The fifth and finest album from British blues-rockers Ten Years After gets the deluxe reissue treatment.  A golden opportunity to reappraise Cricklewood Green – with a previously unreleased live set thrown in for good measure!

MASTERFUL TIMING

Cricklewood Green was the fifth and – many would argue – finest album from the classic incarnation of British blues-rock band, Ten Years After.  Originally from the Nottingham area, the four-piece outfit – Alivin Lee (guitar, vocals), Leo Lyons (bass), Chick Churchill (keyboards) and Ric Lee (drums) had been working the nation’s club circuits since the early 1960s before a hook-up with the fledgling Chrysalis Agency set them on the road to national, European and transatlantic success. 

The band’s early albums and, particularly their 1969 offerings, Stonedhenge and Ssssh helped consolidate their success and they achieved international recognition following their appearance at the Woodstock festival in August 1969.

The timing of the release of Cricklewood Green in April 1970 was either masterful, or incredibly fortuitous.  The Woodstock movie had just started to do its rounds.  It featured Ten Years After’s marathon performance of their showpiece number, I’m Going Home and interest in the band had never been higher.  Cricklewood Green quickly became the band’s best-selling album, striking gold in both the UK and the USA.  The album also spawned TYA’s sole hit single, Love Like A Man, which reached the UK Top 10 in the summer of 1970. 

CAPTAIN SPEED FINGERS

Ten Years After were big news.  Guitarist Alvin Lee was a true guitar hero – in an era when that accolade really meant something.  Indeed, his name was often mentioned in the same hallowed tones as Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton and his fretboard-melting style earned him the title of Captain Speed Fingers.  The rest of the band were no slouches, either and Cricklewood Green is, perhaps, the album that displays their diverse talents to best effect.

This deluxe reissue of the album comes as either a 2LP vinyl set or a double CD package, both of which bring together the original album with a newly mixed and previously unreleased recording of TYA’s second set at Bill Graham’s Fillmore East on 27^th February 1970.  The set comes complete with inlays that include an informative essay by journalist Nigel Williamson, together with photographs and reproduced news cuttings that will fascinate anyone with a lasting love for this most exceptional of bands.

It’s 35 years or more since I last sat down to listen to Cricklewood Green and I’m pleased to say that the album has aged extremely well.  The sound is clean and well-balanced (and I’m sure that the remastering has helped in that respect) and the band are tight.  Priority is given to musicianship, rather than showmanship and the songs invite repeated listens.

CRICKLEWOOD GREEN – THE ORIGINAL ALBUM

Opening track, Sugar on the Road serves notice of what’s in store, with Alvin’s breathy vocals and the first of his many superspeed guitar solos.  Working on the Road is punchy, with Chick’s organ well-forward in the mix and, with 50,000 Miles Beneath My Brian, TYA deliver a deft mix of spacy psychedelia and Stones-like swagger.  The country-rock of Year 3,000 Blues never ceases to surprise (and, even here, they manage to squeeze in a few Alvin Lee pyrotechnics) and the band turn their hand to Western Swing for the excellent Me And My Baby.

The version of Love Like a man that featured on the original album was the full-fat, 7+ minutes version and it’s great to hear it again.  It’s early 70s blues-rock at its very best.  Elsewhere, Circles is the obligatory folky/acoustic number that every early 70s rock band felt obliged to include on their albums – and it works a treat, an album highlight.  As The Sun Still Burns Away was the closing track on the original vinyl version of the album and it’s one of those tracks that captures the essence of Ten Years After in a nutshell; a smouldering, slow-building blues-rocker with dashes of psychedelia.

A QUIRKY ARTEFACT

Three of the four bonus tracks – featured with the CD package, but not the vinyl set – were also included on the 2002 CD reissue of Cricklewood Green.  The single edit of Love Like A Man is first.  The single, when first issued was quite a quirky artefact with the edited studio version of the track (this version) on the ‘A’ side, mastered to play at 45 RPM.  The ‘B’ side featured a live recording of the song also from the Fillmore East, but not the show included in this package and that recording was mastered to play at 33⅓ RPM.  That’s just an aside, by the way…

Warm Sun and To No One were tracks recorded during the Cricklewood Green sessions that didn’t make the final cut.  They’re fine songs but I suspect that the correct decision was made regarding their exclusion; they just don’t fit on what is, otherwise, a highly-cohesive album.  Final bonus track, Cricklewood Jam is the only previously unreleased item on Disc 1 of this set and it’s something of a curio.  It’s quite charming – a low-key instrumental piece, built around one of Chick’s piano figures.  Chick and Alvin combine nicely, whilst Leo and Ric provide a broody rhythm.  It’s obviously unfinished but one gets the impression that, with a bit more work, the guys could have turned it into something special.

LIVE, ON FIRE

I think that it’s generally acknowledged that Ten Years After were at their best when faced with a live audience.  The 1973 double set, Recorded Live, made an attempt to capture that special magic but, perhaps, didn’t quite hit the spot.  Make no mistake, the live recording that comprises Disc 2 of this package hits the bullseye.  The sound quality is spot-on and Charlie Russell’s production captures, and bottles, the excitement of the show magnificently.

Opening track, Love Like A Man, is introduced as “…a new song” and, right from the outset, it’s clear that TYA are on fire.  Even 56 years after the event, Alvin’s solos sound breathtaking.  Good Morning Little Schoolgirl is a solid gold TYA favourite.  Their interpretation of the Sonny Boy Williamson song first saw light of day on the band’s 1969 Ssssh album and the version included on this live recording is a stonker.  The crowd cheer the opening riff and the band rattle through the song with precision and abandon.  And, if anyone’s forgotten what used to happen when Alvin and Leo took off into space together – here’s a reminder.

MARATHON PERFORMANCE

TYA return to the matter in hand – promoting their ‘new’ album – for Working On The Road and they sound bright and sparkly as they gallop through the song.  And they stick with Cricklewood Green for a stunning version of 50,000 Miles Beneath My Brain.  I sense a bit of a struggle during the song’s psychedelic opening section but what may be lost in tunefulness is gained in immediacy.  I don’t think I’ve ever noticed how much they sound like The Stones on this one; it’s Sympathy for the Devil in slightly different clothing and Alvin seems to be strutting as frantically as the Jaggerman himself.

TYA edge into the home straight with a marathon performance of I Can’t Keep From Crying Sometimes.  A song from the band’s 1967 self-titled debut album, they played it Woodstock, at the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival and at just about every show since.  It’s the album’s centrepiece and it includes everything that TYA do best: intimate blues, explosive guitar soloing, fluent jamming, Alvin’s down-tuning trick and breathy, dramatic vocals.  There are, of course, a few well-known riffs (Sunshine Of Your Love, Peter Gunn et al) thrown in for good measure.  And the audience loved it!

GOING HOME?

Thanks to its appearance in the Woodstock movie, I’m Going Home probably remains Ten Years After’s best-known song.  The crowd lets out a roar as Alvin introduces it and the band do it full justice.  Alvin’s vocals are sharp, Leo’s bass thunders and thuds and Ric keeps up a relentless rhythm.  And, best of all, Alvin’s lightning-fast solos are breathtaking.  It’s never been my favourite TYA number, but this version is, I reckon, faster, sharper and more immediate than its Woodstock stablemate and, for those reasons alone, its inclusion here is well worthwhile.

Personally, I didn’t manage to get around to seeing Ten Years After until 1974 and, by that time, they’d dropped I’m Going Home from their set.  But they still wrapped things up – as they do here – with their rollicking version of Chuck Berry’s Sweet Little Sixteen.  It’s a song that Ten Years After always performed so very well and this version is skin-tight, it’s raucous and it rocks.  I’d even venture to suggest that they may have captured the song’s definitive version, right here.

Perhaps, after all these years, we’ve finally got the Ten Years After live album that we’ve always wanted…?

Watch Ten Years After perform Love Like a Man – their 1970 hit and a track from Cricklewood Green – below:

Ten Years After: Website

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