your way,
Today, today.

We'll keep on trying,
We'll keep on crying.
Bend your way,
Today, today.

Today,
Welcome today . . ..

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"Song For Lots" was the B-side of "Today," and like their 1968 B-side "Hometown," it was a lament on urban redevelopment in Britain. "Lots" referred to Lots Road in London's Chelsea neighborhood, where members of the band lived, so the lyrics are obviously referring not to Chelsea but the outskirts of Leicester, the place where Roger Chapman and Charlie Whitney used to live.

The music has an Elton John feel t it, and it has a humorous opening. The take used included Rob Townsend missing his cue and mildly cursing himself out - "Aaaaaaaah!" - causing a false start before the band starts over. Perhaps Family were making a nod to the Beatles song "Dig a Pony," which included a false start on account of Ringo Starr pausing to blow his nose.

Family end the song playing the same riff over and over a few times before the band indicate to engineer George Chkiantz that they've had enough.

"Song For Lots"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

Once I lived in green grass,
An open country view,
Now it's just a power block and
Above, it's residue.
Gone are songs of songbirds,
Spring and the summer too,
Just rows and rows of terraced slums
With demolition dew.

Yes, what I'd give,
If I could go back to the place
Where I used to live.

The city smells of money,
The town folk bring me down,
Hustling for their passing games,
A business battleground.

Yes, what I'd give,
If I could go back to the place
Where I used to live,
I used to live.

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(Below: the reverse side of the picture sleeve for Family's April 1970 single, and the townhouse in Lots, Chelsea at 93 Oakley Street where Charlie Whitney and John Weider used to live, photographed in May 2018.)

Finally, in the latter half of 1970, Family had a Top Twenty single.

"Strange Band" is a song about the many interesting observations Charlie Whitney and Roger Chapman took in while on tour. The title pretty much summed up Family in a nutshell, as they were a strange band - and that's why I love 'em. Their strangeness was in their music - music arranged like no band had ever arranged rock and roll before or has since.

"Strange Band," written by Charlie Whitney and Roger Chapman with help from their Leicester pal John Williamson, was released as a maxi-single, featuring remixed versions of two Family Entertainment tracks, "Hung Up Down" "and "The Weaver's Answer," as the B-side. It peaked at number eleven on the British singles chart.

"Strange Band"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman/John Williamson)

Dog and his master, took out together
Heading due west, away from the east,
Walking the road, leading a blind man,
Staff in his hand, and a dog that could see.
Strange looking band were we.

Man and his hubcaps, flashing the highway
Shielding his eyes, from the heat of the sun,
A wife, name of Maisy, who's driving him crazy,
Convertible mind closed permanently.
Strange looking band were we.

Sun on the hills hold a negative figure,
Someone sits alone 'neath the shade of a tree,
But way down the line, a car's lost its shine,
While Maisy still whines about the heat and the fleas.
Strange looking band were we.

(REPEAT SECOND VERSE)

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Two videos here. The first is a live performance of "Strange Band" from a TV special broadcast in the northwest of England on Granada Television, during which John Weider proves that a violin can be a heavy-metal instrument as well. The second is the TV special in its entirety, called "Family - Doing Their Thing." :) It aired on September 25, 1970.

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A poster advertising the 1970 Isle of Wight music festival, the third and final Isle of Wight festival for 32 years. Whose bright idea was it to put Family at that bottom of the list of artists? :mad: And who's this Arrival band? :confused:

Roger Chapman performing in 1970. Note the word "LOVE" tattooed on his knuckles; he had the word "HATE" tattooed on the knuckles of his other hand. He has since had them removed.

Fairfield Halls is a concert venue in Croydon in Greater London. Built in 1962, it has been used for sporting events but has also hosted several rock acts, including David Bowie, Kraftwerk, Elton John, the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Stevie Wonder, the Who, Queen, Sister Sledge, Morrissey, Status Quo, Free, Genesis, Petula Clark, Mott the Hoople, and Wishbone Ash. On July 26, 1970, Family took to the stage there.

Three songs that had never been properly recorded in the studio before were part of a setlist that included "Strange Band," "Drowned In Wine," "A Song For Me," "Wheels" and, of course, "The Weaver's Answer." Family had the concert recorded for a live album, but they began having second thoughts about releasing an LP of songs that fans already had studio versions of on previous Family records.

Ultimately, the band compromised and decided to release just the three previously unavailable songs and the live version of "Strange Band" on one side of an LP and three new songs plus one new instrumental recorded in the studio to fill the other side.

That album, released in November 1970, was titled Anyway.

Roger Chapman had a tendency to preface his sentences with the word "anyway," which inspired him and Charlie Whitney to write a song by that title (which has nothing to do with the Stephen Stills and Manassas song of that same title). The song became the title track of the album, Family's fourth.

The cover doesn't have the band or anyone else (in the style of Family Entertainment) on it, but rather a classy yet belligerent illustration - Leonardo da Vinci's Mortars With Explosive Projectiles. Classy and belligerent - a perfect description of Family's music! :cool:

The album represents sort of a valley between the twin peaks of A Song For Me and their 1971 album Fearless, as the Fairfield Halls recordings are a bit rough, and the studio cuts aren't as groundbreaking as what they'd done before or later. But it's still Family as we know them, no small thing.

Anyway exploded out of the gate with the first track from of the live recordings - a song that captured the thunder of the band in concert, "Good News Bad News." Alternating between light verses and heavy choruses and instrumental breaks, the song illustrated the age-old problem of the rich rigging the rules in favor of themselves at the expense of everyone else. Charlie Whitney and Roger Chapman wrote this song at the time the Tories took over the British government, ousting Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson, among the most liberal of modern British prime ministers.

The Conservative government of Edward Heath featured a rising troublemaker in its Cabinet - the Secretary of State for Education and Science, Margaret Thatcher. She tried to reverse the efforts by the Wilson government to expand comprehensive education that would allow less academically adept students to get a fair shot at improvement, cut spending on the British educational system (including the abolition of free milk for children), and letting market forces dictate public scientific research.

So, it makes sense that "Good News Bad News" would start with a line like "What is the point, you'll never win." :mad:

"Good News Bad News"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

What is the point?
You'll never win.
We're up at your throats
Before you begin.

(CHORUS)
Closing your ears to other men's views,
Change for the good would not bring bad news!

Turning their heads
Away from the crowd,
Turning much further
Than we can allow.

(REPEAT CHORUS)

Why change the rules,
Say those at the top,
To those at the bottom,
Caught looking up.

(REPEAT CHORUS)

Too many bodies
Doubting your worth,
Shout to the people,
Salt of the earth.

(REPEAT CHORUS)

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The next song on Anyway, "Willow Tree," is a straight folk ballad rife with violin passages from John Weider. To avoid the inconvenience of having Weider alternate between violin and bass and to ensure that the song would receive adequate pacing, Charlie Whitney played bass on this concert performance - which, I believe, is the only time Whitney played bass on any Family cut. Had this song been recorded in the studio, Weider would most likely have simply overdubbed himself on both instruments.

One note about this song - Whitney and Chapman wrote one set of lyrics that appear on Anyway's lyric sheet, but when Chapman sang "Willow Tree" in concert, he sang a different set of lyrics. Chapman has a tendency to fail to get his own lyrics straight when performing live; he has a tendency to get so deep in the moment that he loses his way lyrically. To the best of my knowledge, the correct version of "Willow Tree" has never been released or even recorded.

"Willow Tree" (original version)
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

Willow tree wooden, were you once a woman,
Crying forlorn on a bank of a stream
For some tragic loss of a friend or a lover,
Hoping that time will somehow intervene.

Is all that you need just someone to believe,
Stand under your boughs and reach out a hand,
The truth of the hand that touches your leaves,
Release you and end your perpetual stand.

Willow tree wooden, I've watched and I've waited,
Lit both by moonbeam and sun of the day.
Biding my time here, just sitting and thinking,
How many years before you pass away?

"Willow Tree" (Fairfield Halls version)
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

Willow tree, I've watched and I've waited,
Crying there forlorn on a bank of a stream
For some tragic loss of a friend or a lover,
Hoping that time will intervene.

Is all that you need just someone to believe,
Stand under your boughs and reach out a hand,
The truth of the hand that touches your leaves,
Without you, all that you are.

Willow tree wooden, I've watched and I've waited,
I've been lit both by moonbeam and sun of the day.
For some tragic loss of a friend or a lover,
Hoping that time will pass away . . ..

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"Holding The Compass" is a sprightly folk rock tune about aman lamenting how technology is taking him where he doesn't want to go, a lament we hear today about artificial intelligence, making the song relevant in 2024.

The music of "Holding The Compass" has been compared to Jimmy Page's instrumental composition "White Summer." For the Fairfield Halls show, Whitney and Weider played it on amplified acoustic guitars, not unlike the Rick Turner Model 1-DLX-C guitar Fleetwood Mac's Lindsey Buckingham has used in concert.

Comprised of three verses and chorus, "Holding The Compass" is one of Family's best songs and a personal favorite of mine, but my main quibble about the Fairfield Halls version is that Chapman omits the first verse, singing the second verse twice. There are examples f Chapman singing the entire song, and I'll show a "Beat-Club" performance of "Holding The Compass" later in this thread.

"Holding The Compass"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

Many a time I'll point to a sign,
Which way to go, maybe I'll know
If the wind doesn't blow the words around,
Whoa, yeah, to different ground.

Whoever you are, just pick out a star
To shine your light, the thing is at night
That the clouds get tight and they fold upon,
Whoa yeah, you tell me where it's gone.

(CHORUS)
Holding the compass ain't the way I've got to roam,
You know it takes me straight home.
But that ain't the way, no, that ain't the way,
Hey, that ain't the way
That I've got to roam.

Computer brain could guide a train
Along its path without help from a guy
Whose prejudiced eye would see the track,
See the track go back.

(REPEAT CHORUS)

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The live side of Anyway concludes with Family performing "Strange Band," just five days away from being released as their next single. Chapman omits the verse about how the sun on the hills holding a negative figure, but because this is Roger Chapman, it doesn't matter because he is so into his performance that it still comes out great.

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Side two of Anyway, the studio side, begins, ironically, with a song about touring. :lol:

"Part Of the Load" is about Family's 1970 tour of the United States and the rigors involved. The lyric "Makes London to Glasgow seem like down the road, you know" beautifully sums up the vastness of American geography. (Chapman humorously mispronounces "Houston.") The two most distinguishing characteristics of the song musically are the opening bass line that backdrops the whole track - John Weider's greatest moment with Family - and the complex drum shuffle in the outro.

"Part Of the Load"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

Got here this morning,
Leaving on Saturday.
Two nights in Boston,
And we're out on the road again,
While part of yourself stays with friends that you've made.

Rolling the highways,
Living the way we do -
Not truck driving men
But only half of the gig's the show,
Makes London to Glasgow seem like down the road, you know,

But we're out on the road,
That's part of the load,
Oh, the load.

Down the road . . . down the road . . .
Down the road . . . down the road . . .

Pull in for dinner,
Home's four thousand miles away,
Write to your lady,
Not knowing quite just what to say.
You only know you never ask her to wait.

Houston in Texas,
Two hundred miles or so.
Last stop for supper
With just one tuna fish to go.
No time to smile, no time to say one small hello,

But we're out on the road,
That's part of the load,
Oh, the load.

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Although it was not meant for single release, "Part of the Load" got a promotional video made for it. In the days before MTV - i.e., the good old days, when musical quality mattered - British rock bands would make videos designed to be aired for TV music shows and variety specials so that it would look like they were in the TV studio with the hosts and other guests and not actually have to physically be there. (American rock bands only started to make videos in the late 1970s.) Family made this clip for "Part of the Load" that would be aired for a TV special aired in Belgium. Incredibly, the clip was interspersed with images of World War I paraphernalia, even though Belgium was one of only five European countries occupied by a foreign power for part of or the entirety of the Great War. It was some sort of anti-war message . . ..

In the interest of time, the original recording of "Part of the Load," which Family mimed to here, was pared down by 74 seconds for this video.

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Family recorded in Olympic Studios, the studio complex all of the great British bands not named the Beatles or the Hollies recorded in back in the day. Olympic was also used by film score composers to record the background music for movies, so a lot of exotic instruments tended to be stored on the premises. The band found some film-score percussion instruments there while recording tracks for Anyway, and they decided to make use of them on what became the album's title song. They were always trying to find new sounds to employ in their music, like the Beatles did, although Family weren't as nearly rewarded commercially for their efforts as the Beatles were. While all of the Beatles' U.K. singles except "Love Me Do" all got up to the top five in the mother country, Family had singles that didn't even chart, while none of their albums ever got up to number one in the U.K. John Lennon's endorsement of the band - "They've got a fantastic blend of sound" - could only get them so far.

"Anyway"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

A mist comes o'er the shore, from out the sea's embrace,
The sun just going down the red without a face,
A mist falls on the water through the curtain lace,
Any place.

A white to hurt the eyes stretches the fields afar,
The brightness of the full moon, footprints show where you are,
The snow becomes a mirror for the northern star,
There you are.

Oh, mountains far, your bigness makes me near to you,
And flowers small, your gentleness is how you grew,
But those teardrops on your petals, are they only dew?
Wish I knew.

A man holds tight his lady in the evening glade,
His coat around her shoulders keeps the chill away,
A willow spreads its limbs to make a lover's shade,
Anyway.

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Written by Poli Palmer, Charlie Whitney and John Weider, "Normans" is Anyway's obligatory instrumental track (every Family LP up to this point had at least one), which centers on Weider's violin and, to a lesser extent, Palmer's piano and flute. The title refers not to the victors of the Battle of Hastings in 1066 but to the private slur the band's members used to describe stupid people. And you can bet that the Heath government that ran Britain in the early seventies was full of Normans. :rofl:

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The anti-war song "Lives and Ladies" closed Anyway, and it is one of the most overlooked songs of its sort.

Anyway came out at the height of Vietnam War, when Nixon expanded the war into Cambodia and the demonstrations against the war turned ugly. The American government heralded its struggle in Vietnam as a fight against communism, but people around the world and an increasing number of Americans were having none of that. What were Americans doing in a country in Southeast Asia propping up an illegal government in Saigon, anyway? They may have been fighting against communism, but what were they fighting for? "Lives and Ladies" got to the heart of the matter about war in the post-World War II age.

BBC Radio DJ John Peel called "Lives and Ladies" one of the greatest anti-war songs he'd ever heard, and it echoes greatly Bob Dylan's "Masters of War," referencing that song's title in the lyrics.

The verses about friends back in Leicester refer to real blokes Roger Chapman and Charlie Whitney knew back home.

"Lives and Ladies"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

People that you send to war,
Who don't know what they're fighting for,
Leaving their loved ones at home,
Wondering if they're on their own,
Oh, if they're alone.

Mothers and fathers that wait
For news of their innocents' fate,
Raising a son for some years,
Only to end it in tears,
Oh, only to end it in tears.

You being masters of war,
You never knew your fathers, that's for sure.
Just counting the numbers that died
I hope that you're satisfied,
I hope that you're satisfied.

My friend, he's a salesman up in Leicestershire,
His wife and baby love him, to him they're all so dear.
We got talking together about some rights and wrongs,
And just before I left there, I heard him sing this song:

I love my lady and baby,
And I'm sure that you love yours.
We want to care for each other,
That's what we're here for.
Yes, I love my lady and baby,
And I'm sure that you love yours.
So don't go pulling your switches,
We don't need your wars.

My friend, he's a tailor up in Leicester town,
He works his own shop there, and I know he's alright now.
He's got his way of thinking and knows that I've got mine.
There's mostly only one thing we agree on all the time:

We love our lives and our ladies,
And we're sure that you love yours.
We want to care for each other,
That's what we're here for.
We love our lives and our ladies,
And we're sure that you love yours.
So don't go pulling your switches,
We don't need your wars.

He loves his lady and baby,
And he's sure that you love yours.
They want to care for each other,
That's what they're here for.
He loves his lady and baby,
And he's sure that you love yours.
So don't go pulling your switches,
They don't need your wars.

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Anyway ultimately peaked at number seven on the British album chart while, in the United States, the LP continued Family's perfect streak with regard t the Billboard Top Two Hundred - it didn't make that chart at all.

American rock critic Robert Christgau, one of the few Yanks in the pop press who took Family seriously, was lukewarm to this release, perhaps not realizing that Anyway was a stopgap album between two all-studio LPs. "Back before Ric Grech deserted them for (and on) Blind Faith," Christgau wrote they were a slightly demented hard rock band that made arty with a violin. Now they're a slightly demented hard rock band that makes arty with unidentifiable percussion and various croons and mumbles - at least on the studio side. On the live side they make shift."

Britain's Disc was much more ecstatic about Anyway in its November 14, 1970 review: "Suddenly one of our most popular live bands has crashed through with a magnificent piece of musical togetherness . . .. They are so tight and together that it could be one brain controlling the whole thing. No praise is too high for this band, for which the word 'progressive' might have been coined."

There is, to be fair to Christgau, one key difference between the British edition of Anyway and the American edition, which United Artists (UA) wouldn't issue until the middle of 1971. In the U.S., Anyway featured nine cuts, with their first 1971 single, "In My Own Time" (which I'll get to in my own time) being added to the LP. A padded Anyway sounds great, especially after the way UA butchered A Song For Me, but in fact, UA butchered the instrumental track "Normans," editing it to a shorter length - very sloppily, I'm led to understand - to make room for "In My Own Time." As with A Song For Me, maybe it was better that Anyway didn't chart in the States.

(Below: Family performing in 1970. From left: Rob Townsend, Roger Chapman, John Weider, Poli Palmer, Charlie Whitney.)

On December 31, 1970, Paul McCartney went into the High Court in London and sued to dissolve the Beatles' partnership. It was the only way he could dissociate himself from Allen Klein. This ended any hope of the Beatles staying together as the seventies were getting well underway.

In fact, all hope had been lost for some time. John Lennon had just released his first solo album of actual songs, Plastic Ono Band, after all of those Unfinished Music experimental LPs he did with wife Yoko, George Harrison released his first non-experimental, pop-oriented album, All Things Must Pass, Ringo had two albums on release already, and Paul was preparing to record a new LP in New York.

Meanwhile, the Rolling Stones were still searching for a new sound for the new decade after taking Mick Taylor on board as their lead guitarist. Bob Dylan had just released New Morning, an album that won back some of the goodwill he lost over Self-Portrait. Most of the newer acts on the charts paled in comparison to these giants. Why, after the Beatles, were we listening to Blood, Sweat and Tears? After Bob Dylan, how did we end up listening to wimps like Cat Stevens? Bands like Black Sabbath were taking us to the dark side, while other bands - Grand Funk Railroad in the U.S. and Status Quo in Britain - were getting the critics raving . . . over how much they hated them. (It wouldn't get much better in 1971, with Rolling Stone's Melissa Mills writing of Uriah Heep, "If this band makes it, I'm going to have to commit suicide." :eek: )

But 1970 had been a great year for Family. Two acclaimed albums, A Song For Me (a poster ad for which is below) and Anyway (a German pressing of which is below), "Strange Band" hitting the Top Twenty," a second U.S. tour that turned out better than the first, stealing the show at the Kralingen festival in Rotterdam and the Isle of Wight festival at Afton Down, gaining their independence in their affairs and in the studio . . . . Apart from "Today" inexplicably failing to chart, it had been a wonderful year for them. Their fans eagerly awaited what the heaviest-rocking progressive quintet in Britain would do in the new year, 1971. :) :rock:

By the end of 1970, Family had conquered France, Germany, the Netherlands - just about all of Western Europe. Going into 1971, all they had left to do was conquer . . . North America.

That was going to be a tough slog. Family barely got noticed by rock fans in the United States, and in Canada they were a total nonentity. Going into the new year, the band were content - for the time being, anyway - to shore up their fan base in Britain. They began 1971 like they'd begun every previous year - by touring.

(Family, 1971. From left - Roger Chapman, John Weider, Rob Townsend, Poli Palmer, Charlie Whitney.)

While Roger Chapman and Charlie Whitney, and even Poli Palmer, were writing new material for a new LP, early 1971 seemed to be as good a time as any to issue a compilation of previously released tracks. Hence Old Songs New Songs, released in March of that year. (Note: "Old Songs New Songs" itself does not appear on this compilation.)

The title was something of a misnomer, since there were no new songs among the eleven tracks chosen. The band certainly couldn't have called it Family's Greatest Hits, because, by the standard of the UK singles chart - where a "hit" was a single that at least peaked at number twenty - they'd only had one hit. But the songs from Family Entertainment on this LP were sort of new; Chapman and Whitney had remixed and re-recorded parts of them, having always been thoroughly dissatisfied with how their then-manager did the final mix for that earlier LP. They went one better with "Observations From a Hill" - they mixed out Jim King's lead vocal and replaced it with a Roger Chapman lead vocal, because they'd always hated, hated, hated how King sang it.

As that great American philosopher and philanthropist Earvin "Magic" Johnson would say, man, that's cold. :( :eek:

Old Songs New Songs marked the debut of "No Mule's Fool" and "Today" on a long-play record, and it also featured "The Cat and the Rat," thus it appeared in America for the first time as well.

But if you were an American Family fan in 1971 and you wanted to hear that great rockabilly-revival tune, you needed a tape machine. United Artists Records issued Old Songs New Songs in the States on eight-track cartridge and cassette only.

This was the last Family release to credit Charlie Whitney as "John Whitney," John being his given middle name (his given first name is Richard, as noted before). Henceforth he would be credited as Charlie Whitney n future releases. And I still have no idea where he got "Charlie" from.

While we're on the subject of looking back and retrospectives, I almost forgot about this clip from French TV . . . Family from 1968, with Ric Grech and Jim King then in the band, covering Howlin' Wolf's "How Many More Years," which inspired the title track of A Song For Me and was recontextualized by Led Zeppelin as "How Many More Times."

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Family maintained a healthy presence on the concert circuit and on television. This live performance of "Good News Bad News" is from the Family television special aired in Belgium in early 1971 that I referred to earlier. The freeze-frame on Roger Chapman at the end practically beatifies him as a rock icon.

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Family conducted an interesting musical experiment in which they made a medley out of "Processions," Charlie Whitney's solo composition from Family Entertainment, and their 1969 single "No Mule's Fool" by taking the first verse of the latter and inserting it in the middle of the former, as well as an instrumental break following the "No Mule's Fool" verse . . . the break here being a violin solo from John Weider. This is another clip from that Belgian TV special.

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A year after playing Kralingen in the Netherlands, Family played the Glastonbury Festival in Pilton, Somerset, a festival that has been held on an intermittent, semi-annual basis for over half a century. As at Kralingen, Family performed "Drowned In Wine," and as at Kralingen, John Weider offered up a violin solo not n the original record.

THis festival was filmed and made into a documentary movie. I've seen a clip of Family's performance, and of course it's great. Sadly, it's not on YouTube at this time, so I can't post it here. However, I do have a couple of pictures of the band during their set. :)

In July 1971, Family released "In My Own Time," its first single. And the reaction to it suggested that the band's constant touring was paying off - it peaked on the British Top Twenty at number four. No Family single had charted so high in Britain.

I've even heard that "In My Own Time" received airplay in the U.S., most likely due t the promotional efforts of United Artists Records. If so, that would make the song the first shot across the bow of mainstream American radio from Family. Things at last appeared to be coming together for the best band you've never heard . . . but, because this was Family, it didn't quite turn out like that . . ..

At the bottom of this post is a clip of Family performing "In My Own Time" on the British music show "Top Of the Pops."

"In My Own Time"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

Ahh, ahh, ahh, ahh,
Ahh, ahh, ahh, ahh.

Lay down easy, stars in my eyes,
Try not telling too many lies
Wake up feeling not foolish or wise,
And life goes with me, no matter what size.
Now some seek Jesus, or flags they can wave,
Won't touch nothing, unless it's been saved.
But I say your neighbor deserves much more faith,
And answer to yourself when you misbehave.

(CHORUS)
You may think I'm wasting my time,
Think what you think, you know I don't mind.
But if you don't pick up what I choose to find,
Oh, I'll be with you, in my own time.

I'll be with you, in my own time.

Mine is my freedom, you take, I'll defy,
Laugh till I'm tired, sing 'til I'm dry,
'Cause life is a moment you pass with a sigh,
Never comes back sure as yesterday's by.

(CHORUS)

In my own time.
I'll be with you, in my own time . . ..

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The B-side of "In My Own Time" was Seasons," which sums up the four seasons of the year in just over two minutes, as opposed to Antonio Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons," which lasts nearly forty-five minutes. That's fine for a classical piece, but not for rock and roll, yet any rock band other than this one would have made a whole concept album around the idea, which would have enraged Rolling Stone's rock critics dead set on the idea that rock and roll is from the street and shouldn't borrow ideas from the Dead White European and American Males (DWEAMs) who wrote all of that serious music that rock and roll imagined itself being against. But Family kept the topic to a simple song, and a B-side at that. Once again, Family showed how a "progressive" rock band could be progressive and still have rock and roll credibility.

"Seasons"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

I looked for the sun but it couldn't get through,
Gray clouds above have blocked out its view.
That sound in my ear, the rain is quite near
To color the fields green for the start of the year.
Now spring is approaching, I feel it draw near,
The warmth is replacing the cold.
The small ones awake from the winter's cold break,
Feeling so bold.

One first of the month, but the end of the May,
The sun's golden shadows, they lent from the day.
It's harvesting time as I walk through the fields,
The skies of the winter, the summer has killed.

Now summer has gone, left not a word,
The dark nights quickly draw on.
The wind blows the trees bare of their leaves,
Winter's begun . . ..

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As soon as "In My Own Time" was in the record stores, and before Family could get to work on their first all-studio album in nearly two years, John Weider left the band. Melody Maker officially announced his departure on July 10, 1971.

Weider had joined in a pinch back in April 1969 when the band needed someone to replace Ric Grech on bass, but it must be stressed that John Weider isn't so much a bass player as he is a guitarist who happens to play bass as well. By the summer of 1971, he had tired of playing the bass as his primary instrument and needed a break from that.

Weider subsequently joined another band that had been formed by Richard McCracken and John Wilson, the bassist and drummer from Taste, the power Trio that had featured Rory Gallagher on guitar and vocals before Gallagher left and pursued his now legen - wait for it - DARY! - solo career. This new band that arose from the ashes of Taste was also a trio, which featured a young singer and guitar player fronting the group, but Weider, by joining, would turn it into a quartet. The band was called . . . Stud.

Stud? Well, yes, admittedly there was no way they were ever going to get anywhere with a name like that. But Weider, like drummer Harry Ovenall before him, chose to do what was best for his own musical fulfillment, which did not involve staying in Family. And remember the name Stud - you'll be hearing about this band again soon.

As for Weider, he stayed with Stud until they disbanded, eventually putting out a few solo albums and also doing session work with other rock musicians before turning to New Age music in the 1990s. He turns 77 this month (April 2024), a long life to him.

Family - pictured here in 1971, before John Weider left - now needed a third bass player (a fourth one if you count the Farinas, as Ric Grech had replaced Tim Kirchin in 1965, before the Farinas evolved into Family) and actually got along without a bassist for a spell, doing a couple of gigs and even a BBC session as a foursome. But this arrangement was always going to be temporary, as Charlie Whitney, who did play bass as well as guitar, couldn't play both live at the same time. Instead of getting an emergency reliever, as they had done when they recruited Weider, Family, would take their time to find the right man for the job.

Fortunately, they wouldn't have to wait too long.

In August 1971, Family's replacement for Weider had been found, and their newest member would debut with the band at the Bilzen Music Festival in Belgium on Friday, August 20.

His name was John Wetton.

John Kenneth Wetton (below) was born in Derbyshire and grew up in Dorset. Robert Wetton, his older brother, classical organist and choirmaster, had "our kid" John play bass parts on a piano while Robert practice on his organ because their home organ did not have a pedalboard. Wetton recalled that during these practices, "I got to like bass lines, because Bach bass lines are incredibly interesting. So I thought, this is good, I like bass lines, that's me."
Though John loved classical music, he chose to go into rock and roll instead so he wouldn't draw comparisons to his brother.

A rock musician like Wetton normally sets off alarm bells in Rolling Stone's offices and in Dave Marsh's study. A classically inspired white British male instrumentalist playing rock and roll and blending classical music with rock and roll to create progressive - or "art" rock? Blasphemy! Turning rock and roll, a form rooted in black rhythm and blues and proletarian-white country and western, into high art? Bach with Berry? Unforgivable! This is worse than Pat Boone covering Fats Domino and correcting the grammar in the lyrics!

Yeah, well, they need not have worried. Wetton really was a rocker at heart, and his inclusion in Family, a band rooted in Leiber and Stoller more than in Liszt and Stravinsky and whose frontman tried to sing more like Ray Charles than Enrico Caruso, would turn out to be a perfect fit.

Wetton was just 22, and he did mind dying (in a song with his 1980s band Asia, he made it plain that he did not want to die before he got old). He in fact was an ambitious musician who wanted to make a mark on rock, and he'd already done that to some extent in the jazz-rock fusion band Mogul Thrash, who only released one album.

When Mogul Thrash folded in 1971, Wetton made his way to California in a scenario that was not unlike the vignette in Albert Hammond's hit song "It Never Rains In Southern California" of a year later. I'll let Wetton tell the story:

"I had been to LA to search my 'thrill' and when I arrived back in Britain six weeks later I knew the Americans weren’t waiting for my kind of music. What I wanted to do at the time was much more aggressive than what was happening in America. Even if my favorite songs were romantic and came from people like CSNY, Joni Mitchell and the Beach Boys, I found that my songs needed to be much harder. Strangely enough the day I got back from America I got a call from a friend of mine who asked if I wanted to join Family. That time they were number three in the charts and they were one of my favorite semi-progressive outfits so of course I said yes."

And who was this friend of his? The guitarist and singer for Stud, the band Weider had just joined as a second guitarist. You never caught this guitarist/singer's name, you say? That's because I didn't throw it. You'll find out who this mystery musician is soon.

Anyway, once Wetton was on board, Family would begin recording their fifth album. It would be one of the most important rock albums of 1971, an important year for rock albums and rock in general . . . and Family's greatest album ever.

With the new album scheduled for release in October 1971, Family bided their time by continuing their gigs. On September 25, the band made its second and final appearance on the German pop show "Beat-Club" to perform a version of "Holding the Compass" that was even more stripped down than the live take from Anyway.

Incredibly, having just secured John Wetton as their bassist - and like John Weider, he could also play six-string guitar - they were down to a foursome again, but not because anyone had permanently left the group. Drummer Rob Townsend was forced to sit out this "Beat-Club" appearance. I don't know German very well, but according to those who do, "Beat-Club" hostess Uschi Nerke introduced Family explaining that Townsend had been bitten by a dog and was recovering and that Poli Palmer would be providing light percussion with a tambourine in his stead.

As the Beat-Club channel on YouTube does not allow embedding of its videos on another platform, I will provide a link here to Fmaily's September 1971 appearance on the show, but it's worth accessing. Townsend's absence, ironically, yielded an arrangement of "Holding the Compass" that, in my opinion, is the definitive version of the song. And Roger Chapman even remembered all three verses, though he sang the first two in the wrong order. :lol:

Below is an image of Chapman from the broadcast, the colorful backdrop typical of "Beat-Club"'s fantastic special color effects that began with the show's switch from black and white to color in 1970.

And so here they are . . . Family minus eins.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1H1404mlDg

On October 29, 1971, Family released their fifth album, Fearless.

Fearless was a monumental album in numerous ways. Everything the group had become known for over the previous three years - curious arrangements, abrupt tempo changes, imaginatively abstract lyricism, stellar musicianship - clicked together here like a well-made combination lock. The group's quest for innovation paid off handsomely here, with the band offering its tightest, most cohesive performances and an adventurous sampling of different rock styles. Like A Song For Me, Fearless is superb from beginning to end, but Fearless is better - albeit only slightly better - thanks to John Wetton's playing and singing and also because of the band's greatly improved command of technical skills in self-producing their records, with continued help from engineer George Chkiantz.

Most rock fans, however remember October 29, 1971 for another event that took place that day; sadly, it was also the day Duane Allman died in a motorcycle crash, the latest in a series of untimely deaths affecting rock and soul performers in America. While Allman's death may have overshadowed Fearless's release, it didn't prevent the album from getting noticed in a big way. It peaked at number fourteen on the UK Album Chart and yielded two singles, "Sat'd'y Barfly" and "Larf and Sing."

The packaging of Fearless was as groundbreaking as the music. It featured computer-generated portraits of the band members along the edge of a page diagonally cut in serpentine fashion, with four layered and similarly cut pages visible underneath showing the pictures melding into a blur. Anyone who insists that the best seventies rock album covers were all designed by Hipgnosis should feast their eyes (and hands) on this John Kosh-designed cover if given the opportunity.

In America, Fearless was the first Family album issued by United Artists Records to appear in the States exactly as it appeared in Britain. The American edition also used stronger cardboard for the layered paging of the cover. But just as importantly, Fearless marked another first - it was the first Family album to appear on the Billboard Top Two HUndred, peaking at number 177.

Most British bands don't brag about having an album on the American charts that gets outsold by 176 other titles in its best week, but for Family, it was still a big deal. Americans were beginning to pay more attention to them.

Family included the following dedication: "This album is dedicated to all the people who have pulled strokes for or against us, for they shall be called fearless."

Unlike Family's two 1970 albums, A Song For Me and Anyway, which exploded out of the gate with heavy rockers, Fearless sailed quietly with "Between Blue and Me," a song that today would be described as a power ballad that started out as less power and more ballad. The gentle riff from a solitary guitar pulls you in as Chapman's initially gentle and earnest voice sings of longing for a lost friend. As the sound slowly builds, with a bass and bongos slipping into the mix, images of a vast, empty sea swell in the lyrics and the music. Then the unexpected happens - a searing electric riff breaks the receding calm, and a cacophonous rhythm conjures up stormy, churning waters. The lyrics - now delivered by Chapman in a hideous screech - speak of betrayal and abandonment with tension that could snap at any moment - but doesn't. It is oddly exhilarating and terrifying at once - powerful, chilling music that slowly grabs you and doesn't let go.

Family have thrown down the gauntlet again.

"Between Blue and Me"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

Road maps revive an old story,
Showing the distance from you.
Look to the sea,
Between blue and me,
And it's you.

And though there are words we're exchanging,
When will I see you again?
It's been a year
Since you were here,
My friend.

Waves of emotion, sea of joy,
Times of sadness and one small boy.
Empty harbor, ship set sail,
I'm home to nothing 'cept a siren's wail.
His father's a sailor and a traveling man,
Yes, he left this morning with a shake of the hand.
His mother's a lady who forgets she's a wife,
And she's making sure on a different score of life.

Waves of emotion, sea of joy,
Times of sadness and one small boy.
Empty harbor, ship set sail,
I'm home to nothing 'cept a siren's wail.
His father's a sailor and a traveling man,
Yes, he left this morning for a faraway land.
His mother's a lady who forgets she's a wife,
Yes, she's making sure on a different score of life.

Look to the sea,
Between blue and me,
It's you . . ..

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"Sat'd'y Barfly" is about anther Saturday night where a guy does have somebody.

The song is a stunted ragtime romp in which Roger Chapman, doing a good imitation of Rod Stewart, sings with bravado of visiting a seedy bar on the wrong side of town, getting drunk, and picking up a woman; the muted brass and sly maracas help add to the intrigue.

Chapman later explained that "Sat'd'y Barfly" is not about Leicester but an imagined vignette of a raucous bar-hopping night in an American city - he was likely imagining a bar in Chicago, the locus of so much of the American music that inspired Chapman to pick up a microphone and inspired Charlie Whitney to pick up a guitar. (The narrator later cruises down the street having to deal with a Ford Mustang on the right; if "Sat'd'y Barfly" had been set in Leicester, it would have been a Ford Capri.) The diamond pin and the funky hat with the mohair suit and new white spats the narrator wears may suggest a Chicago superfly circa 1971, not unlike the protagonist of Jim Croce's "Bad Bad Leroy Brown" of two years later, but it could just as easily refer to the Jazz Age outfits Chapman and his bandmates began wearing when the band called themselves as the Roaring Sixties.

"Sat'd'y Barfly"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

Well, I was downtown cruisin' in my low-slung cat,
Diamond pin and a funky hat,
Mohair suit and new white spats.

Spot a juke joint blastin' and I cut my boost,
Well it's Sat'd'y night and I'm hangin' loose.
I'm looking out to cut my juice.

Well, I swing those doors and I burst right in.
I see Louise there and I, I just grin,
Unroll my hip and shout, "Hey, gimme a gin!"

The band's still wailin' and it's 4 A.M.
Me and Louise, we're just hangin' on in.
We're drinkin' wine now, they ran out of gin.

Ooh, we're drunk as hell but we're feeling fine,
If we leave now, then we'll just have time.
Where we goin', Louise, your place or mine?

Woo, Sat'd'y night . . ..
What's that, Louise, what's that in sight?
Little ol' Mustang, now, we're gonna . . .
Gonna pass on the right.
Hey, Mustang, we gotta wait all night . . .
Huhh, huhh huhh, we gotta wait all night for you.
Whoa, Louise, Sat'd'y night's gonna do.

Move a little closer there,
Get up, get up and tighten up.
Leave it out, Louise, ha ha, leave it out . . ..

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Charlie Whitney and Roger Chapman could be stingy when it came to letting other members contribute songs, which made sense in a awy; after , they'd given Ric Grech three songs on Family Entertainment, and he expressed his gratitude by leaving the band for Blind Faith without giving them adequate notice. But when Poli Palmer offered up "Larf and Sing," it was quirky and offbeat, enough of both to make it a bona fide Family song. Whitney and Chapman even convinced Palmer to sing the lead vocal.

"Larf and Sing" centers around lyrics about aging and isolation, setting them brilliantly against a Latin-tinged guitar and Palmer's own dexterous flute. It all leads up to a hilarious group harmony on the choruses, offsetting the fatality of the verses.

"Larf and Sing"
(Poli Palmer)

Life begins to write a book across my face,
The stories that are me, the views I hold.
My years on earth begin to turn into a race,
And I resign myself to growing old.

That's why we all larf and sing
Whenever we all feel new.
You should see the way we grin
Whenever you feel it, too.
Love, oh mother life, she's the only kin we got.

Everything about me has a poker face,
A purposeless existence overgrown.
Whoever would've thought amongst our mighty race,
A man could feel so terribly alone?

Losing sometimes means you win
If you let the true you through.
You will always find us in
If you keep the seed in view.
Drink, old mother life, she's the only kin we got.

(REPEAT FIRST VERSE)

(REPEAT FIRST CHORUS)

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While Family has a lighter side on Fearless, it is by no means soft. The bewitchingly terrifying "Spanish Tide" is ostensibly a folk rocker, but no one would confuse it with a James Taylor song by any means. A haunting harpsichord introduces the song, the acoustic guitars dissolve into melancholia, and John Wetton's bass digs a trench for the rhythm to move through. Chapman shares lead vocals with Wetton, adding another dimension to Family's music.

"Spanish Tide"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

Slowly watch the tide turn,
Far too late, then we learn
There are only stars that are burning.

Then, quietly the room folds into two
As mirror and window hold the view.
Bright on all sides, holding the eye,
Leaving, you stand on Spanish Tide.

Here it begins, leading me on . . ..

Destiny will show soon
As arrows start to fly,
The brightest ring around the moon
Will darken as you cry.

Services demanded,
For who puts claim to some?
A million stars to ask for
Could only think of one.

Now it's for real, taking me down . . ..

Slowly watch the tide turn,
Circle years, we could learn
There are only stars that are burning.

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"Save Some For Thee," a song about enjoying the "living for free," finds Chapman and Wetton sharing lead vocals - with Wetton dominating - along a piano riff that starts strong, slows down, then starts up again - pop style without the pop sound. It ends, curiously, with a marching-band brass and drum ensemble.

"Save Some For Thee"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

Took my life slower
So as not to fall over, no.
As living's for free,
I'm going to save some for thee,
I'm going to save some for thee.

Each day I try harder
To say what I'm thinking, yeah.
I know as the time slips away,
I say more each coming day
With much more to say.
With much more to say, oh yeah.

The slower I take it,
The easier it gets me, yeah.
As living's for free,
I'm going to save some for thee,
I'm going to save some for thee.

I'm going to save some . . .
I'm going to save some for thee.

As much as I carry
Is as much as I'm giving.
You see, not much for some,
But a great deal . . .
But a great deal for me,
But a great deal for me.

But the slower I take it,
The easier it gets me, yeah.
As living's for free,
I'm going to save some for thee,
I'm going to save some for thee.

I'm going to . . . save some . . .
I'm going to . . . for thee.

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Roger Chapman literally bending over backwards to communicate with his audience while Charlie Whitney (center) and John Wetton play sporting their double-neck axes - clearly a photo that says rock and roll! :guitar: :rock: :singer:

"Take Your Partners" kicks off side two of Fearless, starting with a quick sample of backward tapes before settling into a building groove that permeates the other song, broken only by Rob Townsend's drums and Roger Chapman's vocal. The song is about . . . umm . . . uhh . . . er, um . . . well, I have no idea. But who cares? It's good fun. You try to make sense of lyrics like "Here, boy, have a snake, that's where you're sleeping, and I'll wake, but don't strut me and my way"; I'll just sing along. :lol:

Poli Palmer, who helped Whitney and Chapman write "Take Your Partners," experiments here with a new instrument in his repertoire - the synthesizer, coming up with strange, strained sounds normally associated with electronic-sound experimentalists like Beaver and Krause.

"Take Your Partners"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman/Poli Palmer)

God knows I'm hip,
But I ain't yours or his -
Everybody's arse is up for kicks!

Every critic thinks he's cool,
Man and word, a criss-cross jewel,
But me, I got my own little rules!

One for you, one for me,
I know it don't come easily,
But when it does, then we'll agree.

Take your partners, what for?
Ain't you just kicked in the door?
How come I don't believe you anymore?

Here, boy, have a snake,
That's where you're sleeping, and I'll wake,
But don't strut me and my way.

God knows I'm hip,
But I ain't yours or his -
Everybody's arse is up for kicks!

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"Children" is a pleasant, optimistic folk-rock ballad in the style of Paul Simon's lighter fare. Roger Chapman shows unexpected gentleness in his delivery, but the halting rhythm undercuts the sweetness of the words.

"Children"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

Children, can you laugh me
All your young life's meaning?
Playing, as you do, I feel that the truth,
It's in you.

Young girl in sparkle,
Well, I can see some beauty.
Growing as you do, I see that the beauty's in you.

Do do do, do do do . . .

Young girl, children and wise . . ..
Open my eyes, this song I sing you.
I've got a lot to learn,
Buy may I say, oh, this song concerns you.

Wise men in your wisdom,
Tell me where we're going.
Seeing as I do, there seems to be
So much to do.

La, la la la la . . ..

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"Crinkly Grin" was the obligatory instrumental on Fearless, and apart from the song variations on Music In a Doll's House, its Family's shortest instrumental, at 65 seconds. A jazz instrumental composed by Poli Palmer, "Crinkly Grin" is arranged around Palmer's vibraphone. It doesn't go off into the wilderness like the classical workouts of, say, Emerson, Lake and (Carl) Palmer do, and you're left wanting more of it, not less.

The title came from how "Peanuts" creator Charles Schulz would draw Charlie Brown smiling with embarrassment or anticipation - grinning with a crinkled mouth. As usual, Family's talent for coming up with unique names for instrumentals hadn't deserted them.

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"Blind" is another social commentary song, one in which Poli Palmer further experimented with his synthesizer. He got the sound he was after by running the sound waves through plastic tubes and connecting them to the speaker.

But that's not what makes "Blind" musically significant. As arranged, it rushes out with a plodding, slashing meld of guitars and bass while the drums swing from left to right. As the arrangement - if it can be called that - picks up steam, Chapman roars in, screeching out lyrics warning the blind and the deaf of all the pain and suffering they'd be witness to if they could see or hear.

As the band continues its assault, Chapman offers a warning to those in power responsible for the world's ills - Nixon, Heath, Brezhnev, Mao - that their time is going to come.

"Blind"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

Blind boy, although you wish you could see,
I've even thought, if you could be me,
Have eyes to see pictures of people in pain.
And it looks like I'll see them again, again.

Deaf man, although you sure want to hear,
Would you turn your ears to shots that are near?
Sounds of a city in near civil war,
And it seems like you'd hear it some more, some more.

And here we sit down with nothing to do,
Just give out a song and hope it rings true
To those not so deaf but who lead us so blind.
May it soon be approaching their time, time.

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Fearless closes with "Burning Bridges," an eerie prog number that will have you checking the label on the record to make sure that a Genesis LP didn't get placed in your Family sleeve. Roger Chapman sounds just like Peter Gabriel as he ruminates about religious leaders and symbols as silence molds in the dirt while tall handsome strangers are crucified. "Burning Bridges" is essentially an indictment of modern religion and its rituals. Ber in mind that Fearless came out only seven months after Jethro Tull's Aqualung; even though Aqualung was not meant to be a concept album, Ian Anderson penned several morality-play songs that covered the same ground. But Family covered it all with this one song.

"Burning Bridges"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman/Poli Palmer)

Visions, they're dancing like puppets on strings,
Wait for the face in the choir to sing.
Cymbals and symbols you clang in my ear,
While rainclouds burst out into tears.

Burning your bridges on God's Holy Fire,
And all of the children you sire.

Over and over my blues start to roll,
Bypass my body, head straight for my soul.
While speeches ain't silent and silence ain't gold
When left in the dirt there to mold.

Burning your bridges on God's Holy Fire
And all of, all of the children you sire.

Rainwater preachers hang vines on the road,
Lamplight reflections all turned into stone
Of tall handsome strangers who pray down their nose,
And they're nailed to the cross, I suppose.

Burning your bridges on God's Holy Fire,
And all the children you sire . . .
And all the children you sire.

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Fearless was not only well-received by Family fans, it got solid reviews from the rock press. The reviewer in the December 6, 1971 issues of Sounds set the pace by calling it "Family’s finest album" and adding, "With their new bassist John Wetton, one of Britain’s best rock bands has produced a work of complete contrasts. They jolt you with weird harmonies, low-down tubas and spoof songs. Superb."

In Creem magazine, reviewer Ed Ward, after admitting (seriously! :eek: ) that he hadn't liked Family, called Fearless "a good, strong album, loaded with some of the most intense, high energy British rock and roll being made these days."

Jack Breschard, writing in Crawdaddy, went further and declared the album to be "nothing less than brilliant." He singled out side one for particular praise, "being the catchiest album side I've heard in a very long time." He thought that much of the album's strength rested in "the multi-instrumentality of the band," adding that although the band's range was wide "no one gets hung up in a bunch of musical pretensions."

In a word, the album was Family's masterpiece. Their best album ever. Hands down. :)

Sticky Fingers. Who's Next. Every Picture Tells a Story. Aqualung. What's Going On. There's a Riot Goin' On. Love It to Death. Hunky Dory. Tapestry. Blue. Madman Across the Water. Led Zeppelin's untitled fourth LP. This isn't just a partial list of the greatest albums ever; this is also a partial list of the greatest albums of 1971. Yet Family's Fearless never seems to get on this list? How on earth is that possible? :eek:

It has nothing to do with bad reviews from the critics. After all, Jethro Tull's Aqualung has been on many critics' lists of the worst albums ever. The rock press tended to rate Family quite well. But most critics always tended to underrate them, not taking them quite as seriously as icons as the Rolling Stones or the Who and not quite finding them as good as they should have. Family, to a fault, were consistently underrated throughout their six-year recording career. Ian Anderson, who had heard Family sum up his feelings on organized religion in one song and had considered Poli Palmer as the benchmark for rock flutists and was always trying to play flute as well as Palmer, considered Family to be "criminally" underrated.

Family could have used more support among record buyers as well, because even though they had a loyal audience in Britain and were just beginning to gain a cult audience in the United States, it wasn't big enough to make albums like Fearless as commercially successful as the latest LP release from Alice Copper or the latest solo album from Rod Stewart.

And when Fearless had to in 1971 go up against a list of LPs like the one I went through at the top of this post, it's easy to see why the album gets overlooked by many rock fans.

We Family fans know better. Fearless was not only one of the best albums of 1971, I have it on my personal top ten list. Right up there with the Beatles' Revolver and Bob Dylan's John Wesley Harding. It is that superb.

Family toured Britain in November and December 1971 to promote the Fearless album, and they shared the bill with a new three-man guitar group called America. Not since the Beatles shared the bill with Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme were two groups so thoroughly mismatched. :lol:

Dewey Bunnell, Gerry Beckley and Dan Peek founded America in 1970 (actually, Adams, Jefferson and Franklin founded America in 1776, but that's another thread), and they tried to emulate Crosby, Stills and Nash with their acoustic arrangements and their harmonies. But whereas Family were making some of the sharpest and most brutally heavy rock of the early seventies and couldn't even do an acoustic number without giving it an edge, America, as purveyors of what was quickly becoming known as "soft rock," were so soft that, in the words of one critic, they couldn't even work up enough energy to be mellow. America mostly ripped off the Crosby, Stills and Nash sound without coming up with the heart had the intelligence that made CSN so great.

But I sometimes wonder if Dewey Bunnell was listening to the lyrics of Charlie Whitney and Roger Chapman while on that tour of Britain in 1971. Family were getting "curiouser and curiouser," as Lewis Carroll's Alice would say, and perhaps Bunnell thought that getting curiouser and curiouser in his own songwriting would produce something just as good. How else could you explain dumb songs like "Ventura Highway," with its alligator lizards in the air, and "A Horse With No Name," which Randy Newman famously called "this song about a kid who thinks he's taken acid?" :lol: :rotflmao:

Family recorded its show at the Rainbow Theatre in London in November 1971; the recording was finally released on disc as Live in 2003. They were touring to support Fearless - and so that's all you need to know about how good the music is here. ;) :D

Family performed two songs from Fearless on the BBC's pop show "The Old Grey Whistle Test," hosted by Bob Harris, in November 1971. At top is "Spanish Tide"; at bottom is "Between Blue and Me."

Family were one of the first artistes to appear on this program.

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It had been quite a year for Family. A new bass player, a new album, acclaim form the critics all around for Fearless, a Top Five single in their home country, and Fearless even made it on the charts in the United States.

Oh, it wasn't a perfect year, as Rob Townsend came across a choleric canine that likely changed hm from a dog person to a cat person with one bite. And even though their latest album charted in the U.S., 176 titles were still outselling it at its peak. But Family (below, during their "Old Grey Whistle Test" session) were still moving in the right direction, and they capped the year 1971 with a ten-song BBC concert and a follow-up show in Wolverhampton with, likely, more successes and breakthroughs to look forward to in 1972.

Family began 1972 much like any previous year, playing gigs and doing media appearances. One such appearance was "Rockenstock," a TV special broadcast in France in January 1972.

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At the beginning of 1972, United Artists Records were heavily promoting Fearless in the United States. It was good to know that the band had solid support from their American label.

I don't know, however, why this ad refers to Fearless as Family's first UA album. I know for a fact that UA released their two previous albums from 1970; I've not only seen them, I've held them in my hands at record flea markets!

Aside from that, this ad, from the January 8, 1972 issue of Billboard, made a compelling case for Family, saying that the LP "has as good deal more going for it than a unique five-layer fold-out cover. It also has the most cogent, commercial sounds this highly rated British group (number seven in the 1971 Melody Maker poll) has ever made. And a proven potential for success . . .. And the unanimous enthusiastic approval of the critics."

UA declared that it had every intention of seeing to it that Fearless would go gold. Of course, as it only peaked on Billboard at number 177, so it didn't even come close. But then, in 1972, Americans were making horrible choices - not only were "The Candy Man" and "Baby Don't Get Hooked On Me" number-one hits, but President Nixon was on his way to a landslide re-election victory. Number-one albums of that year included the Rolling Stones' Exile On Main St. and Neil Young's Harvest (the year's top seller), so there was better musical taste among long-player buyers. But there were so many albums in 1972 competing for space on the American charts - including the debut albums from Stephen Stills' group Manassas, Paul Simon and from Jackson Browne and Stevie Wonder's Talking Book, among others. Family simply were in a tough league.

On August 18, 1972, after a bunch of gigs that included dates in France and Germany, Family released "Burlesque."

The song, taking its name from a club in Leicester, would be included on their next album - their sixth - due for a September 1972 release. So when I get to that LP, we'll take a deeper look at the song.

The B-side, "The Rockin' Rs," is a tribute to the fifties rock and roll that Charlie Whitney and Roger Chapman grew up with. Interestingly a few months later, Elton John would release a similar song celebrating the music of the 1950s - "Crocodile Rock," which of course was a big hit. Perhaps this Family single should have been a double-A-side, as the "The Rockin' Rs" - titled after Roger Chapman's punningly named pre-Family group - was that good. It would not be included on the upcoming album, but it was later added to it as a bonus track in CD reissues of Family's seventies catalog.

"The Rockin' R's"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

Now don't you stop, Mr. Record Jock,
Gotta get up and dance again.
See the babe with the shapely leg,
Well I got her, mate.
Said she's really hooked, and gettin' all shook up,
So I just keep on singin',
You keep rockin' and we'll keep boppin',
We'll show you the way.

(CHORUS)
We're slipping and sliding,
Floating and gliding,
Me and my baby, we're all set to ride.
We're rolling the coaster, gettin' hotter than toast, yeah,
Honey gonna get in that a-high-heel step in that rock 'n' roll stride.

She's a blue jean queen, and I'm a rock machine,
We're shaking our makers now.
Gee it's hot, can we keep it up,
Goin' round and around.
Record's stopped 'cause it's twelve o'clock,
And the band's taking over now.
Music fuels my blue suede shoes,
Couldn't stop if I tried.

(CHORUS)

(REPEAT SECOND VERSE)

(REPEAT CHORUS TWICE)

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I'll get to Family's 1972 album - titled Bandstand - soon enough. But right now, today, I want to wish a happy 82nd birthday to Roger Chapman (April 8).

In September 1972, Family released Bandstand, their sixth album. :cool:

Bandstand was more straight rock than Fearless had been, with a couple of standard ballads in between. Even though the lineup remained the same as on Fearless, it was unrelated musically to that previous album.

Roger Chapman has said that Family was never the same band twice because of the frequent personnel changes. There's some truth to that, but that was only a part of the story. Family were always trying to come up with new sounds as their songs became more complex and thus more difficult to arrange. Also, like any good band or solo artist worth their salt, Family were always trying to progress beyond what they'd already done and not be predictable.

(Aside: John Mellencamp was once asked what he didn't make anther album like Scarecrow. He responded that, having already made Scarecrow, why would he want to make it again?)

Bandstand was probably friendlier radio affair than any of their previous albums, but it was no sellout - it was still Family as their fans knew them. Except for one thing - it didn't feature an instrumental track, and it's worth noting that Bandstand is the only Family album to lack one.

The original vinyl-record sleeve was die-cut in the shape of a Bush TV22 television set, with a black-and-white image of the band onscreen. When you opened the front cover, you found an image of of the TV set's inner workings. Again, even if the music was more conventional, the packaging was not. :cool:

"Burlesque," Bandstand's advance single, kicks off the album. The song is a gut-busting piece of bravado about partying at the Burlesque bar in Leicester and having an eye on one woman while two other women are trying to keep his attention on them.

The standout elements on "Burlesque"'s arrangement are Poli Palmer's synthesizer fills and John Wetton's economical bass line. The song revolves around the lyric "Rolling and tumbling ain't done me no harm," inspired by the Muddy Waters song "Rollin' and Tumblin'."

