What did they do next? Part 2b – Tony Kaye – 384

The support thing is interesting as my recollection of the early to mid 70s was that concert bills were very mixed affairs. That reflected the fact that music magazines were generally not concerned with specific genre ghettos. Prior to NWOBHM Melody Maker, NME, Sounds wrote broadly about almost everything that was pop and rock (and beyond in the case of MM). Emmylou Harris, Sabbath and Van der Graaf Generator and Dr Feelgood could all appear in the same edition and no one would think there was anything odd about that.

There were Blues & Soul and Echoes magazines for Soul & Reggae fans (one of which may have also been called Black Music) and the specialist Jazz mags of course but all those genres got covered in a lot of the Rock press too if in less detail.

The QPR and Stoke bills are good indicators of that dynamic – Gryphon (medieval rock), Seals and Crofts (horrible bland AOR, I would say “god awful” but they were also Christian rockers I believe which touches on another of this week’s themes), Ace (Pub Rock with a touch of what was known at the time as Blue-Eyed Soul), Sensational Alex Harvey Band (theatrical, confrontational, political, progressive musically in that there was complexity but more like Brecht & Weill than your run of the mill rock band). I saw Donovan open for the band in 77 (definitely not Prog) and Richie Havens open for Genesis around the same time. IIRC John Martyn and Danny Thompson opened for Yes in America in the late 70s. That’s was double bass and acoustic guitar duo! John could be very progressive but he was a singer songwriter and no one would call his occasionally experimental folk Prog Rock. So nothing formulaic about any of that. Even as late as 1978 I remember seeing West Coast hippie geniuses Spirit with Agit Punk band Alternative TV and The Police on the same bill.

Back then we talked about “progressive” music but not Prog. The term Metal got used a bit but not to the same degree. It was just all Rock to us and most people bought their albums broadly across the whole spectrum. It was all just music to us.

PS don’t forget that U2, the biggest band in the world for most of the 80s, were “out” Christians. It can’t have been that unfashionable. Dylan had a hard time for his string of Christian albums (all of which are brilliant btw) but that was more about the fact that he threw most of his old material away at the same time so the shows became more like born again meetings. The problem with most Christian Rock I have heard is that they are very much message first, music second. The music is a vehicle to sell an idea to young people not music in its own right. A generalisation but one that holds up.

PPS anyone who likes the live Badger album could do worse than check out Traffic’s On The Road album. The usual core of Brits (sans Dave Mason) supported by a team of crack Muscle Shoals session guys. That has the same British meets Southern feel. Long jams. Great playing, especially some of Steve Winwood’s lead guitar work.