James Status Quo: The Frantic Four Years

Every Album, Every Song
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-78952-441-3
Verlag: Sonicbond Publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 144 Seiten

Reihe: On Track

'Status Quo? All their songs sound the same and they only know three chords' Really?
This retrospective of one of Britain's most successful bands takes this lazy criticism and puts it to the sword. Spanning the period 1970 to 1984, the creative peaks and troughs of all the songs recorded by 'The Frantic Four' are examined in detail by a fan who can play guitar a bit, and also knows his Bach from his byte.
Francis Rossi, Rick Parfitt, Alan Lancaster, and John Coghlan withstood the slings and arrows of unending criticism to become a national institution, even playing to royalty along the way. After their early, psychedelic-influenced and fleeting pop success, Quo underwent a dramatic and natural re-invention, unleashing a series of innovative albums and hit singles, such as 'Down Down' and 'Rockin' All Over The World' that established their unique sound and style.
Relentless touring, changes in musical direction, unwise choices of producer, substantial substance abuse, and personality clashes all played their part in the collapse of the classic line-up before a brand re-launch in 1986 that enjoys continued success to the present day.
Status Quo - The Frantic Four Years on track examines the band's groundbreaking first era with critical detail and honest opinions.

Richard James immersed himself in music as soon as he got his first real six-string at the age of ten. Previously chained to a desk for a living, he managed to escape and armed with a music degree from the Open University and a Licentiate Diploma in Classical Guitar from the Royal School of Music, now roams the East Midlands as a freelance guitarist and music teacher. He lives with his wife in Leicestershire, UK, and when not involved with music he enjoys travel, playing chess badly, and inventing new ways to tease his cats. This is his third book, following UFO On Track and Tom Petty On Track, both published in 2021.

Autoren/Hrsg.

James, Richard

Leseproben

Chapter 1

‘How Are You Then? Alright?’

When he heard that I was writing a book reviewing the songs of Status Quo a good friend of mine quipped, ‘Does that mean you can’t use words with more than three syllables?’ This, for him, is quite funny. But all credit to Graham for his contribution; he has patiently endured, for many years, my endless jibes regarding his fascination with the prog-rock group Marillion, the diet version of Genesis.

Graham, like many, many others before him, has unwittingly bought into the lazy stereotyping of Quo by a music media that seemed set on savaging them even before they had their hit single breakthrough, ‘Paper Plane’, in 1972. During the first half of the Seventies, Quo produced a stream of inventive, complex blues rock songs which broke the genre’s mould. The second half of the decade, and the early 1980s, saw increasing commercialisation set in to their core sound with some excellent, but mostly dubious, results.

But make no mistake. Quo were innovators, and deserve an appreciation beyond the default setting of ‘moronic three-chord wonders’. What the hard- of-thinking critics are actually attacking is a genre. Take rock and roll, or blues, or country music. Artists composing in these styles all rely heavily upon three chords (tonic, sub-dominant, and dominant seventh, or I, IV and V as they can also be referred to). What Quo did worked extremely well within their chosen style, whether playing it straight (think ‘Caroline’) or making it shuffle (‘Whatever You Want’). They were as successful as they were creative and influential.

Chart conquest, both with singles and albums, and thousands of gigs in front of incredibly loyal audiences defined them as a ‘People’s Band’, not beholden to the fleeting nature of musical fashion. Their ‘look’ (tee-shirts, jeans, and trainers) was just a representation of what they truly were, a working class band from South London. They played the music they loved to fans who were just like them. Despite their phenomenal, and virtually unmatched, success, Quo are rarely thought of in the same light as other major bands of the era (Black Sabbath, Queen, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple et al). Quo made a unique and highly significant contribution to rock music, and yet the critic’s arrows still managed to pierce the public consciousness more effectively.

It seemed that whilst the work and legacy of other giants of the period was deserving of serious journalistic approval, the press also needed a whipping boy, a scapegoat band, if you will. And Quo, with their unpretentious music and denim-led look, provided the perfect target. From the 1980s onwards, the critics’ comments were on the money. Today the band is a British institution, playing pop-based boogie with a highly commercial edge to an audience that spans entire generations of families. In the Seventies, they were, most definitely, something special.

Anyhoo, Graham’s version of a joke gave me an idea. How many songs by the ‘Frantic Four’ actually consist of just three chords? What is the average number of chords per song? Which song has the highest total? And which the lowest? I thought an analysis of the default insult could be an interesting exercise. So, armed with a Telecaster (what else?), an amplifier set to squirrel-bothering volumes, and a smattering of musical knowledge, I set to work. Each song review includes a chord count, and the final chapter of this book, ‘The End Of This Road’, contains the surprising conclusions.

