What does it sound like?:
Ten Years After are one of those bands that were very much of their time. Their career highlights were probably their iconic appearances at the Woodstock and Isle Of Wight festivals, alongside which they produced nine albums between 1967 and 1974. To celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of their debut set, this box has been put together containing their entire output, together with a previously unreleased album dubbed The Cap Ferrat Sessions. This comprises five previously unreleased tracks from 1972, originally intended for inclusion on the Rock n Roll Music To The World set, but omitted due to the time restrictions of vinyl. Listening back to this music after so many years, it’s a little difficult to put your finger on why they were so successful. Sure, Alvin Lee was a talented guitarist and the music is powerful, but it’s also quite samey, with not much development from album to album. I suppose they found a winning formula and stuck to it – British blues rock, touching the edges of prog at times. Nevertheless, songs like I’d Love To Change The World, I Hear You Calling My Name and I Can’t Keep From Crying Sometimes still stand up today.
What does it all *mean*?
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Goes well with…
Self indulgence.
Release Date:
Might suit people who like…
British hard/blues rock.
I thought this a strange release, audio-wise, on paper: albums minus the bonus tracks of past standalone CD editions (singles, unused tracks, especially from the ‘Undead’ live album), but with five later live album outtakes rather bogusly presented as a bona fide ‘lost album’. The book with the set would have to be sensational to justify the asking price. Is it?
I agree it’s a little odd they haven’t included the previously available bonus material – I’m just guessing, but maybe they went the ‘Bowie route’ and just wanted to present the albums as they were originally issued.
The five Cap Ferat tracks aren’t live album outtakes though – they are completed but unmixed studio recordings that were never used on the ensuing album.
Ok, Barge – studio outtakes then, not live left-overs. Still hardly a bona fide lost album – just stick em on the end of whatever album they were left off and save the price of manufacturing an extra disc (10p) and don’t big it up as a lost album.
When I was 14 I moved to a different school and was fortunate to find that the only bloke my age living anywhere near me was a rock music fan. And whilst we bonded over albums by Blue Oyster Cult, The Dictators and Black Sabbath, he also had a major thing for TYA. So I listened to them a lot, and try as I might (and I really, really tried) I just couldn’t see it. I even paid £10 for a second hand copy of “Undead” (about twice the cost of a new LP at the time) only to find it was more or less 40 minutes of the same song.
There would be a good rocker on each album, but there was also a lot of simpering hippy chaff, and it always felt like there was just no edit function in the band – no widdly solo or anodyne chord change was ever cast aside. “Recorded Live” would have been a corking single album. But I really don’t ever need to hear “Going Home” ever again.
“Rock n Roll Music To The World” was the album I like the most, with the strongest material. And he did record a first class cover of “Hey Joe” after TYA split.
I agree with everything written above, but I will doff my hat for Cricklewood Green…. as well as the not bad Love Like A Man, there is a fair bit of light and shade on this album on the other tracks.
Let’s rock – ‘Love Like A Man’, live in 1975:
Agree the material could be patchy to say the least, but a top guitarist when on form: