Track 1 – “Blowin’ Free” – The Band

How the CIA invented 70’s Rock

In the late 60’s (and by ‘late’ I mean October 1969, so quite late in fact), a couple of relatively unknown musicians from the West Country (Martin Turner and Steve Upton) got together with the son of a founder member of the CIA and posted an advert in the Melody Maker music paper.  The ‘wanted’ ad was a request for a “…Lead Guitarist, positive thinking, creative and adaptive…” to join their as yet, unnamed fledgling rock band. 

As it transpired the band auditioned a number of potential candidates but couldn’t decide between two of the auditionees, namely Andy Powell and Ted Turner,  ¹ so they did what any level-headed person would do when faced with an impossible dilemma; they avoided making a decision, offered the job to both of them, and in doing so invented a dual lead guitar sound which later influenced Thin Lizzy and a host of Heavy Metal bands. 

Ash, Lizzy & Maiden

The band became known as Wishbone Ash and their third studio album “Argus” became an instant bestseller, catapulting the band into the big time.  So influential was their sound that Steve Harris, the Bass Player and founder member of Iron Maiden, sited the album as a main influence on “Maiden’s” early guitar sound. 

April 2022 marks the 50^th anniversary of the release of the album and as a small tribute to the band and this remarkable milestone, I have put together a brief synopsis of the album and the effect it had on me, as a teenager, in 1970’s Britain. So, in the spirit of an era defining 70’s Prog Rock album, this blog is split into four lengthy tracks/parts.  So not that brief then.

They destroyed my life and caused irreparable damage to my non-existent status as a ‘chick magnet’

ME (1976)

Argus – Critical Reception

Recorded in only 5 days Argus was released on April 29th 1972 and was voted Album of the Year by Sounds and Melody Maker. And when you stop to consider albums such as Bowie’s “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars”, “Exile on Main Street” by The Rolling Stones and Deep Purple’s “Machine Head” were all released in the same year, it makes winning those accolades an even greater achievement. 

Purple Ash

The irony of the win though is that Wishbone Ash had supported Deep Purple on a previous tour, and it was Deep Purple’s guitarist Ritchie Blackmore who had introduced the band to Producer Keith Lawrence (who produced “Argus”) and paved the way for them to sign for MCA records.  And they repaid his faith by beating Deep Purple to album of the year and consigning them to the status of runners-up.  There’s gratitude for you.

Most people are familiar with Bowie and The Stones, and perhaps to a slightly lesser extent, Deep Purple, but by comparison hardly anyone will know of Wishbone Ash.  But I do.  And the reason I remember them so well is not because I bought a shedload of their albums during the 70’s and had them on heavy rotation for years to come.  And not because their album “Live Dates” featured my favourite album cover of all time (to that point at least). No, it was because they destroyed my life and caused irreparable damage to my non-existent status as a ‘chick magnet’ and it was all because of a song.  A song on Argus.  A song called “Blowin’ Free”.

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Bowie on TOTP

However, to fully appreciate the impact Wishbone Ash had on me and people like me, it’s important to fully appreciate the effect Argus had on the music buying public of 1972.  If truth be known, you can discount Bowie’s influence on the album charts because nobody was interested in the flame haired wannabe space urchin. Not until his seminal appearance on the BBC’s weekly music chart programme Top of the Pops on July 6^th 1972 at least.  Until then, Bowie’s latest single “Starman” had enjoyed little in the way of chart success but then for him (and everyone else for that matter) everything changed, specifically at the moment when he casually placed a languid arm around the shoulder of sidekick guitarist Mick Ronson and the world of British homo-erotica was never the same again. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sI66hcu9fIs

Roll Out The Barrel

In truth, when I watched it I didn’t detect any gay overtones (mind you I was only eleven); all I saw were two blokes having a good time, like they were having a bit of a singsong in a pub, the effects of vast quantities of Watney’s Red beginning to work on destabilising their ability to stand upright, and they’d discovered they needed to lean on each other during the knees-up, or collapse in a giggling heap to the beer stained carpet below.  

For The Benefit of Aunty Geraldine

Much like the final song at a 70’s wedding, where your uncles are all drunk, the neckties now tied, bandana style, around their heads, shirts unbuttoned, holding a pint on the dance floor when Sinatra’s New York, New York comes blasting through the PA.  Everyone gets in a circle, arms around the shoulders of the people either side.  It could have been your Nan, your drunk uncle, your sister-in-law who you hate, or the hot chick you noticed at the bar but were too frightened to talk to. 

