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by Pete Feenstra
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Foreword “We never planned anything at all. It was always, let’s just go for it.” Charlie Whitney “We just soaked everything in from events around us. It was the mood of the moment and in fact it had little or nothing to do with the London scene at the time.” Roger Chapman “There weren’t any set parameters.We threw stuff at the wall and if it stuck we’d use it. Sometimes there were bits in a song that were incongruous and you’d often end up with something different from what you started out with. It was that way of experimenting that made Family unique.” Poli Palmer
• bass in the band’s later period, while the late keyboard maestro Tony Ashton sadly failed to see out the seventies. That’s not to forget Jim King, an integral member of The Farinas and the band’s original leader, who doubled on vocals, horn and harp, and who left Family on the cusp of A Song For Me in search of Charlie Parker, but of that more later... In between the comings and goings and the countless gigs, Family recorded consistently glorious music as is to be found in this box set. They were a band who never rested on their laurels and took each setback as a challenge. They saw each line-up change as a chance to explore a new direction and each album as another step forward. Spontaneous yet combustible, creative but sometimes self destructive, optimistic though hampered by apprehension, exciting but always grounded, hip but self-effacing, one part musically introspective, the other given to violent bluster, Family were stable and dependable but also a revolving door of top drawer talent. They may have briefly been darlings of ‘The Underground’ but they never lost sight of their East Midlands origins in Leicester. At the height of their success Penny Valentine called them: “Provincial in the nicest sense of that word, it’s given them longevity and served them well.” [1] Family were a patchwork quilt of different musical and lyrical impulses, a band with different characters pursuing unfettered creativity, sometimes straining at the leash to push in different directions, but always creating fresh, challenging music. Four decades after their psychedelic debut Music In A Doll’s House, they still fill reissue catalogues and influence a new generation of listeners. This box set is both a celebration of the group’s first two albums - restored in their rightful place at the top of the catalogue -
eicester band Family was the first British act to sign to an American label (Reprise) on both sides of the Atlantic. They cut seven chart albums, enjoyed four hit singles, appeared twice at each of the Hyde Park and Isle of Wight festivals and toured the USA three times with the likes of Ten Years After and Elton John. This was achieved despite a notorious rupture with the influential Fillmore venue owner Bill Graham on their first North American trip. Back in the late sixties Family were a band on the up, with a hip young manager-cum film director, John Gilbert who had access to the beautiful people of the era. They even graced the pages of society magazine The Tatler with John and George from The Beatles, had a book written about their early career sexual proclivities in the swinging sixties and, in Roger Chapman, had one of the original wild men of rock. His one man dadaistic performances frequently caused mayhem and destruction all around him, but he nevertheless inspired undying devotion from the fans. Chappo was, alongside multi-instrumentalist guitarist Charlie Whitney and improvisational drummer Rob Townsend, part of an original triumvirate to which were added leading musicians of the day. These included the hugely talented Ric Grech, who later joined the all-star Blind Faith, on bass and violin. Then there was Poli Palmer, another multiinstrumental innovator, who later played a significant part in Chappo’s solo career, and former Animals guitarist and violinist John ‘Willie’ Weider, who was asked to play bass and who, in his own words, “never joined a band from the beginning.” John Wetton doubled on guitar and bass and sang superbly on Fearless before heading for King Crimson. Guitarist Jim Cregan, who later made his name with Rod Stewart, was recruited to play
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[1] ‘Family - The Lads Keep A Rockin’ - Penny Valentine, Sounds 16th December 1972 [2] ‘What To Do About Family’ - Andrew Bailey, Rolling Stone 1st April 1971 [3] ‘Chappo Chats’ - Penny Valentine, Sounds 26th August 1972
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(though, ironically, not their biggest hit) ‘Burlesque’, they actually agonised over whether to include it on an album, as it was considered too commercial. Family were innovators, fresh, exciting, visceral and different. Their music stretched from R&B and soul antecedents to folk, country, jazz, prog, psychedelic and art rock. No musical boundaries could restrict them as a natural outpouring of creative songwriting from Chapman and Whitney pushed the band into hitherto unexplored directions. Roger: “The point was that there was no defined direction really, it was simply that we had started writing. We’d been in a sort of cocoon while we were in Leicester, it wasn’t until we got to London that other influences started to come in.” The one consistent structural element in all of this was the startling quiet/loud dichotomy that continues to influence so much contemporary music. Poli: “We always had that bolt over the head followed by the quiet stuff, though it wasn’t always planned. We once played the Olympia in Paris and the power blew out. So I’m there on vibes which, though plugged in, are essentially acoustic instruments. Because of the power cut there was just me and Rob playing together but neither of us actually stopped playing and so Roger carried on projecting his voice and we’re then an acoustic trio. Charlie picked up an acoustic guitar and I guess John Weider did the same and we carried on until the power came back on and BOOM, we were back into our performance, and the crowd went WOW, but none of this was supposed to happen. Typical Family, really.” Put simply, Family were everything that made rock music so essential all those years ago. The recorded highs were worth waiting for and their live shows proved to be as memorable as the flashpoints proved legendary. At the end, the band also avoided a slow decline by suddenly calling it a day. As Chappo later admitted: “We wanted to get out at the top.”
and a fresh reappraisal of one of the most vital bands of the era. If Music In A Doll’s House represented a groundbreaking slice of musical history and Entertainment refined that startling style, then the leading French magazine Rock & Folk [March 1999] got it just about right when they described the band’s initial brace of recordings as the “petits chefs-d’oeuvre du psychédélisme anglais.” It is doubtful whether there has ever been a more contradictory band than Family. The gentle lyrics and dynamic music were created by Chapman and Whitney respectively; two characters whose on stage performances were diametrically opposed to their musical output. Rolling Stone magazine [2] devoted a full page spread to Family in spring 1971 outlining the career frustrations of a talented band which didn’t quite fit into the bigger picture, especially in the States. They came from a countercultural backdrop in the UK which had its own press, its own influential figures such as DJ John Peel and its own iconic venues including UFO and Middle Earth. That aside, Family had the musical chops, adventurous material and a sufficiently exciting live show to make a splash, although they weren’t as easily digestible as their American touring partners Ten Years After or The Nice. They were a band with one of the most aggressive lead vocalists in the history of rock who were equally capable of writing some of the most moving songs of the era. They were also a democratic group with real integrity, a point which led Chapman years later to remark: “That was the problem really. We always ran the band democratically.” Ironically it was this sense of esprit de corps that almost obscured the self-evident fact that Roger was the focal point if not the band leader, an observation he often refuted: “I could never have coped with the responsibility of being looked on as any kind of leader.” [3] The band faced up to the old counter cultural no-no of selling out. Come the time of hitting potential pay dirt with one of their very best songs
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Backstage at Carnegie Hall, New York, April 1970
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