HORSE/S: PAUSE FOR A HOARSE HORSE/HOME

Country music has always had a chequered history over here in the UK, there being an understandable suspicion of the more rhinestones and bouffant hair variety that, for so many years, gave even the genre a bad name outside its immediate milieu. Personally it was always the 'and western' that put me off, only many years coming to know and love quite what that might mean, as in western swing. But country-rock, or perhaps as we now should call it, americana, that's a whole different plate of beans. Us brits have taken to that in a big way, both in terms of growing our own and offering a sometimes more sympathetic audience to visitors as they get at home. Todays piece is decidedly too old for americana, being from the early 70s, when bands like Cochise and Starry Eyed and Laughing were adding influences culled from The Byrds and the Burritos.  The pre-punk of pub-rock, the early backlash to the some of the preposterousnesses of prog, saw also a lot of country tropes mixed into the pot, alongside soul and straight ahead rock'n'roll. Brinsley Schwarz, an early home for Nick Lowe, and Chilli Willi and the Red Hot Peppers were frontrunners, influentially if not necessarily in sales. Nowadays there are as many gritty blue collar banjo and steel bands over here as, well, in a short Nashville street. So a few, my favourites being Camden's Rockingbirds. Plus several festivals devoted to the genre.

Home had only a brief window. Resolutely 3rd tier in terms of attainment and success, famous as much for where the members went next as in their own right. The track above comes from their 1971 debut, the sleeve illustration giving a fair idea of where they were hailing from and striving at. I actually bought this at the time, it various surviving culls on my collection, as history re-decided my earlier tastes. However there was clearly a hint of something, the twin guitars of Laurie Wiseman and Mick Stubbs soaring higher than the journeyman songs and vocals, mainly provided by Stubbs.  Bass was provided by one Cliff Williams, yes, that one, and was more adventurous, say, than his later job, with drums and background keys courtesy Mick Cook and Clive John.

A second record followed, the eponymous 'Home', by which time they had ditched John and ploughed, generally, a yet more earnest west coast vibe, if more Outlaws than Eagles, winning over fans from the bands they played support to. But those fans weren't putting their hands in their pockets, and the moment called for a prog-rock concept album, echoing similar bands in similar circumstances, Camel and Wishbone Ash, last gasps of the longhairs before punk blew down the doors. (Of course, history also reminds us that the longhairs never actually went away, just having shorter hair and shorter songs, most continuing to this day.) The Alchemist was the 3rd and last album put together by Home. Stylistically different, it isn't all bad, if desperately dated.

Stubbs left and the remainder of the band toured as Al Stewart's backing band, before going their separate ways. Wisefield joined, arguably appropriately, his guitar style being eminently suitable, the above mentioned Wishbone Ash, Cook joined the Groundhogs and, earlier keyboards man, John was by now with Man. Stubbs, surprisingly, as the songsmith and singer, or possibly because of that, struggled the most, largely disappearing from view. The big ticket fell to Williams, filling the AC/DC bassist role for the next 39 years. A waste of his talent, IMHO, but what do I know, as his accountant might remind me.

Pause.

The early 70s were a bumper time for would be jobbing musicians, record companies falling over each other to give multi-disc contracts to barely out of school buskers, allowing them to build up their skills, hone any talents and, eventually, or so the labels hoped, repay the investment. Bands like Home were everywhere, chock full of musicians often later making a greater inroads elsewhere. Often with back catalogues mostly forgotten, I enjoy looking back and remembering. This piece began musing on country and english. Funny how it seems to have ended elsewhere.

LEAVES: Leaf and Stream/Wishbone Ash

There is always going to be an elephant in the room of this theme, what with the sort of leaf and leaves seeming to be of, um, such appeal to musicians and music lovers. And I don't mean tea. So I have deliberately looked away and have not inhaled today, celebrating the more pastoral side. As in ain't nature wonderful, which, of course it is. This too has also provided a rich vein of inspiration, especially in my home land and especially in the more whimsical days of the hippy/folk/prog interface. Wishbone Ash, who would have hated any of those epithets alone, let alone collectively, actually and amply epitomise this union. Songs about a mythical mystical past? Check. Gentle melodies sweetly sung? Check. Rippling, dual lead guitars, playing tunes rather than shredding the notes. Check, double check. All so Game of Thrones, but without any of the troublesome cussing or titties.