“Wow, I’m glad Aunty Geraldine is built like a Harlequins Tight-Head Prop or I’d be on the floor by now”

Everyone, at the end of a 1970’s wedding

Then, when the brass section kicks in on Sinatra’s Big Band and the legs start kicking, slowly at first, kick to the left, showy flick of the ankle then kick to the right, you look like Bowie and Ronson on TOTP (without the theatrical leg kicks admittedly) but nobody’s thinking, “Hey, this is a bit homo-erotic,” they’re thinking, “Wow, I’m glad Aunty Geraldine is built like a Harlequins Tight-Head Prop, or I’d be on the floor by now”.

Smoke On The Water

As for the Stones, they had become Tax Exiles (after getting fed up with paying 83% income tax or some other ridiculous amount) and had decamped to the South of France where they recorded the tour de force that is Exile on Main Street.  Deep Purple had their own continental catastrophes to deal with when a Casino in Montreux, Switzerland (which they had planned to use as a recording studio), caught fire during a Frank Zappa concert, the blaze almost destroying the recording studio they were using.  Conveniently the ‘studio’ was the Rolling Stones Mobile Unit which they’d hired from them between sessions for Exile on Main Street so, since it was on wheels, they drove it down the street before it too became a fireball.  Then Ritchie Blackmore came up with the greatest Rock ‘n’ Roll riff of all time and Smoke on the Water was born.

 “We all went out to Montreux on the Lake Geneva shoreline,
 To make records with a mobile, we didn’t have much time.
 Frank Zappa and the Mothers were at the best place around,
 When some stupid with a flare gun burned the place to the ground.
 Smoke on the water, fire in the sky.” 

Basically, what I just said above.  And wonderfully simple, but evocative lyrics.    

The thing that connects these albums (Ziggy, Exile, Machine Head and Argus) is they are, without too much dispute, classic albums in their own right, by bands fully into their creative stride, where all the elements required to record a great album came together for a brief moment in time, and the ingredients that necessitated that were working harmoniously between band members, producers and engineers, in so creating the fortuitous outcome of incredible music.  

Some may argue that Bowie superseded Ziggy with a number of greater achievements in later years (I wouldn’t be one of those) but it’s hard to argue the same for the others.  Indeed, Ziggy Stardust’s highest chart position in the UK was only No. 5.  Both Machine Head and Exile on Main Street reached No. 1 and Argus only reached No. 3 despite being ‘album of the year’. 

Comparing the Unholy Trinity

But unlike Bowie, The Stones and Deep Purple, Wishbone Ash’s influence didn’t manifest itself in the Pop singles charts.  Rock bands in the early 70’s didn’t need singles success to be famous or successful.  It certainly helped and some bands like Bowie and The Stones did bridge both the Rock Album and Pop Singles charts on a regular basis but this wasn’t the space bands like Wishbone Ash and Deep Purple necessarily operated in.  For them, a single that charted was a bonus not a necessity.  Indeed, if you use the unholy trinity of 70’s British Rock as a guide, you’d discover they only ever accumulated four top 20 UK singles between them in their careers to date:-

Deep Purple	3
Black Sabbath	1
Led Zeppelin	0

Now, consider that between them they’ve amassed global album sales of circa 450m and you can begin to understand why Wishbone Ash, initially at least, wouldn’t have been too disconcerted at their lack of singles success.

Rock Bands and Singles (45’s)

To clarify further, Deep Purple didn’t have a Top 20 single release during 1972 ² but reached No.1 in the album charts with Machine Head.

Led Zeppelin had no singles or album releases in the UK in 1972 although Led Zeppelin IV (Four Symbols) was still in the charts from its release in November 1971 and had reached No.1 for two weeks.

Black Sabbath had no singles releases in 1972 but the album Black Sabbath Vol.4 reached No.8 in October 1972.

David Bowie had three Top 20 singles in 1972 (Starman, John, I’m Only Dancing and The Jean Genie) and had a No.5 album with Ziggy Stardust.

The Rolling Stones had one Top 20 single in 1972 (Tumblin’ Dice, reaching No.5) and a No.1 album with Exile On Main Street.³

Wishbone Ash had no Top 20 singles in the UK in 1972.  For the record (sic) Wishbone Ash have never had a Top 20 single in the UK.  Argus however reached No.3 in the UK Album charts but was kept off the No.1 spot by Bolan Boogie by T.Rex and Bridge Over Troubled Water by Simon & Garfunkel. ⁴

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It’s clear then, that singles could help propel an album up the charts, but it wasn’t a prerequisite to achieving global domination (as demonstrated by The Unholy Trinity).  It could be argued they are a special case and do not provide a clear and true indicator of the chances of album success outside of the exposure a hit single could provide. But Wishbone Ash were not a Hard Rock or Prog Rock band so quite how they achieved Album of the Year really is anybody’s guess!   Perhaps hard work and ability do count for something after all.

