Home Service have achieved the impossible by finding a replacement for the hitherto irreplaceable John Tams and, to prove it, they’re back – with a stunning new live album.

Release Date:  Out Now

Label: Talking Elephant Records

Formats: CD

We all thought that it was impossible but it appears that we were wrong.  Because the Home Service boys have pulled it off – they’ve successfully replaced John Tams, the man we all believed to be utterly irreplaceable, with a new front man – and Home Service are airbourne once again.

Tamsy bid his last farewell to Home Service after the band’s triumphal appearance at 2022’s Fairport’s Cropredy Convention, leaving the band for the third and (barring extra-special circumstances or the return of a Tory government…) final time after that Cropredy show and everyone – band members included – thought that that was it.

But, happily, that wasn’t IT.  Acting upon a suggestion from Fairport’s Simon Nicol and his partner, Debs Earl, Messrs Taylor, Findon, Gregory et al sent a persuasive missive to Geordie good-guy Bob Fox, inviting him to join the Home Service ranks.  Bob accepted the invitation and the result is – for reasons that I’ll be explaining – pretty damn amazing.  For the moment, I’ll just say: Home Service are BACK, with a BULLET.

Bob made his debut appearance with his new colleagues at the 2023 Broadstairs Folk Week and, from the outset, Home Service followers were praying for an album to showcase Bob’s formidable contribution to the band – and now that album is with us.  Recorded during shows at The Bedford (Balham), The Apex (Bury St Edmunds) and The Stables (Wavendon), A Live Transmission is an uplifting taste of what this new lineup can do and the really good news is that Home Service have got a whole sequence of further shows planned for Spring 2025 – that’s something that At The Barrier is not going to miss (see details of the shows here).

So – to bring the story bang up-to-date – the current Home Service lineup, and the lineup featured on A Live Transmission, is: Andy Lester on trombone, Shane Brennan on trumpet, piccolo trumpet and flugel horn, Andy Findon on soprano and tenor saxophones, flute and piccolo, Steve King on keyboards, tenor sax and backing vocals, Rob Levy on bass, Michael Gregory on drums and percussion, Graeme Taylor on electric guitars and backing vocals and, of course, Bob Fox on acoustic guitar and lead vocals.

Let me say upfront, the choice of Bob Fox as a replacement for Mr Tams is an inspired one.  His vocal styling matches JT’s honesty and passion and his voice has the same rich tonality as John’s.  He’s able to interpret Tams’s songs in a way that, perhaps, no-one else but the man himself could, and he manages to do so without surrendering the warmth of his own personality.  Not only that – he also brings a laden suitcase of his own material to the party and, no surprises here, they fit perfectly into the Home Service way of doing things.

It’s a Tams piece-de-résistance that gets A Live Transmission underway and the band – Bob in particular – nail it.  The hairs pricked up on the back of my neck as they surged into Napoleon’s Grande March; the band are tight, bright and joyful, and oh so very, very loud.  Graeme’s guitar sounds as fresh as ever, Michael’s drums are subtle or thunderous – as the tune demands – and the brass is, quite simply, thrilling.  And Bob passes his opening acid test with flying colours as he delivers a soaring vocal to Walk My Way, a song so inextricably entwined in the image of John Tams that I’d never have believed that anyone else would dare attempt it.  But Bob Fox did, and he came through!

Northumbrian ballad Bonny At Morn has been widely covered by, amongst others, Kathryn Tickell and John Spiers and its one of the songs that Bob has brought along to Home Service from his own extensive repertoire.  Here, a jazzy edge is added to Bob’s respectful vocal by Shane’s trumpet and Graeme’s shimmering guitar and Andy’s and Steve’s saxes are deliciously sleazy as the song builds to its climax.  And Bob’s contribution to the party is even more pronounced as the band move on to The Road to the North/ The White Cockade – a couple of pieces that featured on Bob’s Y2K solo debut album, Dreams Never Leave You.  Bob plays his mandocello on Alistair Anderson’s opening section, before the band kick in for an extra-jazzy treatment of the traditional The White Cockade, with Rob Levy’s bass recalling the funky aspect of the Bob Fox original.

Graeme’s Bramsley is, of course, an established Home Service favourite.  The contemplative guitar and deep brass tones of the tune’s opening bars hark back to the prog-medieval explorations of Graeme’s first band, Gryphon, before the whole thing erupts in an explosion of glorious sound, into a triumphant march tune that says EVERYTHING about what Home Service are.

Tamsy’s Snow Falls is a song that has been associated with Home Service right the way through the band’s existence.  Indeed, it predates the band, having first featured in the The Albion Band’s soundtrack to the National Theatre production of Lark Rise To Candleford, back in the mid-1970s.  Here, the song has been radically reworked into a 2-part affair that starts as an acoustic folk ballad, laced with flourishes of brass that reference the Home Service/ Vaughan Williams association, before reverting to the full-bore original arrangement in which Bob, once again, channels JT with another soaring vocal.

And the spectre of Tams is even more vivid for Battle Pavanne/ Peat Bog Soldiers, a medley that dates back to the very earliest days of Home Service.  There are several recorded versions of the piece already available but I reckon that this one is the best yet.  Graeme’s guitar solos are sublime and the brass section ooze both military precision and dissident attitude as Bob delivers what is, possibly, his finest vocal so far. 

And we stay in the early Home Service years for a tasteful version of The Old Man’s Song, a number that was the result of a John Tams/ Bill Caddick collaboration.  It’s good to see the song back in the Home Service repertoire and Graeme’s spiky guitar licks and Shane’s Spanish trumpet flourishes are a great touch. 

Graeme first came across Papa Joe’s Polka at a performance at The World Theatre Festival in Cologne Cathedral, back in the early 1980s.  Along with Andy, he worked on the tune’s arrangement and it made its appearance on the 2016 Home Service album, A New Ground.  It’s piece of real fun, performed here with grace, guile and boundless enthusiasm.

The Scarecrow, John Tams’s biting anti-war statement, is, arguably, the ultimate Home Service anthem.  The sentiments in John’s lyrics never fail to hit home and the version included on A Live Transmission is superlative in every possible sense.  Bob once again expands his vocal chords to fill the Tams-sized hole, the band mesh delightfully and Graeme’s solos reach for the sky.  And, perhaps the most sublime moment on the entire album is reached with Andy Findon’s flute-reading of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending – it’s the perfect bookend to such an eternally thought-provoking song.

“It’s impossible to follow that,” said Bob, as The Scarecrow reaches its conclusion, but follow it they did, with perhaps the only tune on Earth that could be slotted in without disturbing the established mood.  Battle Of The Somme is probably best remembered as the climax to Part 1 of The Albions’ Lark Rise To Candleford album.  There, it’s a crashing cacophony that symbols the end old the old order and the start of modern life; here, it’s a slow-builder in which Andy’s flute continues the contemplations from The Scarecrow, before Shane adds his trumpet and, slowly, the band join in to bring the tune – and this excellent and truly welcome – album to its glorious close.

Watch Home Service perform Scarecrow at the 2011 Shrewsbury Folk Festival here:

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