No Easy Road

Author:Wishbone Ash

Here’s a great idea for a book about a band:

1.Take the golden days of a 50+ year live career.
2.Interview the musicians involved, (and their sound guy.)
3.Pepper the pages with photos and clippings from the time.
4.Wrap it all up as a 216-page coffee-table tome, limited to a thousand copies, and chuck in a CD of 10 live tracks from those golden days, plus a photo signed by the classic MkII line-up.

If you were in your early-to-mid teens as the 1960’s turned into the ‘70’s; if Ian Hunter’s Diary of a Rock ‘n Roll Star was your favourite book of ‘74; if you were an original member of the Wishbone Ash fan club and if you had the double-page spread from Disc of Andy Powell and Ted Turner on your bedroom wall, for years, then you are, (a) me, or (b) the target audience for this book.

Wishbone were ‘my band,’ the 2nd band I ever saw. Andy Powell, with his long, blonde locks and that Flying V, was like catnip to this spotty fifteen year-old when I first saw Wishbone Ash at Guildford Civic Hall, 9th February 1972. I loved his aggressive guitar style, the perfect foil to Ted Turner’s more bluesy, Greeny sound. The book has contributions from all five of the musicians, (Laurie Wisefield took over from Ted in 1973,) and Andy’s memories are peppered with references to other guitarists, like this:

“The gig at the Dunstable Civic ended up being our passport out of all of that. I was hugely focused on becoming known as a guitarist. For me, and the rest of the band too I believe, it was do or die. The band had to ‘make it’. I knew of Ritchie Blackmore’s reputation in Deep Purple, who we were supporting that evening in October of ’69. We arrived super early and set our gear up onstage, leaving space for the headliner to do their thing. Ritchie was the only one from Deep Purple to do a soundcheck and he was testing out his Vox AC30 at the front of the stage. Filling the hall with his guitar licks. I believe the rest of his band were drinking tea in the dressing room, not wishing to be there during his barrage. I cheekily went on stage behind him and plugged into my rig. As Ritchie would play a guitar phrase, I’d mimic it, adding an extra little flourish. Pretty soon we were both hard at it, trading licks back and forth. At the end, he was grinning, a rare occurrence! And so was I. We shook hands and he asked me if we had a recording contract. I said ‘no, but we’re certainly trying for one.’ He said that he’d make a phone call to someone who might be able to help. Well, it turned out that the person was Derek Lawrence. Derek was well connected in the industry, and knew Don Shane in Los Angeles, who was at that time the head of Decca/MCA who were desperate to sign acts, particularly new British ones, that were making it across to the American shores. In later years I was able to thank Ritchie in person, when we met by circumstance in the town where we both lived.”

The clippings from copies of Melody Maker, NME, Sounds, Disc and a host of American publications, are a joy. I read the full text and then spent a terrific couple of days just going back through the clippings and photos, so many of which are obviously from the private collections of the band and the road crew and, most importantly, Andy Powell’s wife, Pauline, who has been there from the start and can still be found behind the merch-desk at the gigs. Also included are plenty of gig-posters which are a dream to go through, spotting the bands that Wishbone supported and, later, the ones which supported them. It’s a treasure-trove of memories of colleges, universities and town halls, gigs you were at and bands you had forgotten ever seeing.

Some of the best insights come from Mark ‘Hobbit’ Emery, the band’s sound-man, who was there from before the start and is as much a ‘5th member’ as it’s possible to have. His memories naturally differ from those of the musicians, as this paragraph about the end of the infamous ‘Startrucking Tour’ demonstrates:

“Then there were problems with some of the venues. The Roman amphitheatre in Orange was a fantastic place. But I had to get my EFX rack, which was a four-feet square beast of a case, with two reel-to-reel tape machines, plus a delay and phaser unit, up an almost vertical terrace to the mixing point. Wishbone finally hit the stage as the sun was rising, which was an awesome experience. But our work wasn’t all over, as we had a gig in Marbella that night. Getting back to Britain was even more fun and games, as we had to travel on an ancient 1943 Dakota turboprop, mini-jumbo, freight plane, with only a few seats. On that plane was me, Chris Runciman, Mal Craggs and Pepe. We were completely knackered. When we landed in Norwich we were met by customs officers with sniffer dogs, but that’s another story.”

The text is a well-paced narrative; easy to read and with enough anecdotes to keep the reader engaged. For the casual fan of the band, it is a lovely journey through the ‘70’s, especially gigs in America, where Wishbone spent a lot of time, including settling there for several years in upstate New York, occupying five rented houses in a quiet, arty town called Westport.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. I suspect that the price will not attract too many casual fans but, for the many fans who still turn out to see them every year, it will be an essential addition to their collection of albums, books and memorabilia.

The ten-track CD is a recording from the 1975 Startrucking tour, a performance for a Dutch radio-station. The four tracks I was sent are fantastic and demonstrate a band at the peak of their considerable powers, mid-tour, taking no prisoners.

[My review-copy was on pdf with a link to 4 of the live tracks, so I can’t speak to the quality of the materials used, the paper, etc. For a RRP of £129.99, you would assume it will be a high quality item.]

Length of Read:Medium

Might appeal to people who enjoyed…

For the dedicated fan, the book is essential. It fills in lots of gaps and, because it concentrates on the band at their peak, it resets the memory-banks. For the few hours that it took me to read through, first time, I was that tall, skinny teenager in a cheesecloth shirt, flares and stack heels with a thin silver chain around my neck and a head full of dreams.

One thing you’ve learned

This has been put together by Ian Crockett and the people at Madfish and it feels like a labour of love.

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