Friday Photo #59

My maternal grandmother remarried late in life and thus Uncle Ted became the only male grandparent figure I'd ever have. He worked at the Leyton Orient football ground (in those days known simply as Orient) in the 1960s and frequently took me with him to home matches. Uncle Ted served in both wars, though, like so many, never discussed the horrors he undoubtedly witnessed - a fuller picture only emerging after his death with the discovery of his photos, papers and medals. Sadly he suffered a debilitating stroke in 1970 and passed away in 1972. Here we are in 1965.

The Sensational Alex Harvey Band - Hammer Song

Monday Long Song

My flying visit to London last weekend was a real treat. The way things transpired I had just one full day with the whole family, but we made the most of it in spite of absolutely sweltering conditions. By midday on Tuesday I was on the motorway heading home and back to work. My aunt loved catching up with her grandchildren for the first time in five years, even if she found their accents a little difficult to decipher with her failing hearing. They all got together several more times throughout the week before the American contingent flew back to New York on Saturday afternoon. 

Today apparently marks the end of this current heatwave, with cooler conditions due as the week progresses. I'm relieved to hear it, as from Thursday I'll be spending my annual three nights sleeping under canvas at a local folk festival.

........................  

On April 30th 1976, exactly a year to the day after my family relocated from London to Ipswich, I paid the princely sum of £1.75 to see The Sensational Alex Harvey Band in action at the local Gaumont Theatre. The band's 1974 LP 'The Impossible Dream' was a key record in my youth and they performed the whole of 'The Hot City Symphony' from it that night. After the show me and my gig-buddy hung around at the stage door and met Alex...and what a diamond geezer he was. Alex seemed quite old to us kids, though in actual fact he was only 41 at the time, but tragically had less than six years left to live.

The Sensational Alex Harvey Band - The Hot City Symphony Part 2: Man in the Jar

Monday Long Song

Following the success of their second LP 'Next...' in 1973, The Sensational Alex Harvey Band entered the studio to record their third album with the legendary Shel Talmy sitting in the producer's chair. In spite of Talmy's spectacular track record in the 1960s with the likes of The Who and The Kinks, SAHB weren't happy with the results, scrapping the recordings and sacking Talmy from the project. After reuniting with their longtime producer David Batchelor, SAHB re-recorded most of the material, issuing it as 'The Impossible Dream' in 1974. The Shel Talmy sessions remained buried in the archives until the release of 'Hot City (The 1974 Unreleased Album)' in 2009. I'd owned 'The Impossible Dream' for 35 years by the time 'Hot City' appeared on the scene, so I'm obviously biased, but for me the majority of the Talmy recordings pale beside their officially issued counterparts, though there are a number of interesting compare and contrast moments. 'Last Train', for example, features a somewhat more aggressive vocal from Alex, a slightly different musical arrangement and is two minutes longer than what would ultimately become 'Anthem', the closing track on 'The Impossible Dream'.

The Sensational Alex Harvey Band - Last Train 

The Sensational Alex Harvey Band - Anthem