Wishbone Ash Reviews Roundup Special

Wishbone Ash Reviews Roundup Special

I know some people think I’m a thousand years old but I’m actually too young to remember classic Wishbone Ash. I’d just started primary school when their debut album came out so it was the tenth anniversary tour before I saw them live at the Glasgow Apollo. Which was good timing because frontman Martin Turner packed it in later that year. Which brings us to some rereleases and new releases.

 

WISHBONE ASH
Raw To The Bone
Lemon

Strange to say I remember this getting some rave reviews at the time. I liked it but then I was a teenage metalhead but history seems to have taken an extreme dislike to it if online Wishbone Ash fans are anything to go by.

Well. I still like it. They were in a bit of chaos around this time as they rattled through bass players / vocalists at a rate of knots and it was an attempt to find favour with a world where metal was ruling rock. Former Trapeze fella Merv Spence was the latest to arrive and he and the band aimed themselves firmly at the world of commercial hard rock. That probably alienated a few fans who’d arrived over a decade earlier but the musical world had moved on and WA had a decent crack at moving with it. It probably didn’t help that their major label days were behind them and this came out on a series of indies with Geordie NWOBHM stalwarts Neat doing the honours in the UK. The W.A.S.P. like cover probably didn’t help either, although David Wood of Neat probably loved it.

But when the music kicked in there was a lot to enjoy. Yes, it was melodic, AOR tinged, hard rock that was a world away from “Argus”, but that was a decade behind them. By this point they had to take a chance and I still reckon if folk had gotten a chance to listen to tunes like ‘Cell Of Fame’ and the should have been huge in the USA, ‘Long Live The Night’. Spence was a great singer and there were still songs that would have pleased the older fans with ‘Dreams (In Search Of An Answer)’ the best of that bunch. Sure, it’s not a classic but it’s a lot better than you’d think. this double CD reissue also comes with five bonus tracks and a live CD recorded in 1985.

 

 

WISHBONE ASH
Twin Barrels Burning
Lemon

A couple of years earlier, post Martin Turner who’d been replaced by the late John Wetton who’d been replaced by the equally late Trevor Bolder, Wishbone Ash were grooving along in a commercial blues rock vein. Which is what “Twin Barrels Burning” is all about.

Trying to find their place in the eighties musical world they’d decided to go back to a time where Savoy Brown, Foghat and ZZ Top were taking America by storm. And Wishbone Ash proved to be pretty good at it. Of course they were eight or nine years late to the party. Which means a bunch of good songs went unappreciated. ‘Genevieve’, ‘Hold On’, ‘Streets of Shame’ and others were solid and enjoyable. Granted, there is no killer song although ‘No More Lonely Nights’ comes close. It also didn’t help that they didn’t have a proper singer in the band with all the members singing their own compositions. So it’s a bit fragmented.

Again, they seemed a wee bit lost in the early eighties with a lot of lineup changes and switches in styles. Even though this was the first WA album I bought new it’s not one I’ve been back to often over the years. The double CD reissue has three bonus songs with ‘Night Hawker’ a real guitar led treat while the bonus disc has an American remix of the album with a different running order which you’ll listen to once.

 

 

MARTIN TURNER
The Beauty Of Chaos: Live At The Citadel
Dirty Dog Discs

Martin Turner does like a live album. It’s only a couple of years since “Life Begins”, which repackaged the 2011 release. And a couple of years before that we got “The Garden Party”. He’s also done two lots of “New Live Dates”. And now we’ve got this one. Well a fella has got to make a living.

This one sees him playing his last solo album “Written in the Stars” in its entirety. WITS was an OK album but I would imagine that people of a certain pedigree will be buying this for the set of Wishbone Ash classics that adorn the second disc. His solo band do a fair fist of replicating the days of yore but with so many vintage Wishbone Ash live sets out there it’s going to be a hard sell. To it’s credit it’s beautifully packaged and comes with a DVD of the show as well, so it’s certainly value for money. However, Mr Turner (who never had the strongest of voices) struggles in more than a few places. Wishbone Ash fans will be in for a conflicted Autumn as I hear that Martin Turners Wishbone Ash and the official Wishbone Ash are both gearing up for UK dates.

At least they’re keeping the flag flying for songs that deserve to be heard.

 

 

TED & MAJELLA
Better Together
Turneround Music

Now this was a surprise as the Ted of the title is Ted Turner, a founder member of Wishbone Ash who packed his bags in 1974 when WA were at the top of their game.

He did lots of session work, rejoined Wishbone Ash a couple of times but only ever released one solo album. That was “Eklectic Value” which came out back in 2010. But here he is with the missus and what they say is a new musical genre: “New Age Soul”. It’s not, of course. What it is is seventies soft rock with a Climax Blues Band vibe. Which isn’t a bad thing. It is very hippy dippy on the lyrical side as most of the songs seem to be about how much in love the two of them are with a few nods in the direction of making the world a better place through peace and, yes, love. Whatever floats their boat.

Fans of WA will just be glad he’s got his guitar out again and there are a few songs like the title track which do stand up to repeated plays. His guitar work is restrained and melodic while Majella has a nice enough voice. A welcome return although I suspect it’s mainly a completists release.

 

St Columba’s Hospice Tribute Fund for Linda Hamilton
http://linda.hamilton.muchloved.com/