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Argus – The Album

But enough of the musical topography of 1970’s Britain, where were Wishbone Ash in all of this? By ’72, they had two albums under their belts ⁵ and were touring regularly when they went into the studio and began recording what became “Argus”.  If you’ve never seen the album cover (and I wouldn’t judge you on whether you have or not ⁶), the whole experience begins with the cover.  Designed by Hipgnosis, one of the go-to art companies of the day, it features a Spartan Warrior, or at least a soldier from the ancient world, on sentry duty, surveying the distant mountains bathed in the hazy yellow glow of the early morning Hellenic sun, as it rises over the sentry’s shoulder.  But the reverse of the gatefold sleeve holds a secret and I’d had the album for some months before my brother pointed it out to me.  The secret was a UFO, a flying saucer, spinning through the skies of Sparta, which is not apparent to the casual observer or maybe even the Spartan soldier.  It echoes another Hipgnosis album cover, Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here”, where a woman is obscured by an opaque red muslin veil. 

Side 1

Side one opens with the song “Time Was”, which appears, on first listen at least, to be an odd choice for 70’s Rock Band album opener because there’s no big bang to get you up and listening.  Oh no, the Ash boys open with slow tempo, finger picking acoustic guitars, punctuated with bass notes played at the top of the neck but they come straight in with their signature, harmonised lead vocals.  “I’ve got to rearrange my life,” they sing and I already knew this album was for me, because even at only 13, my first thought was, “Hmm, so have I.”  It was already weaving a deep, intricate tapestry of musical notes and phonetics that spread out like a floodplain in my mind.  Getting too trippy for you?  I haven’t even started yet.  Then at two minutes and fifty seconds the song switches to a double time tempo and off it goes.  Out go the acoustics, jettisoned for a Flying V and Stratocaster, and the Rickenbacker 4001 bass (yes, you read that correctly) finds a comfortable groove down at the business end of the neck and the whole piece is then driven by the solid, metronome drums.

Up next is Sometime World which again starts with a slow tempo guitar.  “Met a man who felt the same way, that the world had past him by,” and I thought, “Here we go again, all my carefully crafted inner sanctum barriers are being scaled once again.”  Add to that Blowin’ Free and the album was already prodding relentlessly at the darker recesses of my soul. 

Side 2

Side two opens with the first of the mystical trilogy The King Will Come resplendent with heavy use of the Cry Baby Wah pedal. Next is Leaf and Stream, just guitars on this dreamy mid-tempo minor key song.  Then comes the final two parts of the trilogy, Warrior and Throw Down the Sword.  Both weave stories of medieval pitched battles, or perhaps when considered against the album cover, battles from the ancient world.  Martin Turner has said he had been reading Lord of the Rings at the time the songs were conceived, and that revelation is not a total surprise, given the lyrical content.

Blowin’ Free

However, this blog concentrates mainly on the song Blowin’ Free which opens with a clean sounding electric guitar played by guitarist Andy Powell who favoured a Gibson Flying V at the time.  He plays an open D chord shape that runs down the scale in three steps from the 7^th, 5^th and then 2^nd frets, so technically a G, an E, then a D.  Powell adds notes from the Top E string before the phrase ends with a form of arpeggiated D chord and then after four bars (the song is in 4/4 time), the phrase repeats and in true Wishbone style (for the period around Argus at least) the drums appear low in the mix along with Martin Turner’s growling bass guitar and they slowly build in volume as the opening D riff repeats twice more.  Then at the end of the eighth bar (this is rock music after all so everything is in multiples of four) the guitarists switch to a second phrase based around the chords D, C and G and the rest of the band follow. 

This is all very well and great if you like the song and have some rudimentary knowledge of guitar-based 70’s rock music regarding chords, triads, scales and arpeggios but if you don’t then all you need to know is you’re listening to a clean, melodious, shuffle-rhythm introduction and then the vocals begin and this is where my life turned to dust, not unlike dust ‘Blowin’ Free’ on the winds of time.