"Burlesque" also contains something rare - a Chapman vocal mistake on a proper studio recording. In live shows, Chapman is famous for flubbing lyrics as a result of being to deep in the moment of a concert, but never on a record . . . until now. In place of the line "Gonna boogie my night owl away," Chapman sings, "Been boogie da-da-da-da-dah-doo." Oh, Chappo. :lol:

"Burlesque" peaked at number thirteen on the UK singles chart.

"Burlesque"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

Rolling and tumbling ain't done me no harm,
Gonna boogie my night owl away.
Rita and Greta been twisting my arm into
Heading out west,
Down to the Burlesque,
But I'm saving my ace through to you.

Well, drinking and sinking, I'm feeling alright,
Right down to my snaky spat shoes.
Just about to shutdown and three in the night,
Because I'm heading out west
Down to the Burlesque,
We'll show 'em a moon at the door.

(BRIDGE)
Rolling, tumbling,
Sure ain't done me no harm.
Drinking, sinking,
Just been too bad on my arm.

Well I finally lost Rita, and Greta went home,
I guess that leaves just me and you.
Been kinda sneaky to get you alone
Oh, but you in that dress,
Destination Burlesque,
I got all my cards in one shoe.

(REPEAT BRIDGE)

(REPEAT THIRD VERSE)

I got all my cards in one shoe . . ..

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(Below: Family, 1972. Standing: Roger Chapman. Seated, from left: John Wetton, Charlie Whitney, Poil Palmer, Rob Townsend.)

The first song on Bandstand, "Burlesque," may have been prompted by Muddy Waters, but "Bolero Babe" went back a bit father for inspiration, to French composer. Yes, there is a slight resemblance between "Bolero Babe" and Ravel's Boléro, and the music in Family's song is just elliptical as the Ravel piece. It's not a bad song, but it does seem a bit slow. It features strings orchestrated by Del Newman.

"Bolero Babe"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

Just millions of miles
To gaze at life's smiles, that's surrounding us,
A flash from the past,
But a look that won't last, will it, babe?
And look at the space
And the change of a face as we see it go,
Changing the style
That's been wrong by a mile, watch it, babe.

I can see it shine
Light years from here,
In one perfect line.
How near,
Yet how far.
How near,
Yet how far . . ..

We've got thousands of ways
Of counting the days as they pass us by,
They're here and then they're gone.
And look at the space
And the change of a face as we see it go,
Changing the style
That's been wrong by a mile, watch it, babe.

I can see it shine
Light years from here,
In one perfect line.
How near,
Yet how far.
How near,
Yet how far . . ..

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"Coronation" is a song about how once can be surrounded by others yet feel terribly alone. The protagonist of the third song on Bandstand sits at home in his disheveled apartment and observes the comings and goings of his neighbors while contemplating a bunch of tchotchkes from Queen ELizabeth II's 1953 coronation.

The song refers to real people. "Doctor Sam" was someone Charlie Whitney and Roger Chapman knew, while "Jenny" refers to Jenny Fabian, whose novel "Groupie" was partially based on Family in their early days.

John Wetton received a composer credit for "Coronation," the only composer credit he received as a member of Family.

"Coronation"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman/John Wetton)

Evening and I'm sitting here,
I've got some things to do.
Candles burning down, I fear,
Have to change it soon.
But its shadow flitting on the wall,
Doctor Sam going in next door,
And Jenny laughing on the phone.
Seems strange that this is home.

Evening at the court again,
I've been here far too long.
Lurking round the room again
Sometimes brings it on.
Pictures crooked on the wall,
Clothes, they lay were they fall.
Tattered empire souvenirs
Lie in the dust of years.
Coronation mug of mine,
Heirlooms of a bygone line,
Dresser on all fours, an open drawer.

Mmmm, I got to move again,
Seems I've been here far too long.
Lurking round the room again
Sometimes brings it on.
Pictures crooked on the wall,
Clothes, they lay were they fall.
Tattered empire souvenirs
Lie in the dust of years.
Coronation mug of mine,
Heirlooms of a bygone line,
Dresser on all fours, an open drawer.

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Although Charlie Whitney and Roger Chapman were Family's principal songwriting team, Chapman was open to writing songs with others. "Dark Eyes" was the first song Chapman wrote with Poli Palmer. It was the only Family song written by Chapman and Palmer, but not the only song written by Chapman and Palmer; the two musicians have remained friends since Family broke up, and as recently as 2021, Chapman and Palmer collaborated on writing songs that appeared on Chapman's solo album Life In the Pond.

As for "Dark Eyes," it's a piano ballad with harmonies reminiscent of Crosby, Stills and Nash. In fact, if there had ever been a tribute album of Family covers made, Crosby, Stills and Nash would definitely have covered "Dark Eyes," hands down.

"Dark Eyes" clocks in at 1 minute 46 seconds, making it the shortest Family song ever recorded (as opposed to instrumentals). Like the Beatles' White Album track "I Will" - which is the exact same length as "Dark Eyes" - it's a sentimental song that keeps its sentimentality in check by being quick.

"Dark Eyes" is given the typical Family twist by fading out in the middle of Chapman and his bandmates harmonizing on the repetition of the song's first verse.

"Dark Eyes"
(Roger Chapman/Poli Palmer)

Your dark eyes that question
The sadness that is now,
Your long hair that veils
The smile upon your brow,
Your whisper that is something
But more than just a sound.

A shadow of the evening,
Your baby at your side.
A sadness that's within you
Your eyes refuse to hide.
You lay beside my body
And you love, until you cry.

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From the gentleness of "Dark Eyes" we go to one of the nastiest songs ever written by anyone - "Broken Nose," a song about an abusive relationship from the perspective of the abused - she broke his nose! :eek:

That was Family. The eyes sometimes had it, and so did the nose. :lol:

"Broken Nose" is a scorching rocker seething with resentment toward the upper classes. The narrator's girlfriend is a misandric bitch with lots of money and no heart. As her blue-collar boy toy watches her live the good life, he can only get angry over the fact that she doesn't include him in her active and expensive lifestyle. Bands like Kiss and Mötley Crüe are this scary and scornful toward such women in their dreams.

Incredibly, "Broken Nose" is the first Family song to feature a female voice - British soul singer Linda Lewis, who provides some pyrotechnic backing vocals. Lewis had such an incredible range she could sing notes not even Mariah Carey can reach. She was the British Minnie Riperton, and probably had better taste in material. When she sang a ballad, it was said that she could have lured birds off their perches.

"Broken Nose"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

I seen her every day now,
And boy, has she got class.
She got diamonds on her fingers
And rhythm in her a**.
I've tried to call her over,
But I must be made of glass,
'Cos she just looks right through me,
Keeps walking straight on past.
(Walkin' straight on . . .)

(BACKUP CHORUS)
I like your. . .
Dig your . . .
Day . . .
Oh the day . . .

She eats in fancy places
Where the cover would pay my rent,
Steaks on silver platters
And water costs fifty pence.
She tips up all the waiters
And five will get you ten.
I'm waitin' in the lobby,
She won't even invite me in.
(Won't even invite me in. . .)

(CHORUS)
I like your kind of address,
Dig your style of clothes.
The day I stopped loving you
Was the day you broke my nose.

(REPEAT CHORUS)

(REPEAT BACKUP CHORUS TWICE)

When she goes to the theatre,
It's always the latest show,
While I'll wait in some poolroom
That's just across the road
One time she saw me waiting
And come across and spoke.
She said adieu, and grabbed my cue,
And shoved it d-d-d-down my throat!

(REPEAT CHORUS TWICE)

(REPEAT BACKUP CHORUS UNTIL FADE)

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From left: Charlie Whitney, Rob Townsend, Poli Palmer, Roger Chapman, John Wetton. :)

Remember when I said that Fearless couldn't have been United Artists (UA) Records' first Family album in the U.S. because UA had released A Song For Me and Anyway? It turns out that Fearless was the label's first Family album in the U.S.; UA didn't release the band's 1970 albums until after Fearless, although they differed from their British counterparts.

Also it turns out that Reprise did in fact dump Family from the label's American roster because Music In a Doll's House and Family Entertainment only sold a couple hundred copies between them here. Which makes my Family Entertainment poster all the more rare! :eek:

Back soon with the songs on side two of Bandstand.

The greatest song on Family's Bandstand album is "My Friend The Sun," probably the most beautiful rock ballad Family ever recorded. Chappo's voice displays a sensitivity rarely heard since Music In a Doll's House, and he's backed by the most understated acoustic guitar ensemble ever performed on a Family LP (joined by a violin and/or an accordion midway through and Wetton's backing vocals toward the end). The song itself is about how better times are always ahead even in the aftermath of one's darkest hour. It's Family's equivalent to the Beatles' "Let It Be."

Linda Lewis covered this song, but so did Peter Holsapple and Chris Stamey of the dB's, an alternative-rock band from North Carolina, on a duo album. So, Family did get to a good number of American listeners. :cool:

"My Friend The Sun"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

Well, I know that you're lonely, come in from the cold.
Your shoes they need mending, your clothes they look old.
Won't you pick up your pieces, it's never too late,
Though it's never early to make a mistake
As soon as you wake.

Although there's been rain and it's coming again,
Change has to be here, obviously.
Though my friend the sun looks well on the run,
He's there in the distance, if you care to see.

Well, I know that you're waiting, come out from your shell,
There'll come a time you'll remember it well,
When you take all the good times from chances you've had,
Chances you've made and what you've learned from the bad,
It's never so sad.

Although there's been rain and it's coming again,
Change has to be here, obviously.
Though my friend the sun, he looks well on the run,
He's there in the distance if you care to see.
See . . ..

If season were reason, then there'd be no doubt,
A sequel of changes worth putting you out.
But on the question of whether you heard a lie,
Answer yourself looking straight in his eyes.
Don't you realize?

Although there's been rain and it's coming again,
Change has to be here, obviously.
Though my friend the sun looks well on the run,
He's there in the distance . . .
If you care to see.
See . . ..

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"As a song about a high-class woman, "Glove" is the opposite of "Broken Nose," with Roger Chapman's clumsy narrator picking up a sophisticated lady's glove and earning with his chivalry the right to walk with her for awhile. With a slow tempo, a soulful guitar solo from Charlie Whitney, and some gorgeous strings, Chapman delivers a heartfelt vocal that, according to those who were in the studio at the time, got everyone crying. And when was the last time anyone ever accused Roger Chapman of being a hopeless romantic? :lol:

"Glove"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

Picked up a lady's glove,
I gave it back to her and she put it on.
She teased my eyes when she curtsied low,
I said, "Tell me ma'am, where do you go?"

She said "Walking," then, taking care,
She brushed her cheek
Where the summer breeze
Had caught her hair.

Then the question seemed to turn out wrong,
Because I quietly swore and bit my clumsy tongue.
Then, looking up, I saw that she was gone.
She turned around and walked . . .
She turned around and walked six feet further on.

She said, "Young man . . .", then she smiled,
"I'd be so pleased if you'd
Accompany me to walk awhile."

Picked up a lady's glove,
I gave it back to her and she put it on.
She teased my eyes when she curtsied low,
I said, "Tell me ma'am, where do you go?"

She said "Walking," then, taking care,
She brushed her cheek
Where the summer breeze
Had caught her hair.

(REPEAT TWICE)

She said, "Young man . . .", then she smiled,
"I'd be so pleased if you'd
Accompany me to walk awhile."

(REPEAT)

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Family were regularly heralded by rock critics, but the British pop press's judgment of the band was not unanimous. Some rock critics in Britain found them to be pretentious, an understandable appraisal given the band's unorthodox arrangements, and I'm sure many British rock journalists were turned off by Roger Chapman's vocals just as American rock critics would be turned off by Geddy Lee's singing. (In other words, Family, for some critics, were as much a peeve as Rush would be for critics in North America, and for similar reasons.) "Ready To Go" was Chapman's and Charlie Whitney's rebuttal to their detractors.

Responding to critics who hate you isn't necessarily a good idea, as you can make those critics hate you even more, and it can turn your defenders in the press against you, as journalists are like NATO countries - an attack on one is considered to be an attack on all. But judging from the good reviews Bandstand would eventually get, Family got away with it. ;)

"Ready To Go"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

I'm ready and able
To shove all your labels below,
Just choose your word careful
'Cause I got a handful
Of crap I can throw.

I've been down the line
And I've served me some time
In more than you know,
So don't move a hand,
I'm ahead of your plan
And I'm ready to go.

If I'm good and angry
At bullsh** philandering, you'll tell.
Don't give me your cool, it's
Your press byline pulpits
Beginning to smell.

All of your guns
And your pseudo-side-puns,
I''ll easy elbow,
So don't move a hand,
I'm ahead of your plan
And I'm ready to go.

I've been down the line,
And I've served me some time.

I'm ready to go.
I've been down the line,
And I've served me some time.

I'm hungry and howling,
I can't quit this scowling today.
Them holes in the wall, boys,
Ain't never so tall
When they are there to age.

I been down the line
And I've served me some time
In more than you know,
I've seen down the cracks
Off all of you Jacks
And I'm ready to go.

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"Top of the Hill," Bandstand's closing cut, takes a bit too long to reach the top of the hill. Its long instrumental introduction meanders a bit and it slowly makes its way up the note scale to an orchestral crescendo. til, it's a fine song, and a pretty decent way to close out an album, an album that many Family fans prefer to Fearless.

"Top Of the Hill"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

You can do most things when, how you want,
But some things you do and some things you don't.
That's said
In any book that you read.

Take all the people you ever knew
Who did all the things that you wanted to,
A feat
Every day of the week.

But if you're looking for time,
You'll be looking until
There ain't no crying
At the top of the hill.
And you know full well
That you'll be looking there still,
Until your head stop
And your body is still.

Take all the clowns who laugh in the ring,
They'll teach you to smile and they'll teach you to sing.
But that's all, and it's harder to fall.

Think of the ladies you've ever seen,
Out in the sun when the summer is green
And grin, when you think where you been.

But if you're looking for time,
Then you'll be looking until
There ain't no crying
At the top of the hill.
And you know full well
That you'll be looking there still,
Until your head stop
And your body is still.

Think of the good times you've ever had.
Think of the sad, well, they're never so bad
If you grin
When you think where you been.

You can do most things when, how you want,
But some things you do and some things you don't.
That's said
In any book that you read.

But if you're looking for time,
You'll be looking until
There ain't no crying
At the top of the hill.
And you know darn well
You know darn well you'll be looking there still,
Until your head . . .
And your body is still.

Until your head stop and your body is still . . ..

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Bandstand was a hit with both the press and the public. It reached number fifteen on the UK album chart, and, as noted, "Burlesque" made it to number thirteen. In the United States, the album only got up to number 183. Having your album outsold by 182 other LPs in its best week on the Billboard Top Two Hundred album chart may not be good enough for many bands, but the main point here is that, considering Family's earlier efforts in the States before United Artists Records took them on, they had to have been glad that Bandstand got on the charts at all.

The review in the November 1972 issue of Beat Instrumental was ecstatic. "Another great album from Family, one of the few bands to maintain a high standard of work despite the fact they’ve yet to make it into the ‘superstar’ category." On this side of the Atlantic, Robert Christgau was similarly pleased. "When they kick ass on 'Burlesque' or 'Glove' or 'Broken Nose,' "Christgau wrote, "they sound raw and abrasive in the great English hard rock tradition, but the discords are altogether more cunning, and on this album their stubborn lyricism finally finds suitable melodies on 'Coronation' and 'My Friend the Sun' and the bittersweet 'Dark Eyes.' Their sexual anger is class-conscious, always a plus, and their sadness usually a matter of time, which they get away with when the melody is very suitable."

Some observers, however, noted a decline in Family's commercial appeal. A Song For Me had peaked at number four on the British LP chart in 1970. Every subsequent Family LP peaked lower than the one preceding it, and Bandstand was no exception. Also, "My Friend the Sun" was released as a single in the early part of 1973, the first of three singles the group issued that year. It didn't make the UK singles chart, despite being one of those songs that had appeal to casual fans beyond the diehards who already had "My Friend the Sun" (and "Glove," the B-side) on the Bandstand album.

Family were already looking forward to success on fertile ground. Once again, they looked to America.

What was it about Family that they were unable to hold on to a bass player for more than two albums?

In the middle of 1972, Family secured a gig that would feature them as an opening act for - wait for it! - Elton John on his North American fall tour. But in July, John Wetton told his bandmates that he was quitting. He'd been with Family for only one year, a shorter time than any other bass player was in the band, including the guy who succeeded him.

Wetton's successor was the same guy who recommended that he join Family a year earlier, the guitarist/singer for Stud.

Yes, the same bloke that John Weider - Family's second bass player - played with in Stud and had advised Wetton to succeed Weider in Family was now succeeding Wetton. His name was Jim Cregan, and we'll be looking at him a little bit later.

The reason given for Wetton's departure was "musical differences," but one didn't have to be a Family insider to figure out why Wetton was unfulfilled by his role in the band. After having been a vital presence vocally on Fearless, Wetton didn't sing lead at all on Bandstand, and his songwriting was limited to a partial credit with Charlie Whitney and Roger Chapman for one song. Wetton was clearly dissatisfied with his marginalized role in the band.

Wetton already had a new job lined up. In 1971, King Crimson leader Robert Fripp had approached Wetton and asked him to join his band; Wetton chose to join Family instead, and Fripp recruited another bassist - Boz Burrell, who later co-founded Bad Company. In 1972, when Burrell left, Fripp asked Wetton again to join King Crimson. Saying no to Robert Fripp when he asked you to join King Crimson was unheard of then, and Wetton would not do it a second time. He said yes.

At least, unlike Ric Grech, he gave Whitney and Chapman adequate notice.

Wetton was, by accounts, happy to be King Crimson's bass player and lead singer. He played and sang on the band's 1973 album Larks' Tongues in Aspic and the 1974 releases Starless and Bible Black and Red. But then it was suddenly over. When Red was finished, Robert Fripp was so astounded by what the band had accomplished that he figured there was no way they could top it. As a result, King Crimson disbanded, though Fripp would re-form it with a new lineup in the early 1980s.

But Wetton continued to build his career through the remainder of the seventies.

(Below, King Crimson in 1974. From left: John Wetton, David Cross, Robert Fripp, and Bill Bruford.)

John Wetton would pursue his post-Crimson career much like Paul Carrack would pursue his career after Ace broke up the same year King Crimson - as a journeyman rocker who would play with anyone who wanted him. He briefly played with the critically heralded band Roxy Music and then played briefly with the critically hated band Uriah Heep ("If this band makes it, I'm going to have to commit suicide." - Melissa Mills, Rolling Stone, 1971). Apparently, Wetton didn't stay long in the latter band to avoid responsibility for having Robert Christgau off himself. :lol:

Wetton had gotten to know former Yes drummer Bill Bruford, who had joined King Crimson the same time that Wetton had, when they were Crimson's rhythm section, and they made a failed attempt to form a new band with Rick Wakeman. In 1977, though, a second effort at forming a band succeeded. With former Roxy Music/Frank Zappa keyboardist Eddie Jobson and former Soft Machine guitarist Allan Holdsworth, they formed the band U.K.

Forming a prog supergroup in Britain at the height of the punk revolt while Americans were into disco does not sound like a good idea, but Wetton, as we shall soon understand, was never one to worry about what was commercially viable. And, it turned out, U.K. did fairly well in its short existence. U.K. only put out two albums in the late seventies before breaking up, but critics and fans, by and large, received their work favorably, and their music became influential with budding rock musicians, especially in the country the band came from and named themselves for.

U.K. broke up in 1980 (and there was a reunion in the early 2010s), and Wetton moved on to another project that would enjoy far more success than Wetton could imagine - or, for that matter, want.

(U.K., 1978. From left: John Wetton, Eddie Jobson, Bill Bruford, and Allan Holdsworth.)

In early 1981, David Geffen's eponymous record label, founded after he put Asylum Records behind, got Wetton and former Yes guitarist Steve Howe together to write some new songs, with drummer Carl Palmer and former Buggles/Yes keyboardist Geoff Downes eventually joining them in the studio. The result was Asia, the first of numerous supergroups (others being the Firm, GTR, the Kantner-Balin Cassidy Band, and the Law) formed in the the eighties and early nineties and giving grunge rock a necessity to happen. :lol:

Asia's self-titled debut album was released in 1982 and, amazingly, became the best-selling album of the year in the United States. "Heat of the Moment," its first single, peaked at number four in the U.S. Alas, it was one of the worst-received albums from the critics, finding Asia's blend of prog and pop to be unpalatable.

How did Asia - a band comprised of art rockers make an album that actually got them at the top of the albums chart in America and even spawned hit singles like "Heat of the Moment" and "Only Time Will Tell"? It was largely an aberration that created an illusion. In 1982, the Reagan recession year, the record business was in dire straits (and Dire Straits released Love Over Gold, an album designed not to offer radio-friendly fare), and the music reflected that reality. The most interesting music at the time wasn't selling, and what did sell were records from faceless corporate bands like Toto or veteran bands past their prime, like the Who (who actually tried to continue without Keith Moon). Asia's radio-friendly blend of prog and pop, bloated an pompous as it may have sounded to critics rooting for Marshall Crenshaw, who released his debut album in 1982, or Men at Work, an Australian rock band with pop smarts and witty songs, was about as good as mainstream rock could get in 1982.

Many people wondered if rock and roll had run its course, and the resurgence of record sales in the Reagan recovery period wouldn't put those questions to rest, as the recovery of the record business would be mainly because of MTV pop, the urban dance-soul sounds of Michael Jackson, and the invention of the compact disc, which would require rock fans to buy their favorite LPs (including Asia's first album) over again as vinyl records and the turntables that played them became victims of planned obsolescence. But in the meantime, Asia would reap by default the fruits of early-eighties mass taste, and the huge success they enjoyed was something more than what John Wetton could handle.

Look, I know this is supposed to be a thread about the history of Family, and I promise I'll get back to where I left off in 1972, but I like to explain what happened to Family members who left the band before Family's 1973 breakup, and it just so happens that John Wetton had the most complicated post-Family career of any former member of the band, whether they were members who left early or stayed until the end.

And, because that requires me to revisit Asia, I thought, aw, heck - why not revisit their first and most successful single? "Heat of the Moment," written by John Wetton was an appropriate title for the song because that's exactly what so many of us bought all those Asia records in! :lol:

Ahh, this is still a good song. :)

Wetton, who wrote "Heat of the Moment," explained the song's meaning: "The lyrics are an abject apology for my dreadful behavior towards a particular woman (the woman I would eventually marry, but divorce 10 years later), the chorus began its life as a 6/8 country song, but when Geoff and I started writing together, we moved the time signatures around, and "Heat of the Moment" emerged. No-one else particularly 'got' the song, and it was the last song to be recorded for the album."

"Heat of the Moment" - Asia
(John Wetton/Geoff Downes)

I never meant to be so bad to you,
One thing I said that I would never do.
One look from you and I would fall from grace,
And that would wipe the smile right from my face.

Do you remember when we used to dance?
And incidents arose from circumstance.
One thing led to another, we were young,
And we would scream together songs unsung.

It was the heat of the moment
Telling me what my heart meant.
The heat of the moment showed in your eyes.

And now you find yourself in '82.
The disco hot spots hold no charm for you.
You can concern yourself with bigger things.
You catch a pearl and ride the dragon's wings.

'Cause it's the heat of the moment,
The heat of the moment,
The heat of the moment showed in your eyes.

(INSTRUMENTAL BREAK WITH LOTS OF SOLOING :guitar: :drummer: :singer: )

And when your looks have gone and you're alone,
How many nights you sit beside the phone.
What were the things you wanted for yourself?
Teenage ambitions you remember well.

It was the heat of the moment
Telling me what my heart meant.
The heat of the moment showed in your eyes.

The heat of the moment,
The heat of the moment,
The heat of the moment showed in your eyes.

The heat of the moment,
The heat of the moment,
The heat of the moment showed in your eyes.

lCALGlGuVUA

Asia's original lineup, 1982. Clockwise, from bottom left: John Wetton, Carl Palmer, Geoffrey Downes, Steve Howe.

Striking while the iron was hot, Asia dove into making a second album in 1983. But pop music had changed seismically beneath their feet. Michael Jackson and a new generation of MTV-friendly pop-rockers changed the trajectory of popular music with their style, substance-free music, and anything that smacked of '70s AOR seemed blase. Asia tried to capitalize on their name by collaborating with MTV for an "Asia in Asia" promotion - a contest to send the lucky winners to Tokyo to see the band in concert - coinciding with the release of Alpha, their second LP, but MTV viewers were too busy awaiting the premiere of Michael Jackson's fourteen-minute musical short based on the title track of Thriller to care.

John Wetton, meanwhile, had grown uncomfortable with his new identity as a pop star and thought his reputation as a bassist and as an artist was taking a back seat to this sudden adulation. And when Alpha suddenly didn't sell as well as its predecessor, Geffen Records actually fired Wetton, thinking that his singing was the problem. He was replaced by Greg Lake, who performed with Asia in Tokyo.

Lake was then forced out - much to the relief of Carl Palmer, who did not want Lake in the band for obvious reasons - and Wetton returned. It didn't matter, though; the bloom was off the rose.

From 1983 on, Wetton would alternate between a solo career and Asia, while occasionally doing other projects like a U.K. reunion and also volunteering to be a teacher at School of Rock locations in the States. And despite the disrespect prog has gotten in some circles, Wetton remained well-respected and well-liked, especially among his peers.

John Wetton died of colorectal cancer in January 2017. He was 67. :( He was tended to in his last days by the Macmillan Caring Locally charity in England. He would be the subject of many tributes from musicians who had worked with him. One came from Robert Fripp. Another came from Roger Chapman, who had remained friends with Wetton and had worked with him from time to time.

Six years after Wetton's death, Chapman and Jim Cregan, Wetton's friend and replacement in Family, staged a memorial concert for him, with the proceeds going to the Macmillan Caring Locally charity. A clip of the concert is below.

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And now to Jim Cregan, John Wetton's replacement in Family.

Jim Cregan came from Somerset, at in 1960, at fourteen, he joined his first band. That band was The Falcons, which was formed while Jim was a student at Poole Grammar School. After developing his next group, The Dissatisfied Blues Band, Cregan briefly joined with future Traffic frontman Dave Mason, in Julian Covay and the Machine in 1967; he moved on to join the rock and soul band The Ingoes as a vocalist and guitarist. This band soon morphed into the psychedelic Blossom Toes.

From there he joined Stud, the band started Rory Gallagher's former bandmates in Taste as a guitarist and a singer; John Weider joined as a second guitarist after he left Family in 1971, to be replaced by John Wetton. When Cregan's friend Wetton left to join King Crimson, Cregan got the call to be Family's fourth (and final) bass player.

There was just one problem - Cregan had never played bass before!

Cregan was and has remained a rhythm guitarist for much of his career, along with playing leads once in a blue moon, but was a novice when it came to playing bass guitar. At this point, the only qualification to be Family bass player must have been to have a pulse, so desperate the band must have been to find someone who would stick around for awhile. But heck, John Weider had played bass a couple of times before joining Family, and he was hired in a pinch, so how did Cregan get Weider's old job?

The likeliest answer is that, while their third American tour was more than two months away, they still had gigs in Britain and elsewhere in Europe to play, and Cregan had two weeks before the next gig in Torquay, England to get up to speed, so they needed someone right away. Cregan proved to be as quick a study as Weider, though, and he got the hang of his new instrument with relative ease. The fact that he was rhythm guitarist adapting to the bass - a rhythmic instrument by nature - clearly helped. However, on subsequent Family records, Cregan would produce no memorable bass lines like his three predecessors - Wetton, Weider, and Ric Grech - had, but, to be fair, he did provide steady if unspectacular pacing.

For those keeping track, as of July 1972, Family were up to their sixth lineup since releasing their first single. From left: Charlie Whitney, Jim Cregan, Rob Townsend, Poli Palmer, Roger Chapman.

Incredibly, this would be the only lineup of Family that would never make a record in the studio. I'll explain why later.

And so, on September 26, 1972, Family began their third American gig - opening for Elton John - at Cornell University in upstate New York.

Having Family open for Elton was a good idea on paper. After all, Elton John had replaced the beatles as the most popular British rock star in America, his Honky Château album had just hit number one in the States, and he was synonymous with British ock in the early seventies.

But, of course, Elton John's music was conventional, mainstream, pop-oriented, and friendly to conservative American radio. Family's music was none of those things, and he double bill soon proved to be the seventies equivalent of Jimi Hendrix opening for the Monkees. However much the headlining act loved and respected the opening act's music, the teenyboppers would more often than not disagree. And Family ended up getting much of the same reaction of bewilderment from Elton John fans that Hendrix had gotten from Monkees fans.

Family began their third American tour at Barton Hall (below) at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Also in Elton John's entourage were campy performer Larry "Legs" Smith and Linda Lewis, who happened to be Jim Cregan's girlfriend. :)

The first show, on Tuesday, September 26, 1972, didn't go all that well. As a review of Elton's show in the Cornell Daily Sun put it:

"Another British group, Family, began the evening with an ambiguous assortment of sounds that often defied clarity and resonance. The vibraphone was used as if it were a second guitar. The lead singer limited himself to emitting raucous screeches and raspy throat vibratos. At one point the vibes were plugged into a synthesizer and one got the impression that the band had never used one before. A person sitting next to me on the floor suggested that it really was not music at all. But I knew they were through when the singer spun around and fell over the drums and onto the floor."

At least Roger Chapman didn't throw Rob Townsend's bass drum at anyone.

So here were Family, opening for a fellow British act on a Tuesday night in New York State and flopping out . . . it must have been like that April 1969 show at the Fillmore East in Manhattan all over again. But Elton John, to use twenty-first-century argot, had Family's back, and he wasn't going to give up on them that easily. Elton himself had gotten off to a shaky start when he made his American debut at Troubadour in Los Angeles, and he knew that it took time to build up steam. Also, Elton was very generous in his support for other musical acts, and he loved just about everything going on musically at the time - even the Osmonds. Family would finish their gig with Elton much better than they started it.

Family's third American tour wasn't without its setbacks. At one stop, the band's equipment got lost and Linda Lewis had to go on in their place. In Rochester, New York, they were were denied the opportunity to open for Elton and replaced as the opening act by David Bromberg, no doubt the result of a promoter. And at sme concerts, the kids who had come to see Elton found Family's music so unconventional and bewildering that when Family finished their set, the only people applauding were the soundmen.

Nevertheless, the tour went very well for Family overall. They played some of their best American shows on this tour, and they even got a taste of superstardom as the schedule included a few concerts in sports arenas. Arena concerts were relatively new in rock at the time, with the Rolling Stones having gone on rock's first arena concert tour in 1969, and Elton John had become popular enough to include arenas along with theaters no his fall 1972 tour. Family played their first arena concert on September 30, 1972, opening for Elton at the Spectrum in Philadelphia. Their set at the Los Angeles Forum later in the tour impressed Billboard critic Nat Freedland. "With anything less than such an overwhelming headliner," Freedland wrote, "Family could have walked off with the show. Vocalist Roger Chapman is spellbindingly bizarre combination of Richard Harris and Joe Cocker, with his spaced-out robot-like marching antics. The UA English group gets a riveting sound with the synthesizer-distorted vibraphone of Poli Palmer. They will be welcome return visitors to the U.S. as their word-of-mouth reputation spreads."

Poli Palmer was certainly pleased with how things were going , especially with the feedback Family were getting from many American audiences. "You've got to have that contact," Palmer told the Philadelphia Daily News. "Record companies can do a muscular PR job for you, but people identify with you and their music if they see you." Charlie Whitney concurred, telling the Philadelphia Daily News, "And you have to work harder on a tour like this one, where the people don't really know you or your music. It's good."

(Family, 1972. From left: Roger Chapman , Charlie Whitney, Jim Cregan, Rob Townsend, Poli Palmer.)

Elton John's fall 1972 tour of North America included dates in Canada, and Family had never played in the Great White North before. The closest they ever came to doing that was when Roger Chapman got deported from the U.S. for losing his visa.

Although they were on the bill for Montréal, a local promoter apparently had other ideas, as a female singer-songwriter - who may have been Lori Lieberman, who famously wrote "Killing Me Softly with His Song," a big hit for Roberta Flack - took their place. But on October 5, 1972, Family took to the stage at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto (below, in 2023) and performed a set that featured "Good News Bad News," "Burlesque," "My Friend The Sun," "Holding The Compass," "Top Of The Hill," and "The Weaver’s Answer."

This was a significant and monumentally historic date in Family's story.

"Because," you say, "it was their first Canadian date."

Uh, no . . . because it was their only Canadian date. :eek:

Elton had only two stops in Canada, with none in Winnipeg or Vancouver, or anywhere in between.

Although, Family and Elton would play Detroit an Buffalo, so it was fairly easy for folks in Windsor or Hamilton to come over the border and see Family there.

Along the way on this third American tour, Family had fans that went more for them than for Elton. As one Canadian fan explained, "The Montréal Forum show had at first advertised Family as opening act. That was the only reason for me to go." (Bummer.) Considering Family's Toronto gig, I can't help but wonder if two of the spectators in the audience at Maple Leaf Gardens were aspiring musicians . . . and if Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee were taking notes. :lol:

Rush's music doesn't sound like Family's, of course, but as Family was an inspiration to many bands for insisting on following their own path, it's possible that Rush were paying attention.

Although Elton John's popularity was going up like a rocket (man), he was still not big enough to play Madison Square Garden when he reached New York City. So Elton, and by extension, Family ended up playing two nights (November 19 and 20, 1972) in the Big Apple at a different venue.

Carnegie Hall.

Carnegie . . . Hall. :D

Family now could count themselves among the esteemed musical artists who played Carnegie Hall, a list that included Peter Tchaikovsky, Antonin Dvořák, Gustav Mahler, Bela Bartók, George Gershwin, Billie Holiday, Benny Goodman, Judy Garland, and the Beatles, as well as, of course, Elton John. All of them, including Family, got there by practicing.

And Roger Chapman also got there by smashing tambourines. :lol:

Playing two nights at Carnegie Hall more than made up for the disaster that was Family's American debut at the Fillmore East in another part of town. And, bearing in mind that by 1972 the Fillmore East was gone, Family had the last laugh on Bill Graham. ;)

As the Elton John Fall 1972 North American tour continued, Family, Elton's opening act, engaged with both the American rock press and the British rock press. In a telephone interview with one of the music weeklies back home in the mother country, Rob Townsend expressed his appreciation for the efforts of United Artists records to promote the band and the Bandstand album, which helped Bandstand's cuts get liberal airplay on already-legendary FM rock stations such as WNEW-FM in New York, WMMR-FM in Philadelphia, and WBCN-FM in Boston.

Roger Chapman expressed his personal gratitude for Elton John's support for Family, for taking them on for his opening act on the tour and talking them up along the way. Chappo thought that Family were finally making headway in the United States and were on the verge of a commercial breakthrough.

But, he said, there was one caveat: Family needed to return to the U.S. for another tour in 1973. "If we don't come back next year," he said, "we'll lose everything we've gained this year."

Below is an ad that was part of UA Records' promotion of Family. :)

And so the Elton John Fall 1972 tour rolled on through October and November. The members of Family probably saw more of America than they had before, and probably took a lot in when a lot was going on. President Nixon faced George McGovern in the 1972 presidential election, winning 49 states on November 7, and a sitcom based on the movie M*A*S*H had debuted on American television.As demonstrations against the Vietnam War continued Henry Kissinger and Lê Đức Thọ announced an agreement that would eventually end American involvement in the conflict. One can only wonder what the members of the band thought of all this.

After their Carnegie Hall shows and a concert in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Family made their way with Elton to Florida. There was no show on Thursday, November 23, which happened to be Thanksgiving (and two Thanksgivings later, Elton John would perform at Madison Square Garden in New York and host John Lennon in his last public performance ever), but Elton and Family had some shows lined up in the Sunshine State for the weekend.

Wonder if Family were aware of this American holiday? With all of the good press and positive feedback they were getting in the land of the free and the home of the Atlanta Braves, the must have been thankful for all that! :)

This is a column by music writer Chick Ober from the November 16, 1972 edition of the Tampa Bay Times. The column is mainly focused on an upcoming appearance on Sunday, November 26, ten days later by Family at the Bayfront Center in Saint Petersburg. Ober describes their music a bit dryly, without much drama, and he refers to them as "The Family," definite article included.

No big deal, just another concert appearance in the Tampa/St. Pete area by another British band.

No one, least of all Ober, had any idea at the time that this would be Family's last American show ever.

When Family (below, rehearsing) returned home from their third American tour as Elton John's opening act, they seemed to have made considerable headway toward achieving U.S.success. They'd gotten the support of their record company and support from the press, Elton John had had their back, and they got good positive feedback from many of their audiences. The wind was at their backs.

Unfortunately, the wind at their backs turned out to be their own.

:eek2:

Right after Family got home from the U.S. in late November 1972, it was announced that Poli Palmer was leaving the band. :eek:

Palmer's exit from Family was seismic. While a replacement member - only the second replacement member to join since the release of Family's first LP - Palmer had become integral to the group's overall sound, not just with his flute and vibraphone playing but also his keyboard work, both on piano and synthesizer, as well as the jazz textures he brought to the band. While bass players in Family came and went like drummers in Spinal Tap, Palmer remained a constant. He played opposite every Family bassist except Ric Grech.

So why was Palmer leaving? Because he planned to form a band with Ric Grech.

WHAT????

It made sense, actually. Ric Grech, no longer in the band, was discombobulating Family a second time.

As it turned out, the band to be formed by Palmer and Grech never happened. (I do not know if this was the same band that Grech and Jimi Hendrix Experience drummer Mitch Mitchell had planned to form around Joseph Wright, a blues-rock guitarist from Chicago known as Joe Jammer.) And yes, Palmer left before Jim Cregan could appear on a Family record. That explains why Family's sixth lineup - Roger Chapman, Charlie Whitney, Rob Townsend, Jim Cregan and Poli Palmer - never made a record together.

So what could Family - pretty much by this point a trio comprised of Roger Chapman, Charlie Whitney and Rob Townsend that was augmented by whoever happened to be in the room at the time - do now? The answer was to find a replacement for Palmer and carry on. They did find a replacement, but the newest member would bring much less to the table than Jim King and Poli Palmer had.

And yet, he'd also bring much more.

At the end of 1972, keyboard player Tony Ashton became Family's newest member.

Edward Anthony Ashton was born in 1946 in Blackburn, Lancashire, a town later made famous by the Beatles for its potholes. :lol: Ashton grew up near Liverpool and eventually joined the Remo Four, a band of contemporaries of the Beatles who, like the Fab Four, were managed by Brian Epstein. Ashton and Remo Four drummer Roy Dyke joined forces with bassist Kim Gardner to form the trio Ashton, Gardner and Dyke. Their big hit was "Resurrection Shuffle," reached number three on the UK singles chart but also barely made it on the Billboard Top Forty - peaking at number forty. Their music was a fusion of soul and jazz. Ashton, Gardner and Dyke didn't stay together for long, though, and Tony went on to do session work with members of Deep Purple after AGD split.

When he joined Family in late 1972, Ashton was in a unique position. Because Jim King had played occasional piano, and because Poli Palmer had played piano, electric keyboards and synthesizer in addition to flute and vibraphone, Ashton technically became Family's third keyboardist, but neither King nor Palmer were known as keyboardists. In fact, they were known as multi-instrumentalists, so wide were their musical scopes and abilities. Ashton was simply a keyboard player - that was it, and that was all. The idea of him as a jack of all trades and a master of all like King and Palmer had been was out of the question.

Furthermore, Family seemed to have evolved, or maybe even devolved, into the basic lineup of singer, guitarist, bassist, keyboardist and drummer that was becoming a standard lineup for rock quintets on both sides of the Atlantic. And Family had always resisted following a standard, always defying convention every chance they got. To be blunt, Ashton's piano and organ work would have to be pretty exceptional to keep the band fresh and to make people forget that there had ever been anyone else in the place he now occupied in Family.

Okay, I'll let you in on the secret - it was exceptional. In recruiting Ashton, Family now had something only drummer Rob Townsend had ever been in the band - a virtuoso. Ashton would contribute memorable keyboard riffs in the same way that Townsend had created memorable drum fills, and he'd give Townsend a run for the money on the band's next LP.

And so, with Tony Ashton as the new member of Family, the group closed out 1972 with several performances in Britain in December.

For Family, every New Year's holiday must have been filled with anxiety. Family entered each new year like a vacationer entering the funhouse along the seaside promenade in Paignton. They didn't know what to expect, and they went in with great trepidation. When 1969 began, they were on their way to a Top Ten album, but they didn't know the year would be fraught with disasters starting with their first tour of America and ending with having lost Ric Grech and Jim King. They began 1970 not knowing of all of the success they had when few expected them to recover from the blows they'd sustained. They didn't know they'd lose another bassist at the start of 1971. They didn't know they'd lose another bassist at the start of 1972 . . . and lose Poli Palmer after that.

What would 1973 bring? A number-one album? An American tour opening for Led Zeppelin, earning Family their first U.S. hit record? Playing Wembley on the bill with the Rolling Stones? Or would the year be a disappointment that led to aborting a follow-up album to Bandstand that would force Chapman and Whitney to split and lead rival bands, as had happened to the British folk-rock band Lindisfarne? Or would Jim Cregan insist that his girlfriend Linda Lewis be a full-time sixth member of Family and cause trouble?

Spoiler alert - none of that happened. But on New Year's Day, 1973, any of that was certainly possible. None of the shadows that would be or might be bothered the new guy in the group, Tony Ashton, who spent New Year's Eve 1972 partying at the Hotel Post in Zermatt, Switzerland, as seen below. :)

Tony Ashton was cool. :cool:

As for Poli Palmer (below, right), he would move on from the failed effort to form a new band with Ric Grech, mostly becoming a session player. Among the LPs he performed on was Pete Townshend's 1982 album All the Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes. And he and Roger Chapman remained friends. They'd collaborate every once in a while, most recently co-writing songs on Chapman's 2021 solo album Life In the Pond.

The year 1973 began strongly for Family, despite losing Poli Palmer. They would continue to tour the United Kingdom while preparing songs for the next album and continuing to perform radio shows for the BBC. The inclusion of Tony Ashton enabled the band to go back to their roots as a rock and soul band with a less contrived sound. It would be harbinger of their next album.

BBC Radio host John Peel had always been a supporter of Family which was why they kept doing radio shows well into 1973. On Friday, January 26, they did a BBC show at the Paris Theatre in London, the concert being preserved on tape. This gig would be released on disc in 1991 as BBC Radio 1: Live In Concert.

The concert featured a cover of Huey "Piano" Smith's 1957 hit "Rockin' Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu." Family, being averse to including covers on their studio records, never released a studio-recorded version of this song. Incredibly, another singer, an American, had covered "Rockin' Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu" in late 1972 and released it as a single. The singer was Johnny Rivers, best known for his original song "Secret Agent Man." His version of "Rockin' Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu" reached number six on the Billboard singles chart in the U.S.

Rivers was a labelmate of Family in the U.S.

"Rockin' Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu"
(Huey Smith)

I wanna jump but I'm afraid I'll fall,
I wanna holler but the joint's too small.
Young man rhythm's got a hold of me too,
I got the rockin' pneumonia and the boogie woogie flu.

Want some lovin' babe and that ain't all,
I wanna kiss her but she's way too tall.
Young man rhythm's got a hold of me too,
I got the rockin' pneumonia and the boogie woogie flu.

Wanna squeeze her but I'm way too low,
I would be runnin' but my feet's too slow.
Young man rhythm's got a hold of me too,
I got the rockin' pneumonia and the boogie woogie flu.

I wanna squeeze her but I'm way too low,
I would be runnin' but my feets too slow.
Young man rhythm got a hold of me too,
I got the rockin' pneumonia and the boogie woogie flu.

Baby comin' now, I'm hurryin' home,
I know she's leavin' cause I'm takin' too long.
Young man rhythm's got a hold of me too,
I got the rockin' pneumonia and the boogie woogie flu.

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On February 10, 1973, Family's seventh lineup made their television debut on the BBC performing arts series "Full House," with Jim Cregan sporting a double-neck guitar/bass to complement Charlie Whitney's double-neck Gibson and Tony Ashton keeping to himself at the keyboards. Roger Chapman, as always, was the center of attention.

The band performed "Top of the Hill." This is believed to be Family's last appearance on TV. :eek:

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As Family continued to tour the U.K., with a tour of Italy scheduled for the last week of April 1973, news got out about the group Poil Palmer and Ric Grech were planning.

It was reported that an as-yet unnamed band had begun working on a debut album. The group was to consist of Palmer and Grech, plus Mitch Mitchell, Graham Bell of the band Arc on lead vocals, and American guitarist Joe Jammer. So, the groups Ric Grech planned with Mitch Mitchell and with Poli Palmer were one and the same, after all.

At the time, however, Bell was still fulfilling his commitments to an Australian production of the Who's Tommy. Needless to say, the project fizzled out before the band could record an album, record a single, or for that matter come up with a name.

I don't know much about Graham Bell, but I know Joe Jammer is supposed to be a really good guitarist - Jimmy Page and Robert Plant gave him his stage name - and, given Palmer's versatility and the solid rhythm section that Grech and Mitchell would have made, this group could have been big - maybe even in America. Or not. This quintet was essentially a supergroup, and, with rare exceptions, supergroups usually never are. Bad Company, who debuted a year after the Grech-Palmer project didn't, was an exception. Maybe this group Grech and Palmer tried to form could have been as big and as good as Bad Company, but we'll never know.

We do know that, in the fall of 1989, about six months before he died, Grech telephoned Palmer about the possibility of getting their old project started again. :(

In April 1973, the same month they toured Italy, Family released "Boom Bang," their second single of 1973 and the first all-new record of the year. It was also the first Family record to feature Jim Cregan and the first one to feature Tony Ashton (below, with Roger Chapman).

The new Family lineup was not promising, nor was the apparently new direction in which Charlie Whitney and Roger Chapman were going in their songwriting.

"Boom Bang" is a histrionic, plodding **** rocker that describes the ways in which males of different species get excited. The word "erection" appears in the lyrics. Really subtle, guys! :eek:

Although, as a song, "Boom Bang" is more tasteful than the Knack's "My Sharona" of six years later.

"My Friend the Sun." released as a single in January 1973, had failed to chart, but that could be explained away as being because it was already available on Bandstand, so anyone who wanted the song in their collections were Family die-hards who already had it. "Boom Bang" was a new track that was, for the time being, available only as a single, but it too failed to chart. Of course it was likely from the poor quality of the song. Not that band didn't try to make something out of it. They actually gave a good performance here, but it couldn't save a bad song. But with two failed singles in a row, it gave everyone pause as to whether Family might be a spent force.

"Boom Bang" was included on the subsequent album Family were planning for later in the year, so I'll provide a YouTube audio clip of the song when we get to that. But don't say I didn't warn you.

There was only one reason to buy "Boom Bang" - its superior B-side.

"Stop This Car" is a pure country and western song in which Roger Chapman delivers the most convincing country vocal since Bob Dylan's vocal style on Nashville Skyline. The spoken first verse offers a clue to what Chapman and Charlie Whitney might have been thinking as Family were sputtering through incessant personnel changes and signs of waning. Chapman speaks about how many of his dreams were gone, but a couple of them still came true, so he figures that he still came out ahead in the end. And that was certainly a positive attitude to have. Heck, Chappo obviously dreamed of being a country singer, and here, he pulled it off.

"Stop This Car"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

(SPOKEN INTRO)
Lots of dreams blew away in the wind,
But they were fun at the time to begin.
And there were just one or two that did come on through,
So I guess, overall, I did win.

All the loves that went by with a song,
And if love is a song, I see the wrong.
Pretty faces I knew, that I promised so true,
Well I wonder do they think of me too?

There were times that I felt insincere,
There were moments of doubt and of fear.
There were times in my life when I broke down and cried,
And I paid for my lies with my tears.

La la la, la la la, la la la . . .

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In 1973, Family became one of the latest rock artistes to form their own record label, as Elton John as forming his own record label, Rocket, that same year.

Family's label was called Raft Records, and it mirrored the Beatles' Apple label and Elton John's Rocket label in being a home for like-minded recording artists Like the Beatles - and unlike, at first, Elton John, who would not release a record on his own label until 1976 - Family were the star act on their own label. (The Rolling Stones, of course, set up a label of their own with only one artiste on it - themselves. And when the surviving ex-Beatles restarted Apple in the mid-1990s, it was to handle reissues of their own and their artists' work, not to invest in new artists.)

Most artists' record labels end up the same way. They begin with great fanfare, produce a lot of hits for both the founders and their roster in the short term, end up with a roster of has-beens and never-weres as their records flop, and then the label is quietly discontinued. That happened with the Beatles' Apple over seven years. But it happened with Raft in only one year.

Family signed Linda Lewis to their label, of course, and they also signed a Newcastle prog band named Beckett, who released their self-titled debut album, produced by Roger Chapman, in 1974. A total lack of interest in Family's first and only discovery meant that Beckett only had a one-album lifespan, its LP doomed to end up in the collections of American college radio stations teeming with records from Glass House, Lovecraft, Eric Quincy Tate, and other recording artists who are reminders that the record business has a 90 percent failure rate - that is, for every ten artistes that get a record deal, only one makes it.

I didn't make up the names of those bands (yes, Eric Quincy Tate were a band) - those were bands whose records dominated the collection of the college radio station I volunteered for at my alma mater. No Beckett album, though.

Family would stay on United Artists Records in the States.

Family are one of those forgotten bands that people ultimately discover on their own, much like Fanny - the first all-female band headed by two sisters - Jean and June Millington, the daughters of a white Anglo-Saxon father and a Philippine mother - were forgotten and rediscovered in the 2020s thanks to a 2021 documentary, Fanny: The Right to Rock.

Family and Fanny - who normally appear together only in record guides, which are arranged alphabetically - appeared together in real life, at the Rainbow Theatre on Saturday, May 12, 1973.

Cool, huh? :)

Less than a month after appearing with Fanny at the Rainbow Theatre, Family were among the many British and Irish cult bands that appeared at the 1st Summer Rock Festival at Radstadion in Frankfurt, Germany. The rock festival may have died in America (only to come back years later), but they remained staples of live performance in Britain and continental Europe.

Among the bands that shared the bill with Family were Uriah Heep puke: , the Strawbs, Thin Lizzy, and Wizzard - plus the supergroup Beck, Bogert and Appice.

It might have been the first summer rock festival to be held at Frankfurt's Radstadion, but - and no one knew this at the time, of course it would be Family's last appearance at a festival anywhere. :(

By 1973, Family had gone as far as they could in Britain. Every year, it was the same old stuff - they'd tour theatres in Britain, and they'd do a Continental tour or two in between. In July 1973, after touring Italy in April, they''d return there for more shows. But it was getting routine, and so was songwriting and recording.

Family had conquered their homeland, and they went on to conquer France, Italy, the Low Countries, and West Germany. They were going father and farther in Europe, but then they hit a wall - or, more appropriately, an iron curtain. With their brand of rock and roll banned by the Commies, they couldn't go any farther east than Vienna.

What they really needed to conquer was North America - and the United States in particular. The band had tried to set up a fourth American tour for 1973. Bandstand hadn't exactly soared up the charts in the U.S. of A., but the accolades they got from critics and the airplay the album got from FM rock stations had given them momentum. But after suddenly failing on the chart in the U.K. with two flop singles, they had no currency to gain themselves a return to the U.S., and the logistics of a tour of the New World - visas, work permits, and the like - were difficult to arrange.

So what could Family do now?

On June 30, 1973, the band announced their decision on that matter, and it would surprise everyone.

Family were unable to become bigger stars in Britain than they already were. They had achieved success in Europe, but North America remained unreceptive to them. And there was another wrinkle. They had a hard time making commitments to any long-term plans, including a fourth U.S. tour, because their newest members were busy with extracurricular projects, some of which may have pre-dated their membership in Family. Jim Cregan was producing his girlfriend Linda Lewis, and Tony Ashton was working with and producing a band called Medicine Head.

And so came Saturday, June 30, 1973, the day that everyone sort of knew was coming: Family announced that they were breaking up.

Apart from their second Italian tour of the year, the band had only a couple of concerts scheduled in Britain over the summer. They would spend that time recording a final album that would be out soon after the 1973 summer bank holiday in the U.K., followed by an autumn farewell tour that would end in the original band's hometown - Leicester.

Below, the seventh and last iteration of Family. From left, Rob Townsend, Tony Ashton, Jim Cregan, Charlie Whitney, Roger Chapman.

On September 7, 1973, Family released its seventh and final album, It's Only a Movie.

When a band makes what turns out to be their final album, they normally don't intend for it to be a final album. Six months after Abbey Road's release, Paul McCartney announced he was stepping away from the Beatles but admitted that he didn't know if the split was temporary or permanent. Both the J. Geils Band and the Clash released albums in 1985 in efforts to go on without key members - Peter Wolf and Mick Jones, respectively - only to disband after those albums flopped. And, of course, Led Zeppelin recorded In Through the Out Door without knowing that John Bonham would die a year later, ending the band - because Led Zeppelin, unlike the Who, had the good sense to call it quits when their drummer died. Family, by all accounts, deliberately made It's Only a Movie as a final album. They took a more laid-back approach to the music, being more relaxed and loose and just enjoying themselves.

The album itself delved into the roots music of America popularized by the Band, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and, from 1970 on, the Grateful Dead. In fact, it turned the Band's first album backwards. If Music From Big Pink was an introductory love letter to Americana that Americans embraced, It's Only a Movie was a farewell love letter to Americana from a band that Americans had largely ignored. It's Only a Movie, predictably, failed to chart in the United States.

The cover was not as elaborate as those of Fearless and Bandstand had been. This time, rather than produce an interesting die cut, designer John Kosh opted for a still frame of Hollywood silent-Western actor William Farnum in a 1919 Fox Pictures Western - either The Lone Star Ranger or The Last of Duanes, both of which were lost in a 1937 20th Century-Fox storage vault fire in Little Ferry, New Jersey - in a purple rather than a sepia tone. Simple, direct, honest - like the music inside. :) The back cover features individual photos of the band members Note the Fats Domino T-shirt Roger Chapman sports, a reminder that this progressive British rock band hadn't forgotten that the roots of rock and roll are neither progressive nor British.

It's Only A Movie kicks off with the title song, which is a jokey illustration of the making of an old-time Western. The band really gets the atmosphere of an Old West saloon down pat - Tony Ashton's piano playing is particularly impressive - and Charlie Whitney's guitar riffs keep the song anchored in modern (for 1973) rock and roll.

There's a second vocal, a spoken voice, playing the part of the movie director, but I'm not sure who is providing it - my guess is, it's either Whitney or Jim Cregan.

"It's Only A Movie"
(Whitney/Chapman)

Cards on the table at midnight,
Watch for the hand with the blade.
We're shooting an old cowboy movie,
Pan out No. 2, camera fade.
Tom, he loves Kitty the cowgirl,
But she only lusts for revenge
To kill off the rat, who crippled her dad.
Tom knows that . . . don't make amends.

Two evils can never make one right,
Be sure one evil has already been done.
Kitty don't see quite too clearly,
Believes we should take one for one.
Director says "Now hold that a minute,
A little more light just over there on her face.
Shadow her eyes, doubt that sanity lies,
Let the public enjoy all of her hate."
It's only a movie, it's only a show . . .

It's only a movie, it's only a show,
Just a celluloid picture wherever you go.
Oh, it's only a movie, it's only a show . . .