One response to the eternal jibe is, of course, ‘Who cares? It’s great music’. This was the fans’ standpoint whenever confronted with the comment. Quo, and their music, mattered to them; a music critic’s opinion (be they a school friend, drinking buddy, or a music journalist) did not. But this stance implicitly assumes the critic to be correct. As this vital musicologist research will prove, this is not the case. Quo found their sound, stuck to their goals, worked incredibly hard, and deserved all the acclaim a grateful audience could shower on them. Another regular criticism was that they wrote ‘meaningless songs’. Again, the important point is missed; rock records tend to make their impact through the music rather than the lyrics. We tend to notice the words more once we’ve absorbed the sounds. And Quo’s music had the power to move us.

Just to clarify, when I write about a ‘chord’, I am referring to a group of notes played simultaneously. This is not the same as a ‘riff ’ which is a short, oft- repeated sequence of individual notes. In Quo-land, an example of a riff would be the four-note descending sequence introduction to ‘Paper Plane’, followed by a mixture of A5 and A6 chords. Whilst A5 and A6 are subtly different chords, I file them together under the single tonality of A major, or ‘one chord’. Or, as a slightly longer example, take the introduction to ‘Backwater; the first twenty seconds are a riff, and underpinning this when the phrases are repeated is a chord progression.

My introduction to Quo was via the three-track live EP, featuring ‘Roll Over Lay Down’, ‘Gerdundula’, and ‘Junior’s Wailing’ released in May 1975. I just loved the sound the band made, and the first album I bought was On The Level, later that year. The first gig I saw was Quo at the now-defunct Granby Halls in Leicester on the Rocking All Over The World tour in December 1977. It was a fantastic night. My ears rang for the next three days. I didn’t care. Quo became my ‘first love’ in a lengthy list of long term relationships with rock music.

The origins of the band go back to school days. Francis Rossi and Alan Lancaster met at Sedgehill Comprehensive School in Beckenham, South London, playing in the School orchestra as an excuse to avoid lessons. Later they formed a band with Jess Jaworski, an organ player, and drummer Barry Smith calling themselves The Paladins. This was quickly changed to The Scorpions and soon, they became The Spectres. Legend has it that their first gig was at the Samuel Jones Sports Club in Dulwich in May 1962.

Rehearsals moved out of parent’s houses to the nearby Territorial Army barracks, where a greater noise could be made. This was also used by the local Air Training Corps, and another group, The Cadets, also practised there whose drummer, John Coghlan was quickly persuaded to join The Spectres. Jaworski left the group to continue his school studies, his replacement being Roy Lynes. The band’s part-time manager, Pat Barlow, organised some gigs and managed to land the group a Summer Season contract at Butlins in Minehead, Somerset, in 1965. This was also where Rick Parfitt, working under the name of Ricky Harrison, was appearing as part of a cabaret trio, ‘The Highlights’, with singing twin-sisters Jean and Gloria Harrison. It was at Butlins that Rossi and Parfitt struck up a friendship.

The Spectres recorded a demo tape which Barlow used to secure a record deal with Piccadilly Records, a subsidiary of Pye Records. Their debut single, a cover of Shirley Bassey’s ‘I Who Have Nothing’, was released in September 1966, and flopped. ‘Hurdy Gurdy Man’, an early writing credit for Alan Lancaster (November 1966), and ‘We Ain’t Got Nothing Yet’ (February 1967), continued the trend. The band threw the dice again with a name change, hoping to court attention, and became ‘The Traffic Jam’.

As the saying goes, there’s no such thing as bad publicity. Another single, ‘Almost But Not Quite There’ (June 1967), was banned by the BBC for the innuendos in Rossi’s lyrics. Furthermore, Steve Winwood, fresh from The Spencer Davis Group, had a new band, Traffic, who had scored a hit with ‘Paper Sun’ in May 1967. He didn’t care for a similarly titled band being in the public eye, which resulted in another name change, this time to ‘The Status Quo’.

The continuing persistence of Barlow, and Pye’s ‘in-house’ producer John Schroeder, together with the addition of Rick Parfitt, originally recruited to the band for his singing ability rather than as a guitar player, eventually began to bear fruit. A breakthrough occurred when the Rossi penned, psychedelia- influenced single ‘Pictures Of Matchstick Men’ became a hit in January 1968, reaching number seven in the charts. Rossi admitted to some confusion over the band’s identity and musical direction at the time in the 2014 documentary film Hello Quo!

When we broke we were a rock band with a soul set and a psychedelic single. I didn’t even know what psychedelic meant … I was copying things.

However, the follow-up, ‘Black Veils Of Melancholy’ (March 1968) a virtual facsimile of ‘Matchstick Men’, failed spectacularly. The band’s third single, a zingy, rhythmic cover of ‘Ice In The Sun’ (July 1968), returned them to the charts reaching number eight. Temporary teen-pop stardom seemed to be the band’s future, but it wasn’t a future they desired.

In September 1968, the album, Picturesque Matchstickable Messages From The Status Quo, was released, and this too failed to chart. A dreadful title but a terrific score in ‘Scrabble’, the album was a compilation of previously released singles and B sides. It lasts 35 minutes (but feels much longer), and, if you were of an unkind nature, you would say it’s the aural equivalent of being...