We continue our look at the music of 50 years ago….
I’ll admit I didn’t listen to some of the albums we will profile in these pages when they were new. Central Wisconsin was not exactly a breeding ground for cutting edge music and without an older sibling to get there first, I wasn’t hearing alot of British prog rock. Yeah, the radio would occasionally play a cut from ELP or Yes or the Moody Blues…but a band like Barclay James Harvest was unknown to me…until I was able to explore the vast stacks of wax at WWSP, the student run radio station at my alma mater, UW-Stevens Point. I’ve talked before how different this station was compared to other college radio stations. Here, the students actually ran the show and by the time I got there in 1975 the music library had been built up by guys like Jerry Gavin and Chris Shebel and others who went on to sterling radio careers around the country. To a kid who grew up on Top 40 radio, these seemingly endless racks of albums, many from bands and artists I’d only seen mentioned in Rolling Stone, were a constant source of amazement. And the idea that I could use the equipment at the radio station to listen to as many of them as I could fit into day was a fantastic treat.
Barclay James Harvest was an English band and in 1971 had released their 2nd LP called Once Again. The band featured the guitar of John Lees and the keyboards of Stuart Wolstenholme and this album was recorded using a full symphony orchestra which they then took on tour. The tunes were mostly slow and introspective, but sometimes powerful in scope. They could get going as well like the tune “Ball & Chain, but think Moody Blues with a touch of Pink Floyd as a comparison. One interesting note has Lees playing John Lennon’s Epiphone Casino guitar on the track “Galadriel”.
I’m sure that many of you, with the exception of Gavin and Fred Brennan, have never heard this record. So give it a listen and hear what some of the English Prog boys were doing in 1971…and remember, that for you, You Tube is your very own 90fm music library when you want to time travel to the past.
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