Steve's Record Retrospective: FAMILY!

[Steve M.]

"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.

[Steve M.]

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.

[Steve M.]

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.

[Steve M.]

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."

[Steve M.]

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.

[Steve M.]

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."

[Steve M.]

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.

[Steve M.]

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.

[Steve M.]

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.

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.

[Steve M.]

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.

[Steve M.]

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.

[Steve M.]

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!"

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.

[Steve M.]

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.

[Steve M.]

"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.

[Steve M.]

"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.