“I thought I had a girl, and all because I’ve seen her…”

The Message

Martin Turner the bass player sings the opening line with an accompanying harmony line from Andy Powell.  And by 1975, when I was fifteen and had heard the song quite a few times, it took on a whole new identity, a whole new raison d’être because suddenly it became a rallying call, a call to arms, a demand for action.  The song ceased to be merely a structured piece of music with accompanying lyrics from an album I liked.  It took on fundamental meaning.  It resonated deep within my psyche as it searched the labyrinthine corridors of my mind until it discovered a connection.  Something to hook its creeping, clandestine claws into.  And when it did, it had a message for me. 

DON’T JUST SIT THERE – DO SOMETHING!

About The Lyrics

In the 70’s, lyrics weren’t as easily accessible as they are today and I’ve always thought the lyrics were, “I thought I had a girl, I know because I’ve seen her.”  It doesn’t make much difference now because the message was the same and the message was clear; it was up to me now, to be proactive, to take action because at that very time in my life in the 5^th year of a secondary school in Harlow, Essex, I too thought I had a girl. How did I know this? Because I’d seen her. 

It appeared the band had unwittingly written and recorded a song that would provide a form of permission for me to talk to a girl I liked.  Because by doing so I would become one of the ‘crowd’; one of the ‘boys’; a ‘jack-the-lad’. I’d be able to trade war stories with others like me, compare battle scars, talk up my ruination over a slug of redeye, as this was a rite of passage into the strange and often unedifying world of adulthood.  The Wishbone Ash boys, with their melodic guitar phrasing, lead vocal harmonies and driving rhythm section, well, they were talking about me, to me, articulated in a manner only I could fully comprehend, and they were talking directly about my life, my needs and my desires. 

But really, what desires does a fifteen-year-old boy have that he fully understands?  Not many.  He can comprehend a desire to be wanted, to be liked, to be popular and to be accepted. 

Deborah and her Wood Chip Wallpaper

Some years later I heard another song, this time by Sheffield popsters “Pulp”.  The song was “Disco 2000” and this time it was Jarvis Cocker reflecting on his life and missed opportunities with the love of his life “Deborah”. 

 “We were friends and that’s as far as it went,
 I used to walk you home sometimes but it meant,
 It meant nothing to ya,
 Cos’ you were so popular” 

Unrequited Love

This song is somehow a bookend to the Wishbone song (which I’ll get back to) because both deal with unrequited love, a singular, one-directional desire that has no recourse to a solution and therefore provides no closure, but if you haven’t guessed it yet based on the lyrical content supplied thus far, or by the title of this piece, then I’ll keep you in suspense no longer.  It didn’t work out very well for me, not very well at all. But as Jarvis also said in Disco 2000, “The boys all loved you but I was a mess”. And that line probably summarises this piece quite well on its own.  

But just who was the mysterious girl who became the object of all my desires in my teenage school years, and what was so special about her? Well, I’ll get onto that in Part 2 but before that happens, let’s get back to Wishbone Ash and their incendiary “Blowin’ Free”.  The lyrics are as follows:-

 “I thought I had a girl, and all because I’d seen her,
 Her hair was golden brown, blowin’ free like a cornfield.
 She was far away, I found it hard to reach her,
 She told me you can try, but it’s impossible to find her.
 In my dreams everything was alright,
 In your schemes you can only try.
 I thought I had a girl…” etc. 

Wishbone Ash, all matching hair and Gibsons.

It soon became evident that minimal lyric content was no antidote for the absolution of an overactive imagination

Considering the song weighs in at around 5 minutes and 20 seconds, that’s not many lyrics in view of the approach rappers take to song writing.  However, it doesn’t take much to overload my mind, even less so in 1975/76 where this story takes place, and it soon became evident that minimal lyric content was no antidote for the absolution of an overactive imagination.  As it transpired, it had the opposite effect.

Next Up – Track 2 – Persephone – The Girl

Click here for Part 2

1. Ted Turner was permanently referred to (in the written press at least) as “Ted Turner (no relation)” when mentioned in the same sentence as Martin Turner.  They could have changed his name to Ted-Turner-No-Relation and saved everyone a lot of bother.
2. Deep Purple spent three weeks in the Top 20 in 1972 with “Fireball”. Taken from their previous album of the same name, it was released in 1971.
3. Including both Live and Compilation albums, Exile On Main Street was The Rolling Stones 16^th straight UK Top 20 album release.
4. Bridge Over Troubled Water debuted in the UK album charts at No.1 in February 1970 and stayed in the Top 50 until September….1974 (!)  where it continued to drift in and out of the UK charts until February 1976, six years after it was released.
5. The eponymous Wishbone Ash reached #29 and Pilgrimage, a respectable #14
6. Trust me, I already have and it doesn’t look good.