{"id":2022,"date":"2013-06-04T13:21:53","date_gmt":"2013-06-04T12:21:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.brucethomas.co.uk\/?p=2022"},"modified":"2014-08-20T13:47:49","modified_gmt":"2014-08-20T12:47:49","slug":"the-band-that-prog-forgot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.brucethomas.co.uk\/?p=2022","title":{"rendered":"The Band That Prog Forgot"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>In 1967 it was unheard for an unknown band to be asked to headline at the Marquee club in London.\u00a0 But the Marquee\u2019s manager, John Gee, believed 1-2-3 to be the best band he\u2019d ever seen \u2014 a Scottish trio comprising of Harry Hughes, drums; Ian Ellis, bass and Billy Ritchie, organ (l to r on photo).\u00a0 Often John Gee had to come on stage and interrupt to calm the audience and tell them that if they wanted boring R&B music, they should go to the 100 Club, just up the road.<\/p>\n

What the restless and occasionally violent audiences were witnessing was a virtuoso trio unleashing a new musical form in the front of their very eyes \u2014 a form of music which featured all the ingredients that would later identify progressive rock (or Prog, as it became known) \u2014 complex time signatures, and a\u00a0deconstruction of the verse-chorus pop song format into dramatic movements lasting for up to ten or twenty minutes, with classical overtones and informed improvisation.<\/p>\n

Despite the anarchic audiences, a second more-receptive group was following the band around the country \u2014 other musicians who realized they were hearing the sound of things to come and were watching a group ahead of its time. Many of these musicians, like David Bowie (who declared Billy Ritchie to be a genius), Keith Emerson and Rick Wakeman would soon be famous and successful.\u00a0 These guys weren\u2019t so much taking notes as making photocopies. When 1-2-3 were derailed by the unfortunate timing\u00a0and unexpected death of\u00a0their manager Brian Epstein (yes, that<\/em> Brian Epstein), the band faltered.\u00a0 Chrysalis agency eventually took on the band, and renamed it Clouds.\u00a0 But the copyists had already moved in.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>My own band at the time was Village \u2014 an organ trio!\u00a0 We too had a Marquee residency and were also signed to Chrysalis and so we often ran into1-2-3\/Clouds on the circuit.\u00a0 Our organist, Peter Bardens (left), had just disbanded his old outfit which had a Mick Fleetwood and Peter Green on drums and guitar, and a vocalist called Rod Stewart (don\u2019t know what happen to them).<\/p>\n

Village played an R&B\/jazz set (I had a Fender 6-string bass) featuring material by the likes of Jimmy Smith and Miles Davis.\u00a0The band\u00a0stood squarely \u2014 almost symbolically \u2014 between the eras of R&B and Prog \u2014 because, after Village, Pete Bardens went on to form the prog outfit, Camel.\u00a0 One of the bands that supported Village at the Marquee was Kippington Lodge, with its bass player, a pleasant chap called Nick Lowe.\u00a0 It was many years later before our paths would merge \u2014 on the crest of another new wave.<\/p>\n

(With thanks to Dave Dawson)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 1967 it was unheard for an unknown band to be asked to headline at the Marquee club in London.\u00a0 But the Marquee\u2019s manager, John Gee, believed 1-2-3 to be the best band he\u2019d ever seen \u2014 a Scottish trio comprising of Harry Hughes, drums; Ian Ellis, bass and Billy Ritchie, organ (l to r on photo).\u00a0 Often John Gee had to come on stage and interrupt to calm the audience and tell them that if they wanted boring R&B … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14],"tags":[83,86,84,90,91,85,92,89,88,93,87,94],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brucethomas.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2022"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brucethomas.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brucethomas.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brucethomas.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brucethomas.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2022"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.brucethomas.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2022\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2269,"href":"https:\/\/www.brucethomas.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2022\/revisions\/2269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brucethomas.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brucethomas.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brucethomas.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}