The Move was probably the biggest British group of the late 60s/early 70s who utterly failed to make any sort of impression on the American market. Nearly every biography written about them begins that way as if it’s the most important thing about the Move. It’s not, although it does provide a bit of (perhaps necessary) context. In England the Move had nine top 20 hits and was arguably ranked just below the Who (and just above the Pretty Things) in terms of pop group popularity. In the US however the Move never really made a dent in the charts, and are recalled—if they are recalled much at all—more as the predecessor to the Electric Light Orchestra, or merely a footnote in that band’s story, than for their own merits. It’s rare to find a Move album when you are crate digging on this side of the pond.

It’s true, in America still to this day the Move would be considered downright obscure, but on (very, very rare) occasion (as in almost never), one does meet a total Roy Wood fanatic. In fact, I used to work with a nerdy guy who pretty much listened only to Wood’s various incarnations (The Move, early ELO, Wizzard, and solo)—along with Be Bop Deluxe/Bill Nelson, Todd Rundgren, and Kate Bush—to the exclusivity of all other music. He had very specific tastes that guy, but God bless ‘im, he truly knew what he liked. And as such, this weirdo was the perfect ultimate Roy Wood fanboy. That he was from Florida shows you how hard he had to work for it.
 

 
The Move‘s original five-piece line-up formed in 1965 when teenaged guitarist Roy Wood (the band’s principle songwriter), drummer Bev Bevan, bassist Ace Kefford, vocalist Carl Wayne (older than the rest of them) and guitarist Trevor Burton “moved” from the ranks of several other semi-successful Birmingham-based bands to play together in a new Brummie “supergroup.” Like a heavier Hollies, four of the quintet were capable of handling vocals and although golden-throated Carl Wayne tended to take the lead, they also switched off that everyone got a turn in the spotlight. They were managed, first by Moody Blues manager Tony Secunda—who dressed the Move in Mod gangster suits, hired strippers for their stage act and got the band a residency at the Marquee club in London—and then later by a proper gangster, the notorious Don Arden, father of Sharon Osbourne, the former manager of Small Faces.

During one of their Marquee dates the group caused a fire after they’d smashed some television sets onstage with an ax. Three fire engines showed up to fight the blaze, inspiring front page headlines and the subject matter for a future hit single. Then Secunda, without consulting with the group, devised a controversial marketing campaign for the “Flowers in the Rain” single—the first record to be played on BBC Radio 1 and their third consecutive top five hit of 1967—consisting of a postcard depicting Prime Minister Harold Wilson in bed with his secretary. Wilson brought litigation against the Move for Secunda’s actions, which he won costing them—specifically Roy Wood who wrote the number and had nothing to do with the publicity stunt—their royalties for the hit, which were donated to charity. This led to Secunda’s firing and Arden’s hiring. In fall of 1967, the group took part in a two-week-long concert package tour around the UK, playing twice a night with the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Pink Floyd and the Nice.
 

 
One major reason the Move never broke the American market is that they never toured here. They tried to—opening two shows for the Stooges before things fell apart—but it was a demoralizing disaster. Another reason might be their overt “Englishness” which would have been a turn off to many American rock fans at the time. The Move were as British as Marmite and Coronation Street, and in that sense, their singles provide the blueprint for much of the British rock that came in their wake—obviously glam rock, but prog (they were incorporating classical music bits earlier than anyone save for Bee Bumble and the Stingers), punk (the bassline in “God Save the Queen” was based on “Fire Brigade”) and 90s Britpop. It’s quite easy to hear their influence on Blur, for instance.
 

 
Magnetic Waves of Sound is the title of a new must-own Move compilation that has just been put out via Cherry Red’s heroic Esoteric Recordings label. Aside from perhaps the very best sounding versions of their hits on CD that I’ve ever heard—half in punchy mono—there is a second disc, a DVD, consisting of German and UK television performances from between 1967 and 1970 including their extended set on Colour Me Pop in 1969. All of these videos are presented in exceptionally good quality and they sound great, too. If this set doesn’t make you an instant Move fan, well, fuck you then, you’ve got shit taste in music.

And don’t try to tell me that KISS didn’t base their entire sound on the stomp-all-over-yer-face “Brontosaurus,” because they so obviously fucking did. (And just where do you think Paul Stanley got his “starchild” look from? Come on.)

Something else from The Move, after the jump…

 
It’s one of those odd quirks of fate why sixties beat group The Move never became as big as say The Who, Kinks or the Dave Clark Five or even (crikey!) The Beatles or The Stones. There are many reasons as to why this never happened—top of the tree is the fact The Move never broke the American market which limited their success primarily to a large island off the coast of Europe. Secondly, The Move was all too often considered a singles band—and here we find another knotty problem.

The Move, under the sublime writing talents of Roy Wood, produced singles of such quality, range and diversity it was not always possible to identify their unique imprint. They evolved from “pioneers of the psychedelic sound” with their debut single “Night of Fear” in 1966—a song that sampled Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture—through “I Can Hear The Grass Grow” and “Flowers In The Rain” to faster rock songs like “Fire Brigade”—which inspired the bassline for the Sex Pistols’ “God Save the Queen”—to the chirpy pop of “Curly” and “Omnibus” to sixties miserabilism “Blackberry Way” and early heavy metal/prog with “Wild Tiger Woman,” “Brontosaurus” and “When Alice Comes Back to the Farm.” Though there is undoubtedly a seriousness and considered process going on here—it was not necessarily one that brought together a united fan base. Those who bought “Flowers in the Rain” were not necessarily going to dig the Hendrix-influenced “Wild Tiger Woman” or groove along to “Alice Comes Back to the Farm.”

That said, The Move scored nine top ten hits during the sixties, were critically praised, had a considerable following of screaming fans, and produced albums which although they were considered “difficult” at the time (Shazam, Looking On and Message from the Country) are now considered pioneering, groundbreaking and (yes!) even “classic.”

The Move was made up from oddments of musicians and singers from disparate bands and club acts who would not necessarily gravitate together. Formed in December 1965, the original lineup consisted of guitarist Roy Wood (recently departed from Mike Sheridan and The Nightriders), vocalist Carl Wayne who along with bass player Chris ‘Ace’ Kefford and drummer Bev Bevan came from The Vikings, and guitarist Trevor Burton from The Mayfair Set. Each of these artists had a small taste of success—most notably Carl Wayne who had won the prestigious Golden Orpheus Song Festival in Bulgaria—but nothing that was going to satisfy their ambitions for a long and rewarding career.

It was David Bowie—then just plain David Jones—who suggested Kefford and Burton should form their own band. They recruited Wood onto the team sheet and decided to follow another piece of Bowie’s advice to bring together the very best musicians and singers in their hometown of Birmingham. This they did. And although technically it was Kefford’s band, Carl Wayne by dint of age steered the group through their first gigs.
 

 
The Move’s greatest asset was Roy Wood—a teenage wunderkind who was writing songs about fairies and comic book characters that were mistakenly believed to have been inspired by LSD. This gave the band their counterculture edge when “Night of Fear” was released in 1966. They were thought to be acidheads tuning into the world of psychedelia a year before the Summer of Love—but as drummer Bev Bevan later recalled:

Nobody believed that Roy wasn’t out of his head on drugs but he wasn’t. It was all fairy stories rooted in childhood.

Young Wood and Wayne may have been squeaky clean but the rest of the band certainly enjoyed the sherbets—with one catastrophic result.

After chart success of “Night of Fear,” The Move were expected to churn out hit after hit after hit. Though Wood delivered the goods—the financial rewards did not arrive. Ace Kefford later claimed the pressure of touring, being mobbed by fans, having clothes ripped—and once being stabbed in the eye by a fan determined to snip a lock of his hair—for the same money he made gigging with The Vikings made it all seem rather pointless.

But their success continued apace. By 1967, The Move had three top ten hits, were the first band played on the BBC’s new flagship youth channel Radio One, and were touring across the UK and Europe. They also caused considerable controversy with their live stage act which involved Carl Wayne chopping up TV sets with an axe. While the golden youth were wearing flowers in their hair and singing about peace and love, The Move were offering agitprop political theater.

Then they were sued by British Prime Minister Harold Wilson.
 
More of The Move, after the jump…

 
The other morning here at Dangerous Minds Towers (Scotland), while I sat sifting through the mailbag looking for presents and antique snuff boxes, m’colleague Tara McGinley popped a fascinating article in front of me about a wild “Tiger Woman.”

At first I thought this tabloid tale was perhaps about the woman who had inspired Roy Wood to write his rather wonderful and grimy little number “Wild Tiger Woman” for The Move. As I read on, I realized this story of a rebellious singer, dancer and artist’s model was unlikely to have been the woman Wood had in mind when he wrote his famous song.

No, this particular “Tiger Woman” was one Betty May Golding—a drug addict, a boozer, and a dabbler in the occult. She had a string of lovers, worked as a prostitute, had been a member of a notorious criminal gang, an alleged Satanist, and had once even tried to murder Aleister Crowley. This was the kind of impressive resumé one would expect from the original “wild child.” Not that Ms. Golding would have given two hoots for any of that:

I have not cared what the world thought of me and as a result what it thought has often not been very kind… I have often lived only for pleasure and excitement.

You go girl!

Betty May was born Elizabeth Marlow Golding into a world of poverty and deprivation in Canning Town, London in 1895. The neighborhood was situated at the heart of the city’s docks—an area described by Charles Dickens as:

...already debased below the point of enmity to filth; poorer labourers live there, because they cannot afford to go farther, and there become debased.

To get an idea how deprived and “debased” this district was—Canning Town even today “remains among the 5% [of the] most deprived areas in the UK.”  Plus ca change…
 

A typical London slum 1909.
 
When Betty was just an infant, her father left the family home, leaving her mother to support four children on a pittance of 10/- a week—roughly the equivalent of $1.50. The family home was a hovel with no furniture and no beds. The family slept on bundles of rags, cuddling together to keep warm.

Her mother was half-French with beautiful olive complexion and almond eyes. The struggle proved too much for her and Betty was sent off to live with her father who was then residing in a brothel. Her father was an engineer by trade but he preferred to spend his time drinking, fighting and thieving. He was eventually arrested and sent to jail.

In her autobiography Tiger Woman, published in 1929, Betty described herself as a “little brown-faced marmoset ... and the only quick thing in this very slow world.” She earned pennies by dancing and singing on the street.  After her father’s arrest, she was passed from relative to relative eventually staying with an aunt who described her as “a regular little savage.”

One of her earliest memories was finding the body of a pregnant neighbor hanging from a hook. The woman had caught her husband having sex with her sister.

Her face was purple and her eyes bulged like a fish’s. It was rather awful.

Eventually Betty was sent to another aunt who stayed out in the country in Somerset. Here she attended school but soon the teenager was in trouble after having an affair with one of her teachers.

I can hardly say, in the light of what I have learnt since, that we were in love. At least perhaps he was. Certainly I was fond of him.

When their illicit relationship was discovered, Betty was given an ultimatum.

There was a great deal of fuss and it was made clear to me that unless the ­friendship came to an end it would be the schoolmaster who would be made to suffer.

After a rather tearful scene with my aunt I was packed off with a few pounds.

 

Betty in her gypsy dress.
 
Arriving in London in 1910 Betty could only afford one outfit:

...but every item of it was a different colour. Neither red nor green nor blue nor yellow nor purple was forgotten, for I loved them all equally, and if I was not rich enough to wear them separately ... I would wear them, like Joseph in the Bible, all at once! Colours to me are like children to a loving mother.

With her exotic looks and green eyes, Betty looked every part the gypsy and was later known for her song “The Raggle Taggle Gypsy.” The novelist Anthony Powell described her as looking like a seaside fortune teller. Betty also delighted in her costermonger background:

I am a true coster in my flamboyance and my love of colour, in my violence of feeling and its immediate response in speech and action. Even now I am often caught with a sudden longing regret for the streets of Limehouse as I knew them, for the girls with their gaudy shawls and heads of ostrich feathers, like clouds in a wind, and the men in their caps, silk neckerchiefs and bright yellow pointed boots in which they took such pride. I adored the swagger and the showiness of it all.

 

The Café Royal in 1912 as painted by artist William Orpen.
 
At first, Betty worked as a prostitute before becoming a model, dancer and entertainer at the hip Café Royal.

The lights, the mirrors, the red plush seats, the eccentrically dressed people, the coffee served in glasses, the pale cloudy absinthe ... I felt as if I had strayed by accident into some miraculous Arabian palace… No duck ever took to water, no man to drink, as I to the Café Royal.

The venue was the haunt of Bohemians and artists—Augustus John, Jacob Epstein, the “Queen of Bohemia” Nina Hamnett, heiress Nancy Cunard, William Orpen, Anna Wickham, Iris Tree and Ezra Pound.

Betty’s flamboyance and gypsy attire attracted their interest and she had affairs with many of the regulars. She modelled for Augustus John and Jacob Epstein. Being an artist’s model was a grey area that often crossed into prostitution. Many of May’s contemporaries in “modelling” died in tragic circumstances—either by their own hand or at the hands of a jealous lover.
 

The artist Augustus John looking rather pleased with himself.
 
Betty’s life then took the first a many surprising turns when she became involved with a notorious criminal gang.

In 1914, she met a man she nicknamed “Cherub” at a bar who took her to France. Their relationship was platonic but after a night of drinking absinthe Cherub attacked her:

He clasped me round the waist, pinning my arms… I struggled with all the strength fear and hate could give me.

With a supreme effort I succeeded in half-freeing my right arm so that I was enabled to dig my scissors into the fleshy part of his neck.

Betty escaped to Paris where she met up with a man known as the “White Panther” who introduced her into the one of the ciy’s L’Apache gangs. She later claimed it was this gang who nicknamed her “Tiger Woman” after she became involved in a fight with one of the gangster’s girlfriends. When separated by the gang leader she bit into his wrist like a wild animal.

Now part of gang, Betty became involved in various robberies and acts of violence—in one occasion branding a possible informer with a red hot knife. This experience led her to quit Paris.
 

Apache gang members or hooligans fighting the police in 1904.
 
To be honest, Betty’s autobiography reads at times like a thrilling pulp novel and without corroborative evidence seems more like fiction than fact.

Returning to London, Betty resumed work as a singer and dancer. She sought a husband and found two suitors: the first died after a mysterious boating accident; the second blew his brains out one fine summer’s day. Betty eventually married a trainee doctor Miles L. Atkinson, who introduced her to the joys of cocaine.

I learnt one thing on my ­honeymoon—to take drugs.

Atkinson had an unlimited supply of cocaine via his work with the hospital. The couple embarked on a mad drug frenzy. They fell in with a den of opium smokers. May’s drug intake escalated to 150 grains of cocaine a day plus several pipes of opium. She became paranoid—on one occasion believing the world was against her after ordering a coffee at a cafe and the waiter served it black. She decided to divorce Atkinson, but he was killed in action in 1917 while serving as a soldier in the First World War.

Betty then met and married an Australian called “Roy”—not believed to be his real name—who weaned her off drugs by threatening to beat her if ever he caught her taking any. However, she divorced Roy after catching him having an affair.

Continuing with her career as an artist’s model, Betty sat for Jacob Epstein and Jacob Kramer, who she claimed painted her as the Sphinx.
 

Jacob Kramer’s painting ‘The Sphinx’ (1918).
 
Her notoriety grew after the publication of a book Dope Darling by David “Bunny” Garnett, which was based on Betty’s life as a coke addict. The book told the story of a man called Roy who falls in love with a dancer Claire at a bohemian cafe. Claire is a drug addict and prostitute. Roy believes he can save Claire by marrying her. Once married, Roy gradually becomes a drug addict too.

In the book, Garnett described Claire as being :

...always asked to all the parties given in the flashy Bohemian world in which she moved. No dance, gambling party, or secret doping orgy was complete without her. Under the effect of cocaine which she took more and more recklessly, she became inspired by a wild frenzy, and danced like a Bacchante, drank off a bottle of champagne, and played a thousand wild antics

But all of this was by way of a warm-up to her meeting the Great Beast.
 

‘Dope Darling’ by David Garnett.
 
In 1922, Betty met and married the poet Frederick Charles Loveday (aka Raoul Loveday). This dear boy (aged about twenty or twenty-one) was an acolyte of Aleister Crowley. With a first class degree from Oxford University and a book of published poems to his name, Loveday was utterly dedicated to Crowley and to his study of the occult.

Crowley first met Loveday at a dive in London called the Harlequin. He liked Loveday—saw his potential and claimed he was his heir apparent—but he said this about many other young man that took his fancy. He was however reticent in his praise for May—describing her as a “charming child, tender and simple of soul” but impaired by an alleged childhood accident he believed had “damaged her brain permanently so that its functions were discontinuous.” This condition was exacerbated by her drug addiction—though he was complimentary in her strength of will in curing herself.

Crowley believed he could save Loveday from the “vagabonds, squalid and obscene, who constituted the court of Queen Betty.”

In his Confessions, Crowley recounted a typical scene of Betty “at work” in the Harlequin:

In a corner was his wife, three parts drunk, on the knees of a dirty-faced loafer, pawed by a swarm of lewd hogs, breathless with lust. She gave herself greedily to their gross and bestial fingerings and was singing in an exquisite voice ... an interminable smutty song, with a ribald chorus in which they all joined.

 

Aleister Crowley
 
Crowley moved to Sicily where he established his Abbey of Thelema at Cefalu. He wanted Loveday—and to a lesser extent May—to join him there. However, Loveday had been ill after an operation and several friends including Nina Hamnett warned him off going. But Loveday was determined and the couple traveled to the Abbey.

Arriving there in the fall of 1922, Betty and Loveday were soon party to various sex magic rituals under Crowley’s direction. On one occasion, Betty chanced upon a box filled with blood soaked neckties. When she asked Crowley what these were, he replied that they had belonged to Jack the Ripper and were stained with the blood of his victims.

Crowley may have tut-tutted about Betty’s sexual hi-jinks with other men in the club, but he didn’t seem to mind all the fucking and sucking that went on at the Abbey. Betty was unsure about Crowley. She was intrigued by the occult and her superstition kept her belief from wavering. But she never fully trusted him.

Everything came to a head after a black mass where Crowley commanded Loveday to kill a cat and drink its blood. Crowley claimed the cat was possessed by an evil spirit. Loveday beheaded the cat and greedily drank its blood. Within hours he fell ill and died, on February 16th, 1923.

Betty blamed Crowley for her husband’s death and swore revenge—deciding to kill him.
 
More on Betty May and her life of sex and drugs and the occult, after the jump…

 
Never trust management. Never trust your PR firm. Never trust admen. Never trust anyone who says they can manage you, promote you, your band, your career, or anything else they’ll swear they can do for you out the love they have for your talents. The history of pop music is littered with fuck-ups by gangster management and public relations parasites who are only interested in making money out of somebody else’s efforts.

Take The Small Faces. Their first manager Don Arden helped them on their way but also claimed a massive percentage of the band’s earnings—some say as high as 80%.

After a series of hit records (including number ones) and sell-out gigs, the band—Steve Marriott (vocals, guitar), Ronnie Lane (vocals, bass), Kenney Jones (drums), Ian McLagan (keyboards)—were still living off a pitiful weekly handout from Arden (the father of Sharon Osbourne, FYI). The band’s parents were so concerned that their kids were being ripped off that they paid Arden a visit to ask what the fuck was going on? It put the wind up in Arden. He blamed the kids. Told the parents the band had spent all their money on pills and drugs. The implication being “Your kids are bloody junkies and I’m the one who’s paying for it!”

While The Small Faces admittedly dabbled with speed and pills—their single “Here Comes The Nice” extols Marriott’s unabashed love for amphetamine, and “Itchycoo Park” was inspired by Lane’s enjoyment of LSD—they were certainly never smackheads. Arden, like Donald Trump, was well aware that the first rule of defense is attack.

Arden would justify his action by claiming he was only trying to get back the $20,000+ he had spent on buying up as many copies of their debut single as it took to ensure it was a hit. Apparently Arden thought he deserved the money for all of his initial outlay and then some.

The band was keeping Arden sweet and he was not going to let them go. When rival producer/manager Robert Stigwood tried to lever the band away from him, a bunch of heavies turned up at Stigwood’s office and threatened to hang him out of the window if he didn’t fuck off.

However, the parents proved to be a bigger threat than rival managers. After the parental intervention, The Small Faces split with Arden and signed-up with former Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham. In many respects it was a better deal—they had more freedom and more studio time which allowed them to produce their greatest album Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake (1968). But the financial returns—well they were only slightly better.

And as for the PR side…
 

 
When The Small Faces’ released Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake in May 1968 it was oddly promoted with a parody of the Lord’s Prayer:

Small Faces
Which were in the studios
Hallowed by thy name
Thy music come
Thy songs be sung
On this album as they came from your heads
We give you this day our daily bread
Give us thy album in a round cover as we give thee 37/9d.,
Lead us into the record stores.
And deliver us Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake
For nice is the music
The sleeve and the story
For ever and ever, Immediate.

At time when the majority of the UK identified as Christian and the churches were packed every Sunday, and the views of Archbishops were considered more important than those of politicians—as they dealt with the life hereafter, not just the here and now—the ad was understandably considered blasphemous.

Across the breakfast rooms of England, cups and saucers were rattled in disgust. The press ran BANNER HEADLINES OF SHOCK! AND HORROR! and angry missives sent from Tunbridge Wells, Slough and Lower Perineum filled the letters pages. It certainly was a rum way to pitch a psychedelic concept album. Steve Marriott was equally surprised by the ad:

We didn’t know a thing about the ad, until we saw it in the music papers. And frankly we got the horrors at first. We realised that it could be taken as a serious knock against religion. But on thinking it over, we don’t feel it is particularly good or bad. It’s just another form of advertising. We’re not all that concerned about it. We’re more concerned in writing our music and producing our records.

It was not as damaging as say John Lennon’s claim that the Beatles were bigger than Christ (though let’s be clear: that outburst actually helped sell more Beatles albums in the US, as protesters bought copies just to burn ‘em). Or as damagingly litigious as The Move’s management putting out an advertizing postcard of then Prime Minister Harold Wilson in bed with his secretary Marcia Williams for the single “Flowers in the Rain”—which led to them being sued and band’s songwriter Roy Wood losing all of his royalties in perpetuity for the hit. But the Lord’s Prayer advert did The Small Faces no real favors. If anything, it was another stumbling block to them ever making it in the States. The album made number one in the UK but only edged the top 200 in the US.

More about The Small Faces, plus their appearance on ‘Colour Me Pop,’ after the jump…

 
One of my all-time favorite bands, The Move giving a truly incendiary performance of “Watch Your Step,” at a concert in Holland from 1966.

Lead singer, the late great Carl Wayne takes an ax to a TV set; while the genius composer Roy Wood keeps out of the way, playing guitar; and drummer Bev Bevan keeps beat, as Ace Kefford and Trevor Burton keep rocking. This is a great piece of theatrical anarchy—like Hendrix setting fire to his guitar, and far better than The Who smashing instruments, for there is a sense that anything could happen.

Watch out too for the fire blazing at the side of the stage—this was the kind of exuberant behavior that led to The Move being briefly banned from every venue in the UK.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

The Genius of Roy Wood: From The Move to Wizzard

 
With thanks to Cherry Blossom Clinic
 

 
It’s Roy Wood’s birthday and to celebrate here’s a little curio from 1983 of probably the greatest pub rock band in the world, The Rockers.

The Rockers consisted of Roy Wood, Phil Lynott, Bev Bevan and er, Chas Hodges from Cockney knees-up duo Chas ‘n’ Dave. They released one single “We Are the Boys (Who Make All the Noise)” this time with Status Quo’s John Coghlan on drums. Here, that number tops and tails a fine medley of Rock ‘n’ Roll standards as performed on O.T.T. - the late-night version of kid’s Saturday morning classic Tiswas, both of which were hosted by Chris (Who Wants to be a Millionaire?) Tarrant.

(A quick aside: As also noted by m’colleague Marc Campbell, last month Phil Lynott’s mother strongly objected to Republican ticket Romney and Ryan using Thin Lizzy’s song “The Boys Are Back In Town” as their ‘theme tune’, saying Phil would have been against their sexist, anti-gay and pro-rich policies, and would have voted for Obama anyway.)

Meantime, a very Happy Birthday to Roy Wood!
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

Roy Wood: The talent behind The Move and Wizzard

The rocker, the legend: The Phil Lynott Story

 
Audio of The Move playing a selection of cover versions, recorded live at the Marquee Club in London, and later released as Something Else from The Move, a 7-inch EP, in 1968. The line-up was Roy Wood (guitars, vocals), Carl Wayne (vocals), Trevor Burton (guitars, bass, vocals), Chris “Ace” Kefford (bass, vocals), and Bev Bevan (drums, vocals).

It’s a great recording which mixes old and (for the time) new songs, ranging from The Byrds’ “So You Want To Be A Rock ‘N’ Roll Star”, Arthur Lee’s “Stephanie Knows Who”, Eddie Cochrane’s “Something Else”, Jerry Lee Lewis’ “It’ll Be Me” and Spooky Tooth’s “Sunshine Help Me”.

Alas, no genius compositions from Mr. Wood, but at least we have The Move.

01. “So You Want To Be A Rock ‘N’ Roll Star”
02. “Stephanie Knows Who”
03. “Something Else”
04. “It’ll Be Me”
05. “Sunshine Help Me”
 

 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

 
Bonus - The Move ‘I Can Hear The Grass Grow’ from ‘Color Me Pop’, after the jump…
 

 
Happy Birthday to Roy Wood - musical genius and founder member of The Move, the Electric Light Orchestra and Wizzard.

From the moment the needle hit the vinyl and the sirens screamed, I was hooked on Roy Wood’s music. His single “Fire Brigade” was 2 minutes of perfect pop with the best opening lyric I’d ever heard

Cast your mind back ten years
To the girl who’s next to me in school
If I put me hand upon her leg
She hit me with a rule.

I’d have to cast my mind back farther than 10 years to recall the girl who sat next or near to me in school. I don’t know what would have happened if I’d put my hand upon her knee, but do know she grew up to be a cop, who made headlines for her sexual shenanigans, and is up before the beak for perverting the course of justice. But, so much is life.

“Fire Brigade” charted in February 1968, and was The Move’s fourth single, it’s a work of sheer bloody brilliance that later helped the Sex Pistols with “God Save the Queen”.

I don’t think Roy Wood has ever received the full respect and recognition his musical talents deserve. Founder of 3 highly successful bands - The Move, The Electric Light Orchestra and Wizzard, and a composer of a jukebox full of hit singles, Wood is as important as Goffin & King, Lennon & McCartney, Jagger and Richards. But where they all had writing partners to bounce ideas off, Wood was on his own. He is one of those rare solo geniuses like Pete Townshend or David Bowie.

Roy Wood was born on 8 November 1946, in Kitts Green, Birmingham, England, He tested his mettle with various bands before forming The Move with Chris “Ace” Kefford, Carl Wayne, Trevor Burton and Bev Bevan. By dint of writing the songs, Wood was the band’s unofficial leader, yet his lack of confidence saw him share lead vocals with Wayne.

Wood was also a multi-instrumentalist, which made him and The Move far more experimental than any of their rivals, and this includes The Beatles. Take for instance, The Move’s first single “Night of Fear”, from 1966, which sampled Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture to create a song about the downside of LSD. The subject matter reflected the band’s interests in the pop sherbets - particularly Burton and Kefford, who were “the ones out of their brains on drugs,” as drummer Bev Bevan later recalled.

In 1967, Kefford tripped out of his mind and the band during a fancy dress party at Birmingham’s Cedar Club. As he later told Mark Paytress for the liner notes for The Very Best of the Move:

‘There were all these little men sitting around me with pointed heads and big noses and long fingers that touched the floor. They were with me all night, man. Acid screwed my life up, man. It devastated me completely.’

It wasn’t just drugs that brought The Move national notoriety, their stage show involved the chain-sawing of motor cars, and at one point, long before Punk, they were banned from nearly every venue in the UK.

On the upside, The Move’s popularity led to their single “Flowers in the Rain” used to launch BBC’s Radio 1 in 1967. It should have been a crowning moment, but turned out to be a painful loss. The Move’s original Manager Tony Secunda decided to promote the single with a satirical postcard of then British Prime Minister, Harold Wilson in bed with his secretary, Marcia Williams. The postcard was Secunda’s idea, and had nothing to do with Wood or the other band members. Unfortunately, Wilson sued for libel, and won. All of Wood’s royalties for the single were paid over to Wilson, who donated them to charity - a situation that continues 16-years after Wilson’s death.

In a way, this story captures the essence of The Move, a band more dangerous than The Stones, more original than The Beatles, but too often short-circuited by their own and others’ actions.

The Move followed Wood’s musical direction through psychedelia (“Night of Fear”, “Disturbance”, “Flowers in the Rain”, “Lemon Tree”, “I Can Hear the Grass Grow”), pop (“Curly”, “Omnibus”, “Tonight”, “Blackberry Way”, “Beautiful Daughter”), Heavy Metal (“When Alice Comes Back to the Farm”, “Brontosaurus”) and Rock (“California Man”).  These were all stunning songs, but The Move never achieved legendary status because they didn’t conquer America. By the time the US music press did pay attention to the band, it was too late, as John Mendlesohn noted for Rolling Stone in 1971:

“The Move is the most under-rated rock group and deserve to be put in the same category as Led Zeppelin and The Faces.”

Wood had three other careers going by the early seventies. After Trevor Burton left in 1969 and Carl Wayne in 1970, Wood invited Jeff Lynne to join the group, and also suggested starting a second group The Electric Light Orchestra, together with Bev Bevan, which would mix classical music with Rock ‘n’ Roll, and “start from where The Beatles left off”.

For me the sixties finished when When Roy Wood announced the end of The Move and his departure from the Electric Light Orchestra. Thereafter, the ELO was Jeff Lynne’s band, which never realized the potential of Roy Wood’s original idea.

But Wood wasn’t finished yet, he was about to become the Grandfather of Glam with his next band Wizzard - a Brummie fusion of Rock ‘n’ Roll and Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound. The seventies started when Wizzard released their first single “Ball Park Incident”. I can still recall the sensation when I first heard it, an epiphany akin to Jesus walking on the water and turning it into wine. Here was the past and the future all rolled into one.

Wizzard flourished with a series of hit singles and the albums Wizzard Brew (1973) and Introducing Eddie and The Falcons (1974). Then there was Wood’s solo work, firstly the superb album Boulders, originally recorded between 1969 and 1971, and released in 1973. Then the brilliant follow-up Mustard in 1975.

Between 1970 and 1975, Wood recorded 8 hit albums - 3 with The Move (Shazam, Looking On, Message from the Country; 1 with ELO; 2 with Wizzard and 2 as a solo artist. The quality and consistency of these albums is unparalleled, and when compared to the output of Lennon or McCartney at this time, Roy Wood puts the former Beatles in the shade.

From this he deserved to go on to greater success, but his career was drastically cut short by his asshole manager, Don Arden, as Wood explained in an interview with the Sunday Mercury in 2009:

“I was contracted to Don Arden for longer than I should have been,” he sighs. “When I broke away he stopped me from recording in any London studio. I ended up booking in under false names but I was soon recognised.

“He ruined the momentum. After Wizzard it was difficult. People haven’t got very long memories and suddenly you fall out of favour. When that happens it’s really hard to get back if you’re not high-profile. I was working flat-out but to little effect. After that, I was just mucking about with musicians and going into local studios. We had an album called On The Road Again that was originally going to be on EMI but wasn’t promoted at all.”

Sadly, Wood disappeared from the music scene, releasing the solo albums On the Road Again in 1979 and Starting Up in 1985, to little affect. Now, to those in the UK, Roy Wood is generally associated with his 1973 festive hit “I Wish It Could be Christmas Everyday”, rather than as a highly talented musician and performer, and a true pop genius. But, then again, so much is life.

Happy Birthday Roy!

Roy Wood will tour the UK this November and December, details here
 

The Move “Fire Brigade” - Live 1969
 
More of Roy Wood’s golden hits, after the jump…