It's only a movie, it's only a show,
Just a celluloid picture wherever it shows.
Oh, it's only a movie, it's only a show . . .

Now Tom didn't like all this bullsh**.
Just making nice films is his trend.
To have to whisk her away on his big charger,
Ride into the sun at the end.
Once again, man says "Too easy . . .
The punters, they've all been here before.
I know what they need, the crooks got to bleed
To make 'em go home - wanting more."
It's only a movie, it's only a show . . .

It's only a movie, it's only a show,
Just a celluloid picture wherever you go . . .
It's only a movie, it's only a show,
Just a celluloid picture wherever it shows . . .

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It's Only a Movie's second track, "Leroy," is a song about a young man who courts a girl whose family has money, hoping to marry into the family not for the cash but to the ability to get a car, and not just any ol' car, a long, sleek highway cruiser with a top speed of 160 mph or more. His charm wins over both the girl and her parents. Robert Christgau noted that it was inspired by Chuck Berry's song "No Money Down."

"Leroy"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

And his campus queen,
What she means, what she means . . .

Leroy was a cat, always knew just where he sat
In his rise up to riches and fame.
The chick that he'd choose, would have dollars to lose,
And a love, lotsa love in her heart for his name.

One girl that he'd seen was the campus queen,
She had looks and her daddy had lotsa loot.
So he made her his aim, in his heartless game,
He had looks, he had nerve, boy, was he cute.

He craved a flat top winner, with a two-spot dimmer
And a roof that rolled back for the sun,
Then add a V-8 hood, lotsa chrome on the hub,
Speed that says 160 and some, ah that's fast.

With his charm and his poise, he outclassed all the boys
In the race for her hand he secured.
He met her mum face to face, now she adored all his grace,
His place at their table was assured.
"My boy," said her pa, "What you need is a car, call me Dad,
Gee whizz, you're my son."
Get a two-toned flyer, with white walled tires, and a gas tank,
You make sure it's got plenty of gun."

He got a flat top winner, with a two-spot dimmer
And a roof that rolled back for the sun,
And a V-8 hood, lotsa chrome on the hub,
Speed that says 160 and some.
And he like to move . . . very fast.


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"Buffet Tea For Two" is deceptively titled. It's a song that starts out with a buffet tea serving for a couple, but the male narrator is about to leave his lady and start all over again. Tony Ashton plays sme strong flourishes on the ivories, and the band is backed by Del Newman's impeccable orchestral arrangement. :)

The lyric "Pancras, here I come" refers to St. Pancras Railway Station in London, which coincidentally serves a line to Leicester. Since the Channel Tunnel was finished, it's also been the British terminus for the Eurostar rail line.

"Buffet Tea For Two"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

Buffet tea for two, a farewell kiss for you,
I climb aboard and shut that door, we're through.
I'm on the train and then I look back once again,
Before I know what's happening, we're moving.

(CHORUS)
To a new start, a new city,
Leaving you my pretty,
It's not so hard as not leaving there at all.
Been knowing you for so long,
The habit just seemed wrong,
I got things to do and it seems like that's the cure.

Think of her awhile, and I offer no denial
I'm excited like it's out of style, oh, it's thrilling
Bedsit by the tube, evening dinner too,
Steady job, good prospects due, if I'm willing.

(REPEAT CHORUS)

We just passed some boats, can't be far to go
Man up train is putting on his coat, we're slowing.
Yes, Pancras, here I come, I raced them all and won,
On the platform and I run, oh, I'm running.

(REPEAT CHORUS)

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Uh-oh . . .. Here's the stinker single that Family had released five months before, closing side one of It's Only a Movie. Don't say I didn't warn you about this song. Chapman delivers a fiery vocal here (elsewhere on the album, he's considerably restrained), the band offers up a solid arrangement, and Linda Lewis provides some incredible backup vocal pyrotechnics, but it . . . just . . . doesn't . . . work.

No wonder this single flopped.

"Boom Bang"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

Sick and tired, all hay-wired,
Fever, that's for sure,
Moon, lune girl erection for a cure.

Boom bang, shotgun man,
I said I feel as if I'm dead,
'Cause I got those TV nudes
Running through my head.

Scratch scratch, old Tom cat,
Screaming every night.
He's going round smelling every one-eyed she-cat in sight.

Full grown, big yellow moon,
Excite me awful bad.
But it make all the girls come running
'Cause they like it mad.

(REPEAT CHORUS)

Wang dang, pocket man,
Couldn't even raise a thought,
So while he was passing by, he would flash till he got caught.

Horned toad, rooster crow,
But it all add up to just one thing:
When the men species get hot
Then they sure do sing.

(REPEAT CHORUS)

Boom bang, shotgun man
I said I feel as if I'm dead
'Cause I got those TV nudes
Running through my head.

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I think "Boots 'n' Roots," which opens side two of It's Only a Movie, is my favorite song on the album, though I also love the title track.

"Boots 'n' Roots," presumably about a traveling hobo in the American hinterlands, starts with horn players at the beginning that play a sample of "Wait 'Til the Sun Shines, Nellie" - an endearing and clever touch, no? - and then Tony Ashton's piano and Chapman's singing before abruptly starting over with a new arrangement, not unlike the way the Police's "King of Pain" of a decade later would go. "Boots 'n' Roots" features some tart guitar playing with each note bristling against one another, and it melds well with Chapman's deadpan vocal. :)

"Boots 'n' Roots"
(Charlie Whitney/Roger Chapman)

Sailing on not too far 'til I get there,
All I own wrapped up tight in a sweatshirt.
Ain't no hurry, been away too long
To keep on worrying where I come from,
Rest my boots where I feel I should belong.
Don't hold on to me,
We're one, my song and me,
Boots and roots, there's so much I've got to see,
Boots and roots, there's so much I want to see.

(REPEAT FIRST VERSE)

Sun don't shine, geese start flying for the winter,
I can wait, don't migrate for the weather.
I up and run if it turns me on,
For no more reason than the tide rolls on,
Hold my roots when I feel I should be gone.
So don't hold to me,
We're one, the tide and me,
Boots and roots, there's so much I want to see,
Boots and roots, there's so much I've got to see.

Ride that rail, move my tail where I want to,
Said I take some ease, rest my feet if it feels good.
Pick my tune, an old hoedown,
Boots and roots, don't you hold me down,
So much to see as the world goes spinning round.
I say, don't hold on to me,
We're one, my song and me,
Boots and roots, there's so much I've got to see,
Boots and roots, there's so much I want to see.

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Don't let the risqué title fool you. "Banger" is an instrumental that's as safe as milk. It sounds like a collective of New Orleans jazz musicians jamming together at three in the morning with a relaxed, laid-back tempo. In fact, it's heavily dominated by a brass section.

Although Charlie Whitney and Roger Chapman wrote dozens of songs together, "Banger" is the only Family instrumental to bear a Whitney/Chapman composing credit.

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"Sweet Desiree" (pronounced "des-ah-REE, not des-a-RAY") is a harmless, slight, and somewhat tuneful song about a desirable woman, and I can't help but wonder if the line "Come softly to me" was nicked from the title of the Fleetwoods' 1958 hit song.

"Sweet Desiree" was released as a single the same day that It's Only a Movie was. So that makes two singles on the album so far. The title song would be released as the third single from the album in October 1973, and so "It's Only a Movie" would be Family's last single ever.

None of the singles on It's Only a Movie charted.

"Sweet Desiree"
(Charlie Whitney / Roger Chapman)

Lady,
You and your crazy ways,
You in that negligée.
Sweet Desiree, come softly to me.
Sweet Desiree, come softly to me.

Desire, desire, desire,
Setting my soul on fire.
Your ruby red lips, my my . . .
Sweet Desiree, come softly to me.
Sweet Desiree, come softly to me.

Sweet . . . Desiree,
Sweet . . . Desiree.

You got me going like a man on fire,
That must be why they call you Miss Desire.

Loving,
Hot as a wolverine,
But soft as a lamb in spring.
Sweet Desiree, come softly to me.
Sweet Desiree, come softly to me.

Crying,
Tears running down my thighs,
Caught up in your own desires.
Sweet Desiree, come softly to me.
Sweet Desiree, come softly to me.

Sweet . . . Desiree,
Sweet . . . Desiree.

Sweet Desiree,
Sugar from the honey, yeah . . ..

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"Suspicion," which is on It's Only a Movie and was also the B-side of the title track, is a sprightly, peppy rocker that sounds like what Loggins and Messina might have come up with if they hadn't been so darn mellow. :)

As Charlie and Whitney and Roger Chapman kept writing songs, they realized that choruses began to dominate their songs and they were falling into a formulaic structure, therefore standardizing themselves - a reason, Chapman later explained, why Family had to end.

"Suspicion"
(Charlie Whitney / Roger Chapman)

Said I don't make much money,
For me it's suffice.
But for one good friend,
I'd give it up twice.
But strange looks come easy when giving I've found.
Age old suspicion is so hard . . .
Age old suspicion is so hard to put down.

Don't make much difference,
I'm right or wrong,
If I feel it's good,
And it's turning me on.
But the same magic feeling keeps coming on round,
Age old suspicion is so hard . . .
Age old suspicion is so hard, to put down.

Ooh, if I was immortal
But held by the b***s,
Now would I cut to freedom,
Thereby giving all?
I'd like to think so, but that's here and now.
Age old suspicion is so hard . . .
Age old suspicion is so hard, to put down.

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As Family by all accounts knew It's Only a Movie was going to be their farewell album, it's only appropriate that the last song on the last Family LP would be called . . . "Check Out." The song is a sharp rocker about an escaped convict on the lam; a crunchy guitar riff powers the song, with Ashton's bright organ and Linda Lewis's soaring backup vocal helping it glide along. Then it builds up in intensity toward the end, and just when you think it's coming to a grand finish, it fades out instead. Even at the the very end, Family pulled out a surprise.

Charlie Whitney and Roger Chapman gave a composer's credit to Jim Cregan for "Check Out," and had they not done so, It's Only a Movie would have been the only Family LP comprised entirely of Whitney-Chapman compositions. Some CD reissues erroneously omit Cregan's credit.

"Check Out"
(Charlie Whitney / Roger Chapman / Jim Cregan)

Since sun-up this hammer ain't been out my grip,
Ain't fussing or nothing, can't afford to slip,
Just biding my time, on this long prison line.

There comes a chance, the screw, he turns away,
I hit him so hard I know he'll never wake.
It's time to check out, well it's too late too stop now.

Then I'm up, and I'm sweating and I'm running scared.
Can't blow it now, I got to use some care,
Get hold of my head, else I'm dead, boy, I'm dead.

I'm over the fields and through the wood beyond.
My only real chance is that I make the swamp,
Start covering my way, afore them hounds start to bay.
It's time to check out, well it's too late to stop now.

You know it's just too much for one little man, yeah . . .

Been on the run for fourteen days or so,
Left all them dogs behind long ago.
Not even a howl is following me now.

But stone prison walls they were the death of me.
My only real chance, you know, I had to be free from that gang
Away to some southern land.
It's time to check out, well it's too late too stop now.

It's time to check out, well it's too late too stop now . . .

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And Jim Cregan gets the last word.

Cregan wrote and sang lead on "Drink To You," the only Family song to be composed and sung by Family's final bass player, for the non-album B-side of "Sweet Desiree." It has a great power-pop sound with a train-style rhythm, accentuated by Cregan's urgent vocal and an on-target backing vocal from Linda Lewis. Intriguingly, a saxophone solo and two harmonica solos are present, recalling another Jim, Jim King, who played both instruments. Here, they're likely played by Roger Chapman, as he has been known to play those instruments as well as King.

"Drink To You" starts off with one of the best opening lyrics of all time. ;)

"Drink To You"
(Jim Cregan)

Well, sometimes I wanna blow my brains out
When I think I'm getting near the end.
Will you light the fire behind my eyes?
Will you be there when I need a friend?

I had a friend who was a clown and dancer,
He could make us laugh, all right.
For his final trick, he shot himself
In his lonely room one night.

(CHORUS)
So for all of you who are passin' on
In a time of life's long fight,
As you lie in bed with your achin' head
And you're staring at the light,
It's for you I'm going to drink,
For you I'm going to drink tonight.
Drink to you,
Drink to you.

(REPEAT CHORUS)

Tragedy, he's a-steadfast, yeah,
Like a lightning bolt from hell.
Let yourself go down, it comes around,
Crack your empty shell.

(REPEAT CHORUS)

I'm gonna drink,
I'm gonna drink to you.

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It's Only a Movie was not only Family's last album, it's their most polarizing, getting intensely mixed reviews. You either like it or you don't. New Musical Express fell into the former category, with its review of It's Only a Movie from its September 1, 1973 issue saying, "This illustrates their finer points of musicianship – and, conversely, a looseness that relaxes them to the point of becoming excessively repetitive . . .. Chapman has cooled his vocal ferocity to prove himself a most able singer on some country-flavoured pieces . . .. A testament to the full glory of one of Britain’s leading bands."

Over in America, Robert Christgau wrote, "This is their funniest, funkiest, most relaxed album. I know an autumnal Roger Chapman is a little hard to imagine, but this is a man of many guises - back in the beginning he sometimes came on like an opera singer." :eek:

But It's Only a Movie was only a qualified success at best, peaking at number thirty on the British album chart and failing to chart at all in America. But it was the British sales that proved that Family were right to call it a day. If they couldn't sell that many records in Britain, how could they ever make it stateside? Family appeared to, as we would say today, jump the shark - and Charlie Whitney and Roger Chapman decided to end Family before making that jump.

Family were playing in Newcastle upon Tyne the day It's Only a Movie was released, with only twenty-one gigs left, and as it was being billed as their farewell album, many cynics in the music biz were convinced that it was a publicity stunt to pump up their record sales. But it was no publicity stunt; Family were ready to go ut, and they did - with a bang. Their last show was a homecoming concert at Leicester Polytechnic (now De Montfort University) on Saturday, October 13, 1973. The concert took place at De Montfort Hall.

As Family's last concert was coming to an end, they played "The Weaver's Answer," and Rob Townsend recalls thinking to himself that he was glad he wouldn't have to play that song ever again. (He turned out to be wrong though, and I'll explain later. ;) )

After the concert, Family and their entourage retired to the Leicester Holiday Inn - yes, Americanization was already hitting the mother country in 1973 - where they had the mother of all farewell parties. Nt only was there plenty of food and drink, there was plenty of horseplay where a good deal f the food and all of the guests ended up in the hotel pool. Anyone who did not jump into the water was pushed in! :lol:

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Family's quest for world domination never got beyond Leicester Polytechnic . . . but they did stay at a Holiday Inn their last night! :lol:

And if you think that's the end of the Family story, you've got another thing coming!

Sunday, October 14, 1973 . . . Family are history. They've left behind seven albums and numerous singles, which had varying degrees of success in Britain, but not at the level of the Beatles or the Rolling Stones, and they are and will remain a nonentity in the U.S. What is their legacy - apart from a swimming pool at the Leicester Holiday Inn filled with chicken wings and celery sticks? :rofl:

Well, for one thing, the records they released offer challenging, innovative, dynamic and sometimes fiery, sometimes introspective, always spellbinding music that gained fans as diverse as Queen's Freddie Mercury and Cheap Trick's Rick Nielsen, who once said that Roger Chapman could make the purest song sound totally dirty.They created a die-hard, cult-like fanbase that exists to this day, keeping the memory of Family alive because the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame won't.

However, Nick Logan and Bob Woffinden of New Musical Express (an issue of which is below) offered this observation: "Family's insistence on pursuing [their] own path probably more than anything kept them from the very top of Rock's Premier League," they wrote, adding that "while American success could have supplied that status and impetus, the problems of setting up U.S. tours were becmoign ptogressiceky more diffuclit to overcome."

Yet, Logan and Woffinden admitted that if Music In a Doll's House had been released a few years after its 1968 date, when more listeners would have been ready to accept it, "there might have been a wholly different story to tell."

But here's the story that must be told: Family's insistence on pursing its own path, however a weakness for them commercially, proved to be a major strength artistically. Many generations of rock fans are continuing to discover Family's music, just as I did when I first bought Fearless in March 2002; I had their whole catalog by the end of the year. :)

And what became of the members of Family's seventh and final lineup?

Tony Ashton mostly did session work as a keyboardist after Family's breakup, but he did found a supergroup with two Deep Purple alumni, drummer Ian Paice and keyboardist Jon Lord, simply called Paice Ashton Lord. Their 1977 LP release, Malice In Wonderland (not to be confused with the Nazareth LP of the same title), was their only album.

Sadly, Ashton died of cancer at 55 years of age in May 2001. His old partner in Ashton, Gardner and Dyke, bass player Kim Gardner, died five months later from cancer at the age of 53. (Gardner's daughter Eva is a sought-after session bassist in her own right.)

Jim Cregan moved on to join Steve Harley's band Cockney Rebel. Cregan (second from left) played with Harley (center) on Harley's 1975 single "Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me)" - not to be confused with the similarly titled Chicago song - from the Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel album The Best Years of Our Lives. Recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London, "Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me)" was a number-one hit in Britain.

Harley died in March 2024. :(

In 1977, Jim Cregan got his longest gig ever - he became Rod Stewart's rhythm guitarist and the musical director of Stewart's backing band. In terms of making a living, Cregan made a great move - Stewart was entering the most commercially successful periods of his career. Musically, well . . .

At about the time Cregan joined Stewart's backing band, Stewart more or less started to sell out and make formulaic pop for the masses - pumped-up rockers for AOR radio and light, soft-rock ballads for hit radio. This jibed nicely with American commercial radio, which made Stewart Public Enemy Number One among the punks, who thought Stewart was pandering to Middle American tastes, which they considered to be lousy.

Cregan deserves credit for making Stewart sound as good as he did and keeping him from sounding even lamer than he was . . . although nothing could save "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?" from being anything other than a loathsome song.

Cregan's reputation suffered something of a black eye in 1988 when Stewart released the second single from his Out of Order album. "Forever Young," credited to Stewart and to Cregan and keyboardist Kevin Savigar, shared at first hearing a passing similarity to the Bob Dylan song of the same title, but closer inspection revealed Stewart's song to be almost a copy of the Dylan snog. "[I]t would be fair to say that while the melody and the music is not at all the same [as Dylan's song], the idea of the song is similar," Stewart's manager, Arnold Stiefel, confessed. "The architecture of the lyrics of the song is very much from Dylan – there are definite similarities."

There were enough similarities to spur Dylan into requesting that he get a cut of the songwriting royalties, and Stewart readily agreed.

Jim Cregan, who helped Rod Stewart write many of this biggest late-1970s and 1980s hits, stayed with Stewart long enough to see his boss return to the early-seventies form many of Rod's early admirers wish he'd stuck with all along. Vagabond Heart (1991) and A Spanner In the Works (1995) were as popular with the press as they were with the public.

Cregan then parted company with Stewart in 1995, forming a band called Farm Dogs with Elton John lyricist Bernie Taupin. He would be both a producer and a session man in Los Angeles in the late nineties and early two thousand zeroes, returning to Britain after getting tired of Hollywood jive.

Among the production efforts of Cregan's career were a few mid-seventies albums by his girlfriend Linda Lewis, whom he married in 1977 but divorced after five years. (Lewis died in 2023. :( ) In 2019, he published his autobiography, "And On Guitar . . ."

Cregan has remained friends with Roger Chapman and has worked with him, and he's also remained friends with Rod Stewart . . . and American model Kelly Emberg, Stewart's girlfriend from the 1980s. Here are Kelly and Jim in 2019. :)

Rob Townsend joined Medicine Head, the band Tony Ashton, was producing, but left after eighteen months. He spent the latter of of the 1970s as freelance session drummer for Peter Skellern, George Melly and Bill Wyman, as well as or Kevin Ayers. He also reunited with Charlie Whitney in an early-eighties band, Axis Point.

In 1982 Townsend joined The Blues Band, in a line up including former Manfred Mann vocalist Paul Jones, guitarists Dave Kelly and former Manfred Mann guitarist Tom McGuinness ,along with guitarist Dave Kelly and bassist Gary Fletcher. In 1991, he also joined Jones and McGuinness as part of the Manfred Mann splinter band The Manfreds, recording and touring, as well as backing other performers including Georgie Fame, Colin Blunstone, Long John Baldry, and Chris Farlowe.

Townsend once said in an interview, "I have come home from tours absolutely dead on my feet and I will get a call to go and play at a local pub because their regular drummer can't do it and I say yes . . .. When I am not playing I go to drum shops or music shows. I just love it. I feel so lucky to be able to be doing something I love to do and to be able to earn a living from it." :drummer:

Family's head axe man kept his partnership with Roger Chapman going after Family's demise. Together, they formed a new band - Streetwalkers - that had a more polished and radio-friendly sound than Family did. (And yes, I'm planning a thread exploring Streetwalkers' catalog.) After four albums, Streetwalkers split up, ending Chappo and Charlie's eleven-year collaboration.

Whitney remained active in rock music, but at a lower profile. Asnoted, he reunited with Rob Townsend to form Axis Point in 1978 - not in the early 1980s as I previously said, and I regret the error.

The line-up for this band included piano player Eddie Hardin, vocalist and guitarist Bobby Tench from Streetwalkers and former Taste bassist Richard McCracken. When Axis Point broke up in 1980, Whitney formed Los Racketeeros, a live unit which played blues and bluegrass music. Los Racketeeros recorded a debut album in 1995 with a line-up including Alan Rogers, Pete Tomlyn, and Tony Taylor.

Whitney released a solo album in 1999, simply titled John Whitney A K A Charlie Whitney, and he played concerts with Robert A. Roberts, a singer-songwriter, vocalist, harmonica player and guitarist, who had been a founding member of the London Bluesband Roadhouse. They released a CD as The Whitney-Roberts Combo experimenting with folk music.

Whitney now lives in Mytilene on the island of Lesbos, Greece.

After his three-year stint in Streetwalkers with Charlie Whitney, Roger Chapman began a solo career with his debut solo album, 1979's Chappo. Chapman has based his singing and his material - some originals, some covers - on the blues, and he became a working-class hero to listeners in Germany, which had always been a friendly market for Family. :singer: Among the songs he's covered are the Rolling Stones' "Let's Spend the Night Together" and the Cars' "Drive." He continued his solo career into the 2020s with Life In the Pond, released in 2021.

Since 1973, Family's output has mostly been greatest-hits compilations and, with the advent of compact discs, reissues - some done better than others. The Best of Family was issued in 1974, the year after the breakup (and the year of the debut LP from Streetwalkers, Charlie Whitney's and Roger Chapman's new project) A more comprehensive retrospective appeared in the CD era, Family History, in 2013.

In 1998, See For Miles Records reissued Music In a Doll's House and Family Entertainment, the only LPs Family's onetime members do not own the rights to, with Super Bit Mapping remastering to improve the sound, and perhaps Whitney and Chapman were finally satisfied with the mastering of the latter album this time. Also in the late nineties, Castle Music issued the latter five Family albums, with the corresponding non-album songs included as bonus tracks.

Twenty-first century reissues of these same five albums include Mystic's 2003 CD reissues, Repertoire's 2006 reissues, and, more recently, 2020s re-releases from Cherry Red Records. The late-'90s Castle Music CDs, however, remain the definitive reissues for their comprehensive gathering of all of Family's recordings from October 1969 on. The sound is also pretty sharp, though the production flaws in A Song For Me are still evident. Nothing to get upset about, though. :)

In 1993, more than 25 years after the release of their first single, Family became eligible for induction for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. :)

Thus a royal snubbing of Family by the Hall of Fame of 31 years and counting began. :mad:

Almost every classic rock band from the '60s and '70s got box sets complied in their honor, and Family were no exception. In 2003, Mystic Records released Roger Chapman: Family and Friends, a five-disc set documenting Roger Chapman's career with Family and Streetwalkers as well as his solo career.

What would come next, though, would make die-hard Family fans giddy with excitement.

February 2013 saw the entire Family catalog come together for the first time in a massive 14-disc box set released by Snapper Records in the U.K. It included all the bands recorded work plus two discs of unreleased material. Containing all of the band’s albums from the career defining late '60s albums Music In A Doll’s House (now including the exceptional pre-album psych-pop single "Scene Through The Eye Of A Lens"/"Gypsy Woman") and Family Entertainment through 1970's A Song For Me and Anyway, 1971's Old Songs New Songs and Fearless, 1972’s Bandstand and 1973’s It’s Only A Movie. The set was further bolstered with a 1971 concert, Family Live (originally released in 2003; more about that later), and a 2-CD set of unreleased demos and alternate takes, Once Upon A Time And More – culled from the Anyway, Fearless, Bandstand and It’s Only A Movie album sessions and remastered from original tapes that had lain undisturbed in Roger Chapman’s loft until 2012. This two-disc set captures the hitherto unheard work-in-progress of some of Family’s most popular tracks along with priceless in-studio banter. Finally, three singles from 1971 and 1973 were also duplicated in CD single format, all housed in their original artwork. Then there was a hardback book penned by Family Web site master Pete Feenstra and a separate magazine-styled re-creation of a contemporary music weekly featuring historic articles and reviews. And, each copy came with a hand signed certificate of authenticity from Roger Chapman himself.

The price for this superb package? £125, or $195 in American currency in 2013. Nice set if you could afford it, and I think it may still be available.

This interview with Chapman and Townsend was done in 2013 for the Family Once Upon a Time box set.

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In 2003, Mystic Records released Family Live, a newly available concert recording from November 1971. It's a little ragged, and the sound quality isn't the best, but it captures them touring to support Fearless - and that's all you need to know. :) :singer: :guitar: :drummer:

In 2004, Hux Records released two albums compiling some of Family's BBC Radio performances. Volume 1 contained versions of "Love Is a Sleeper," "Holding the Compass," "A Song For Me" and "Drowned In Wine" that had radically different arrangements from the 1970 studio versions. They had been recorded in 1968 and 1969 with Jim King on saxophone or harmonica but were recorded for A Song For Me with Poli Palmer on different instruments. These BBC performances were mostly superior to the familiar studio recordings.

Volume 2 picked up the BBC live performances from 1971, continuing until the band's 1973 breakup. Later, Hux issued a third volume of BBC performances from 1970, which the Beeb had erased from its (past) archives; this third album was complied from private off-air recordings. It featured "Here Comes the Grin," a forgotten instrumental that Family had never properly recorded for an LP.

The trio of Family BBC albums from Hux had only scratched the surface. In the fall of 2018, Madfish Records released Family At the BBC, a seven-compact-disc box set with a digital videodisc. The release was in tandem with the fiftieth anniversary of Family's debut album, Music In a Doll's House.

This was the most comprehensive release of Family's recordings for the BBC, featuring seven CDs containing tracks beginning with their first session for "Top Gear" on November 26, 1967 and running up until their last session with John Peel on May 22, 1973. The eighth disc is a DVD of nine live tracks from iconic BBC shows including "Top of the Pops," "The Old Grey Whistle Test" and a rare performance on ITV's "Doing Their Thing."

This book set boasts 20 previously unreleased recordings including new versions of "Scene Through The Eye Of A Lens," "Old Songs New Songs" and "The Weaver’s Answer." All CD audio has been newly remastered for this release.

Also included in the 48 pages of this deluxe hardback book are John Peel's now legendary interviews, introductions and anecdotes, new liner notes, a rare poster replica promoting Family Entertainment and rare photographs including shots from the lens of Michael Putland and Jill Furmanovsky.

Poli Palmer, Family's keyboardist, flutist, and vibraphonist for three years, made this half-hour video in February 2019 to review Family's BBC box set for himself. It is well worth the time to watch. :)

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And if all of these reissues and box sets weren't enough, the band decided to reunite!

Well, sort of. There were seven different lineups of Family, and it was the sixth lineup that got back together - sans Charlie Whitney, who apparently disapproved of reunions (you think seeing Kiss getting back together might have soured him on the idea?) and therefore refused to take part. And, as you might recall, the Mark 6 version of Family was the only Family lineup that did not make a record.

No matter. Even with a 20 percent discount, this was still a bargain. :)

The newly reunited four-fifths of Family Mark 6 announced in 2012 plans for occasional shows in the new year (2013) and possibly more shows beyond that . . . but no new record. This was strictly a nostalgia trip, it was not going to be a permanent reunion, and it would not be a "farewell" tour - that had already happened in 1973. Family weren't in it for the money; they never made much of it anyway since they only had qualified success in Britain and their American fans could have conventions in a bungalow. This was going to be for fun.

Below: Family in 2012. From left: Jim Cregan ,Rob Townsend, Roger Chapman, Poli Palmer.)

Here's a clip from one of Family's reunion shows. :)

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The reunited Family played their first show on Saturday, February 2, 2013, at O2 Shepherds Bush Empire in London. It was also Poli Palmer's first appearance with the band since November 1972.

As the photo below shows, the band had to bring in a bunch of backup musicians - five of them, hence they outnumbered the guys in the group - to apparently compensate for the absence of Charlie Whitney. They were obviously never going to do that, but by all accounts, they came close enough. :)

This time it was Jim Cregan who was playing the double-neck guitar. He played the double-neck guitar/bass instrument in Family back in '73, but this time he was playing a six/twelve string double neck, like Whitney's old Gibson, leaving the bass playing to someone else. He knows his strengths.

Even more than fellow travellers Traffic, Family were in danger of being written out of the annals of British rock history or just remembered for the handful of off-kilter, intriguing hits they scored in the early seventies.

A stupendous 14-disc box-set entitled Once Upon A Time, released by Snapper Music, should help put that right and enable long-standing fans who fell under their spell at the Isle of Wight Festivals of 1969 and 1970 to replace their dog-eared vinyl. It has also provided the perfect opportunity for an eagerly-anticipated reunion four decades after their last concert. With devotees of the underground Leicester group travelling from as far afield as Austria and the US, the demand for tickets was so strong that a second, heavily-touted, night was quickly added.

Fittingly introduced by Leicester City legend Frank Worthington, they launched into the vertiginous "Top Of The Hill" from the Bandstand album, which made the most of John 'Poli' Palmer's deftness on the vibes and frontman Roger 'Chappo' Chapman's formidable vocals, and instantly recaptured the magic of their glory years.

Aided by five superb supporting musicians billed as the 'In-Laws', the four main Family men, Chapman, Palmer, drummer Rob Townsend and guitarist Jim Cregan, resplendent in red neckerchief and matching shoes, cherry-picked their way through their rich and diverse catalogue, particularly excelling on the funky "Holding The Compass" and the groovy "Ready To Go", as well as several selections from the fondly remembered Fearless album which formed the centrepiece of a magnificent set.

Chapman's unique vibrato has often been compared to Joe Cocker's, yet he remains a more nuanced vocalist and has a commanding presence reminiscent of the late Alex Harvey, while the debt Peter Gabriel and Fish owe to him became more obvious as the evening progressed. A many-faceted group with an oft-changing line-up, Family operated at the rockier end of psych-prog, with a hefty dose of blues and jazz thrown in, but occasionally explored a gentler, more pastoral vein, as demonstrated on their wonderful 1969 single "No Mule's Fool", another highlight, or the second of two encores, the blissful "My Friend The Sun".

The towering Chapman also brought a Brecht-like quality to the raucous "Burlesque" and the epochal closer, "In My Own Time". They returned for "The Weaver's Answer", their insightful signature song, reprised by the good-natured, fifty-something crowd, and :Sweet Desiree", with the frontman name-checking former bandmates, dead, otherwise engaged, or simply enjoying the good life on a Greek island, in the case of guitarist and co-writer Charlie Whitney. With a seven album catalogue to revisit, this most engaging and fulfilling of reunions could run and run.

And here's a review for the same show on the blog "Astounded by Sound!".

https://astoundedbysound.blogspot.com/2013/02/family-o2-shepherds-bush-empire-2nd.html

Jim Cregan in 2013 :)

Roger Chapman in 2013 :)

Family @ London Shepherd’s Bush Empire - 02/03/13

Yes, you read that right, last night I saw the phenomenal band that is Family, who reunited for a one-off gig in London (which later changed to two due to the understandable demand). Roger Chapman (Vocals), Rob Townshend (Drums), John “Poli” Palmer (Vibes) and Jim Cregan (guitar) reunited and brought along a collection of other musicians who they referred to as the In-Laws. Geoff Whitehorn (Guitar), Jim Lingwood (More Drums), Gary Twigg (Bass), Paul Hirsh (Organ, Piano) and Nick Payn (saxophones, flute and harmonica) joined them and expanded Family’s sound to a new level.

A special mention must go to their support act, the amazing blues guitarist Papa George. I had not heard of him and before the gig I would have said that I wasn’t a fan of blues music at all, but seeing him in action might just change that. Papa George performed entirely alone on some very nice-looking acoustic guitars and played at a very impressive level. He was only on for 45 minutes but it was definitely memorable.

But onto the main act. For the week leading up to the night my excitement and anticipation gradually rose until I couldn’t sit still, and could often be found blaring Family out loudly all the time. On the night I was lucky enough to get a spot at the very front of the venue and settled down for a fun evening.

After Papa George’s set the legendary Family finally appeared, introduced by lifelong fan and former footballer Frank Worthington. Family walked on to a deafening roar from the crowd and launched straight into “Top of the Hill” from the Bandstand album. Despite my listening to Family whenever I could I was still somewhat unfamiliar with some of the songs and worried that after all the build up it would be a night of songs I didn’t know, but as soon as the intro to “Drowned In Wine” began I knew I was just being silly.

So were Family as good as they had been 40 years previously? Of course they were! The band presented an eclectic taste of songs from most of their albums (excluding, sadly, Music in a Doll’s House) and played them with an infectious energy that got everybody dancing, as well as successfully pulling off the slower, more gentle songs. A particular highlight was “My Friend The Sun” which got everybody singing along to it, much to the bands surprise.

You could not say that it was a greatest hits-type of setlist (mainly because Family didn’t have many hits) but all of the popular songs were there: The aforementioned “Droned in Wine”, “Between the Blue and Me” and “Burlesque” were all included and well received by the crowd, as well as some of the lesser known songs such as “No Mule’s Fool” and “Hung Up Down”. Family’s anthem, “The Weaver’s Answer”, was of course present and saved for the first encore, where it was greeted warmly and was as wild and energetic as it was in it’s heyday.

The expanded lineup also meant that several song were expanded and altered to sound more unique, such as the instrumental “Crinkly Grin”, which went from being a brief one minute instrumental song to a full 5 minute rock out. Every member was given plenty solos and was able to make themselves heard despite how loud everything was.

It was also interesting to see how several parts of the songs were performed. Keyboards had become vibes! Saxes were actually harmonicas! Violins were now high pitched guitars! It was amazing seeing the original parts being played on completely different instruments, yet hearing them sound so much like the album versions you’d want to listen to the originals just to see if you had been mistaken.

Family were clearly having fun playing together again after so many years and Roger Chapman in particular was full of energy, dancing all over the stage belting (and bleating!) out the lyrics with much gusto. He also took a moment of the final number, “Sweet Desiree”, to give a shout out to the absent members of Family, some of whom are no longer with us. It was a nice gesture and the crowd cheered for them just as loudly as those present, as well as get a good chuckle from the various mentions of original guitarist John “Charlie” Whitney, the only core member to not take part in the reunion.

In the end everybody walked out of the gig buzzing. Family lived completely up to my expectations and I am thrilled to be able to say that I have seen one of the most unique and original bands live.

The setlist was:

1.Top of the Hill
2. Drowned in Wine
3. Holding the Compass
4. Part of the Load
5. Ready to Go
6. Crinkly Grin
7. Burning Bridges
8. No Mule’s Fool
9. Sat'dy Barfly
10. Between the Blue and Me
11. Hung Up Down
12. Burlesque
13. In My Own Time

Encore 1:
14. The Weaver’s Answer

Encore 2:
15. My Friend the Sun
16. Sweet Desiree

Another recent shot of Chappo! :)

The temporary Family reunion continued into 2014, where the band played their hometown of Leicester. (Okay, Jim Cregan and Poli Palmer wer from elsewhere, but let that pass.) It was the band's first Leicester concert since their farewell show in October 1973.

Here is the poster advertising their appearance in Leicester on January 30, 2014. It obviously did not use a more recent picture. ;)

Here's a picture from Family's reunion concert in Leicester. Roger Chapman is flanked by Jim Cregan and by Geoff Whitehorn, a member of Chapman's solo backup band, :) :cool:

Rob Townsend in 2014

In 2015, Family played the Butlins resort on Saturday, February 7 in Minehead, Somerset, attracting more people to a holiday camp in the middle of winter than otherwise might have turned out. :lol:

Here's Roger Chapman in 2015:

Here's the setlist from Family's 2015 concert:

Top of the Hill
The Weaver’s Answer
How-Hi-The-Li
Procession
Hung Up Down
No Mule’s Fool
Holding the Compass
Sat’d’y Barfly
Between Blue and Me
Burlesque
In My Own Time
My Friend the Sun
Sweet Desiree

The reunited Family did their last shows in 2016. After that, everyone went back to their day jobs.

The band ended it in the fiftieth university year that the band became Family, and Roger Chapman (below) was certainly a big reason for how Family became the "strange band" they were. :)