Wishbone Ash were the cool band to have an album of tucked under your arm. 'Argus', from which this song is plucked, and/or 'Pilgrimage' seemed to be the peak of teenage dudedom in the early 70s, at least at my school. Not too popular or chart-bothering, a little bit niche, certain to pop up on the Old Grey Whistle Test TV show or in NME, the inky weekly hipster's bible . Yup, I fell for all of this, hook, line and sinker until the great awkwardness of the punk wars came along, sweeping all with hair and melody away in the tsunami of year zero. Which I also loved, transferring my passions, cutting my hair and narrowing my trousers. I don't suppose I ever listened to anything of theirs again. But they didn't go away. Nobody did: they all play on and probably at a theatre near you soon. Ash, as their faithful called them, did better, or was it worse, musical differences, always musical differences, causing them to become 2, or is it 3, bands, each with some claim to the name. Ugliness and the courts intervened and so there are currently at least 2 versions on the road, Wishbone Ash, featuring one original member, Andy Powell, and Martin Turner's band notallowedtobecalledWishboneAsh (which they probably wouldn't be allowed to be called either), which contains, ironically not only Turner, who actually founded the original band, but often also another original member, (no relation) Ted Turner and the long serving drummer of those epochal recordings, Laurie Wisefield. The Powell helmed band have continued to release new material, the Turner version ploughing the classic furrows of yesteryear. Such is life, and I would probably see either band as having equal right to the name and to perform, without, to be fair, me taking the time and trouble to seek out either. (Would either, could either surpass the records?)

Here's the nearest thing to making that decision, a near-unplugged from the official Ash, in 2017, Andy Powell sadly not wielding the flying V that was as much their trademark* as anything else, but it is visible behind him, stacked against the drum podium. (*And maybe why the courts gave him the band?)

And here, from the year before, is Martin Taylor's.

Buy the original, when all is said and done, it is a beautiful song.

Pilgrims & Immigrants: Wishbone Ash

Download [Wishbone Ash: The Pilgrim]

There have been several comments here recently that are fitting for our next theme: Blog contributor "A" notes survival despite anonymity (forging a new path and facing oblivion). J. David (to me) brings together farming and pilgrimages. Yasgur's farm was a pilgrimage for many: a difficult trek toward the hope of a future world. The Woodstock pilgrims set out on a journey to re-set their lives: it was a trip (in more ways than one for some) towards a new life.

The pilgrims that figure in the Thanksgiving story had little intention of returning home, although they appear to have been bound to many of their roots. Being as the pilgrims of Plymouth were not the first to settle in the new land, they were also not the first to celebrate a "thanksgiving". Recently, current president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, would have us believe that other Old World peoples may have thanked their lord on the shores of the New World earlier than previously recorded. His claims aside, there is evidence that earlier North American settlements celebrated a thanksgiving of some sort.

That said, the 1620 pilgrim/refugees from England via Holland had much to be thankful for. Half of them were still alive and they had a decent crop that would keep the remainder alive for the following year. It was thus that they (so the story goes) celebrated the harvest of 1621  with a feast of thanks, to which they invited their friends to partake.

It was no small feat for the Mayflower voyagers to arrive in one piece: they left once in 2 boats, returned to regroup when one boat began taking on water, cut their number, and started out again. It took them from Sept 6 to Nov 19 to cross the ocean and then nigh on 2 weeks to actually get ashore after they sighted the shores of North America. It then took them another year or so to establish a viable outpost, during which time half of them perished - all of which would certainly incline one to offer thanks.

Few pilgrimages are simple. Chaucer, in the Canterbury Tales, relates a relatively easy (for the 15th century) pilgrimage to the relics of Thomas Becket - there are tales of the whole spectrum of mankind that the narrator meets along the way. As bloggers "A" and J. David note, there is someone somewhere who keeps a flame burning - even today - for Thomas Becket.

There is, in fact, a flame still burning for Wishbone Ash - rewind not quite to the pilgrim fathers, but back to the 70s. As one who should have paid more attention to the band back when they were big (reaching the top 30 in the 70s), I regret not having listened more carefully back then (and as "A" says, one of the benefits of blogging here is the chance to learn/delve deeper.) My search for a <Pilgrim> song lead to Wishbone Ash's Pilgrim, nan lo-and-behold, I find myself learning more about and hearing good sounds from a seminal band that featured dual lead guitars. To my ears, it sounds -pleasantly - like the Allman Brothers Duane Allman  and Dickey Betts (edited since first post - sorry). What's even more amazing is that Wishbone Ash is still doing their thing 23 albums/40 years later.

Check it out: