Ollie Halsall - ...and on guitar (1992)

Peter John "Ollie" Halsall was born on 14 March 1949, and began his musical career in 1964 playing drums with various local bands such as Pete and the Pawnees, the Gunslingers, the Music Students and Rhythm and Blues Incorporated. In 1965 he taught himself to play the vibraphone and was invited to London to join fellow Southport musicians bassist Clive Griffiths and keyboardist 'Professor' Chris Holmes in pop rock outfit Take Five, which became Timebox, and in 1967 Halsall took up guitar, while the band was augmented by adding Mike Patto on vocals and 'Admiral' John Halsey on drums. Timebox released a number of singles in 1968 and 1969 on the Deram label, but never managed to record an album, and in 1970, following the departure of Holmes, Timebox evolved into the progressive rock band Patto, featuring Halsall on both guitar and vibraphone. Patto were a well-respected band, and released three albums between 1970 and 1972, but in 1973 Halsall left to join Jon Hiseman's Tempest. Tempest were one of the very best jazz-rock fusion bands of the 1970's, and released two superb albums in 'Tempest' (1970) and 'Living In Fear' (1971), but after less than a year he quit, and became an in demand session guitarist, playing on a track for Kevin Ayers' 'The Confessions Of Dr. Dream' album in 1974 which led to a permanent position in Ayers' band the Soporifics. Halsall's UK session work included concerts and recordings with the Scaffold, GRIMMS, Neil Innes, Centipede, Andy Roberts, Mike de Albuquerque, John Otway, John Cale and Vivian Stanshall, and he was even briefly considered as a possible replacement for Mick Taylor following his departure from the Rolling Stones in December 1974. In 1975, Patto staged a brief reunion comprising just three benefit gigs, but the reuniting of Halsall and Patto sparked the formation of Boxer during 1975, and they released two albums on the Virgin label before Patto died of lymphoid leukemia in 1979. 

In 1978 he was invited to join Neil Innes and Eric Idle's spoof Beatles project The Rutles, recording their debut eponymous album in 1978, which reached the top 20 in the UK. He plays many of the instruments on the songs, and provides lead and backing vocals – most notably on the tracks 'Doubleback Alley', 'With A Girl Like You' and 'Get Up And Go'. Eric Idle was cast in his place in the accompanying film and Halsall only featured in a very minor cameo role as Leppo, the fifth Rutle who got lost in Hamburg. During 1976 Halsall had rejoined Ayers with whom he stayed for the next sixteen years, and for much of that time he frequented the town of Deià in the north of the Spanish island of Mallorca, commuting to Madrid on the mainland to produce and play for numerous Spanish artists, including El Primer Tercio, Ronni Urini, and his final work with pop rock bands Radio Futura and Hombres G. In the 1980's he was part of a Spanish synth-pop band Cinemaspop with vocalist Zanna Gregmar, and they released two studio albums, 'Cinemaspop' in 1983, which was a collection of synth-pop covers of classical movie tunes, and 'A Clockwork Orange' in 1984, which included some compositions and vocals by Halsall, as well as a bizarre electronic version of The Troggs' 'Wild Thing'. Halsall died in Madrid from a drug-induced heart attack on 29 May 1992 at the age of just 43. He has been described as an influence by a number of respected guitarists, including Alvin Lee of Ten Years After, Bill Nelson of Be-Bop Deluxe, Allan Holdsworth, Kee Marcello of Europe and Cheap Trick's guitarist Rick Nielsen. XTC's Andy Partridge cites Halsall as one of his top three influences, saying "He made the guitar sound more like Albert Ayler or John Coltrane, more like a sort of fluid piano player". The final word has to go to his friend John Halsey, who said "Ollie may not have been the best guitarist in the world, but he was certainly among the top two." 

Track listing

Disc One
01 If Your Love Don't Swing (b-side of 'Midnight Confessions' by Pete Kelly's Solution 1968)
01 Lover's Prayer (with Duffy Power 1970)
02 Speed Well (from 'Andy Roberts And The Great Stampede' by Andy Roberts 1973)
03 Take It While You Can (from 'Rockin' Duck' by GRIMMS 1973)
04 That Girl's Alright (b-side of 'Teenage Love Song' by John Hetherington 1973)
05 Nuclear Band (from 'Fresh Liver' by Scaffold 1973) 
06 Singing A Song Is Easy (from 'How Sweet To Be An Idiot' by Neil Innes 1973)
07 Keep On (from 'Manor Live' by Steve York's Camelo Pardalis 1973)
08 Sweet Mirth (from 'We May Be Cattle But We've All Got Names' by Michael de

                                                                                                                       Albuquerque 1973)
09 Overture (from 'Jesus Christ Superstar' film soundtrack by Rice/Lloyd Webber 1970)
10 This Is The Time To Get Merry (from 'Two Faced' by Bruce Epstein & Jack Fischer 1973)
11 Didn't Feel Lonely Till I Thought Of You (from 'The Confessions Of Dr. Dream' by 

                                                                                                                        Kevin Ayers 1974)

Disc Two
01 Shouting In A Bucket Blues (from 'June 1, 1974' by Kevin Ayers/John Cale/Eno/Nico 1974)
02 Itchy Feet (from 'Fatsticks' by Terry Stamp 1975)
03 The Elf Sires (from 'Some Things Never Change' by David Kubinec 1979)
04 It's A Pain (from 'Where Did I Go Right?' by John Otway 1979)
05 Bum Love (with John Halsey, from 'Miniatures' by Various Artists 1980) 
06 Don't Run Away (single by Zanna Gregmar & Ollie Halsall 1981)
07 Everyday, I Have The Blows (from 'Teddy Boys Don't Knit' by Vivian Stanshall 1981)
08 Sailship (single by Ronni Urini 1983)
09 Ely (from 'Teixido' by Teixido 1989)
10 Instrumental (from 'Veneno En La Piel' by Radio Futura 1990) 
11 Encima De Ti (from 'Historia Del Bikini' by Hombres G 1992)

Thanks to Auran for the suggestion.

For MAC users

Press command+shift+period (to show hidden files) and a grayed out folder '...and on guitar" will appear and the mp3s will be inside. Either drag those to another folder OR rename the folder without any periods at the beginning. Press command+shift+period to once again hide the hidden files.

The Scaffold - Just The Songs (1974)

I was listening to The Scaffold's 'Fresh Liver' album the other day, and I'd forgotten just what a great rock band they could be when they put their mind to it. The Scaffold were a comedy, poetry and music trio from Liverpool, consisting of musical performer Mike McGear (real name Peter Michael McCartney, the brother of Paul McCartney), poet Roger McGough and comic entertainer John Gorman. From as early as 1962 the members of The Scaffold were part of a performing revue group known as The Liverpool One Fat Lady All Electric Show, which also included McGough's fellow Liverpool poet Adrian Henri. Working almost exclusively as a trio under the name The Scaffold from 1964, Gorman, McGear and McGough performed a mixture of comic songs, comedy sketches and the poetry of McGough, and they released a number of singles and albums on Parlophone and EMI between 1966 and 1971, with several more on Island, Warner Bros. and Bronze later. In 1967 they had their first hit single with 'Thank U Very Much', and they followed this in 1968 with their best known recording 'Lily The Pink', which topped the UK singles chart. They also composed and sang the theme tune to the popular BBC TV comedy 'The Liver Birds', which aired from 1969–1978. Mike McGear was the only member of the band who could be described as a professional musician, and so the songs on their early albums were often augmented by session musician such as Elton John, Jack Bruce and Graham Nash. In addition to the hit singles, The Scaffold's output included four albums: the live 'The Scaffold' in 1968, and 'L. The P. 'in 1969, both on Parlophone Records, 'Fresh Liver' on Island in 1973, and 'Sold Out' on Warner Brothers in 1975. All of their albums contained a mixture of straight rock songs, comic songs, sketches and poetry, and as I mentioned at the start, the pop and rock songs were good enough to have been recorded by any number of top groups of the period. Some of the sketches and poetry don't really bear repeated hearings, and even some of the comic songs are best heard sparingly, so what I really wanted to hear was an album of just their rock and pop recordings. As they were primarily a comic trio, their four albums only yielded 10 songs that were played straight, but with the addition of a couple of unreleased tracks from Abbey Road, including an early take of 'Take It While You Can' which was re-worked for GRIMMS' 'Rockin' Duck' album in 1973, that was exactly enough for what I wanted. So here is the album that I will probably play more than any other of theirs - just the songs of The Scaffold. 

Track listing

01 Devon's Dead  
02 Plenty Of Time
03 Today
04 Uptown And Downtown
05 Oh To Be A Child
06 Take It While You Can
07 Fax 'N' Figgers  
08 Jelly Covered Cloud
09 Nuclear Band  
10 I Can't Make You Mine
11 All The Way Up
12 Leaving Of Liverpool

For anyone who wants to burn this collection to a CD, SmithWorksGrafx has designed some groovy artwork for it.