While some musicians became big stars, I’ve always been interested in those that were brilliant but didn’t, often for no good obvious reason. Take Stan Webb for example. He was the driving force behind Chicken Shack of course and famous for playing with a really long lead which allowed him to wander around venues. A great blues player but success on a worldwide level escaped him.
Then there’s Caravan’s Pye Hastings, their guitarist. He has made some extraordinary, absolutely fantastic music but is probably a stranger in his own front room.
How about Dave Cousins of the Strawbs, a brilliant band who made some fabulous and inventive music. He was their guitarist and main songwriter but has anyone heard of him?
Even people who had a bit of fame, like Dave Mason for three years with Traffic, was hip to the scene for a year in the late 60s then became a briefly popular solo act in America, then nothing. Alone Together and his live albums are superb but largely forgotten.
Russ Ballard was Argent’s guitarist and an excellent song writer but who remembers him now? Kim Simmonds played for decades in Savoy Brown and was a brilliant blues player, and I saw him up close in an Edinburgh club but never became anything but a quiz question.
People talk about the great riffmeisters, Zal Cleminson is rarely in that conversation, but what a distinctive player, riffs like Faith Healer and Tomahawk Kid are exceptional.
Al Stewart is famous for Year Of The Cat and Time Passages and not much else, except perhaps On The Border. When I saw him in Middlesbrough in 1976, he had a huge array of different guitars and he played them all. Yet those songs apart, does anyone know any other? He certainly has had little chart action apart from those two albums.
Eddie Jobson is a great but obscure player on violin and keyboards who was part of Roxy, Zappa, and the sizzling UK. I know him because he’s from where I’m from but does anyone else?
Alan Hull was the Geordie Bob Dylan and must be remembered as such but does anyone outside of Newcastle remember how brilliant he was.
As time slips away, so does awareness of these people who brought us the music of our lives and framed our cultural landscape. I genuinely wanted to honour these people and many more in what we do, otherwise, they might be forgotten, and that would be terrible.
