Exhaustive 5CD and Blu-ray video boxset that features every surviving British radio and television appearance by Strawbs. A Glimpse Of Heaven is a fascinating and comprehensive history of this most legendary band.
A SOUNDTRACK TO THE STORY
From early beginnings as Lonnie Donegan copyists in the Lower Sixth form of Thames Valley Grammar School in Twickenham, to the stages and festival arenas of Europe and North America. A roster of members that included such names as Dave Cousins, Rick Wakeman, Blue Weaver, John Ford, Dave Lambert, Chas Cronk – even Sandy Denny. Chart success – and a canon of peerless albums that includes such enduring gems as From The Witchwood (1971) and Grave New World (1972). The Stawbs story is a long and thoroughly engaging affair.
It’s a story that’s been told in many forms, perhaps most notably by founder member and lifelong mainstay, Dave Cousins, in his 2014 autobiography, Exorcising Ghosts. And, now, thanks to this latest offering from Cherry Red offshoot, Esoteric Records, there’s an alternative soundtrack to the story that we can enjoy.
Over their long history, Strawbs were regular visitors to the BBC. They made their first radio appearance (billed as David Cousins and Tony Hooper) on the 29th June 1963 edition of the Saturday Club radio show on a Brian Matthews-hosted bill that also featured The Beatles, Eden Kane, Brian Poole & The Tremeloes and others. And the radio – and TV – appearances continued, right through Strawbs’ early-70s UK heyday until their July 1980 dissolution. And, when the band re-formed during the mid-1980s, the appearances resumed.
THE RADIO APPEARANCES START…
A Glimpse of Heaven, the new boxset from Esoteric, gathers together every surviving radio and television recording of Strawbs. That early Saturday Club appearance might have been lost to the winds, but there’s so much here to savour and enjoy. The earliest recordings date back to a 1966 BBC Songs From The Folk Cellar show (when the 3-piece band were still operating as the Strawberry Hill Boys) and the timeline concludes with a stunning memoir of the re-formed Grave New World lineup’s performance at the 1983 Cambridge Folk Festival.
And the highlights along that timeline come thick and fast…
The early Strawbs, with double bassist Ron Chesterman joining Cousins and Hooper in the formative lineup are represented by appearances on BBC’s Top Gear and Meet Peter Sarstedt shows from 1968 and 1969. Things really take off when the band – now including Rick Wakeman on keyboards, John Ford on bass and Richard Hudson on drums – returned to the Beeb in October 1970 for a Sounds of the 70s session and they hit the sky when tracks from – first – From The Witchwood and – later – Grave New World are premiered during sessions on the same show between June 1971 and April 1972.
GLIMPSES OF HEAVEN
Disc 2 of the set is a particular highlight. It’s a BBC In Concert show, recorded on 5th August and transmitted on 15th August 1971. The show was one of Wakeman’s final appearances with Strawbs before he left the band to join Yes and the setlist for the evening draws heavily on the then-current From The Witchwood album. Familiar songs, including The Hangman and the Papist, Martin Luther King’s Dream and A Glimpse of Heaven (the title of this boxset) are supplemented by interesting curios like RMW – Rick Wakeman’s instrumental ode to his (then) wife, the bluegrass When You Wore a Tulip and an early working of The Flower and the Young Man, a song that would appear on Grave New World.
Strawbs hit commercial paydirt in late 1972, when Lay Down – the lead single from the Bursting At The Seams album – entered the UK singles chart and peaked at the heady heights of #12. Ex-Amen Corner keyboardist Blue Weaver had replaced Wakeman and guitarist Dave Lambert had displaced founder member Tony Hooper. An even higher peak of success was reached in January 1973 when follow-up single, Part of the Union, reached #2 in the chart, and Strawbs were, suddenly, in heavy demand. Disc 3 of this set features the band’s radio appearances from this period, with the current hits sitting alongside some of the tried and tested Witchwood and Grave New World material in a March 1973 BBC Radio 1 In Concert performance.
NEW DIRECTION
The band’s commercial success led to the inevitable “sellout” accusations from some quarters of Strawbs’ established following and, after a US tour that has often been described as ‘fractious,’ Hudson, Ford and Weaver left the band. They were replaced, respectively, by ex-Stealers Wheel drummer Rod Coombes, bassist Chas Cronk and former Renaissance keyboardist John Hawken and the band’s sound started to brush the periphery of prog rock. The 1974 Hero and Heroine album that this lineup released was hugely successful in the USA and provided the bulk of the material for yet another BBC Radio 1 In Concert session – this time in April 1974. This session occupies Disc 4 of this set.
Strawbs continued to continue. Hero And Heroine was followed by Ghosts (1975) – another album that received more attention Stateside that it did on these shores – and, later that same year, by Nomadness, the band’s final album for the A&M label. Further albums followed but, as we all know, music was changing. Keyboard/mellotron-led prog rock was starting to lose widespread appeal and, like many of their contemporaries. Strawbs started to feel the pinch. They called it a day in 1980.
But that wasn’t the end.
THE RETURN OF STRAWBS
In early 1983, the Grave New World lineup reconvened for an appearance on Rick Wakeman’s Channel 4 TV show, Gastank. The appearance was a success and it led to an invitation for that version of Strawbs to perform at that year’s Cambridge Folk Festival. Happily, a recording of that appearance has survived and it’s presented here, on Disc 5 of this collection, alongside a couple of rehearsal recordings for a South West Television appearance and the performance of The Hangman and the Papist from the Gastank show. Strawbs are in fine form as they run through a setlist of bona fide classics.
This excellent boxset is completed by a Blu-Ray video disc that collects all of Strawbs’ surviving television appearances. And, for Strawbs followers everywhere, it’s a treasure trove. Top of the Pops clips include Strawbs’ 1971 debut appearance on the show when they performed The Hangman and the Papist on the shortlived ‘Album Spot,’ as well as performances to plug Lay Down, Part Of The Union and the excellent 1973 single, Shine On Silver Sun. And there’s a feast of Old Grey Whistle Test appearances, too – perhaps most notably a riveting performance of Absent Friend, a track from the Nomadness album.
As an audio and visual life story of one the UK’s most singular and enduring bands, A Glimpse of Heaven will be hard to beat. Highly recommended.
Watch Strawbs perform their 1973 single, Shine On Silver Sun, on Top of the Pops – below:
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