Monocled Alchemist

TEN YEARS AFTER – ’Portable People’/’The Sounds’ (Deram DM 176) Feb 1968

Ten Years After | Portable People | Deram | 1968 | This was the first Ten Years After single, released during English brass monkey weather in February 1968. It’s a good 45 to seek out because both sides are not on their October 1967 debut album, also on Deram. I might post a song from that disc in the near future.

’Portable People’ is a mellow country folk tune, maybe even ahead of it’s time. The lyrics deal with the growing movement of holiday makers from England to other parts of the world, especially Europe.

Prior to the mid ’60s I don’t think us working class Brits moved too far away from where we were born never mind to another country.

See them at the airport with their cases in their hand
Got a ten day package in another land

“They’re the jet age gypsies with a super-sonic sound
They’re the portable people, and they take themselves around
Portable people, flyin’ in the air
Portable people, goin’ everywhere.” 

The flip ’The Sounds’ another Alvin Lee original, is progressive blues with flashes of acid guitar leads.

Ten Years After | Portable People | Deram | 1968

This is here because the group made a fine blues LP and now come up with this very good single. It isn’t a hit, though they have tried to conform a little to make themselves more commercial without losing any of the goodies.

But it is a beautifully produced record with fantastic underplayed controlled guitar and throw away vocals. A masterpiece of understatement, let us hope it brings them the recognition they deserve. (Disc & Music Echo, 17/02/68)

The fastest guitarist alive!

I’VE reckoned Ten Years After since I first saw them, months ago, down at the Marquee club, where they were busy playing their own kind of blues, and building up their large fan-following. And they were about to release an LP.

And that LP has been released, and has given them a great reputation. In fact, on the strength of it, the group have received a letter from the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco, asking them to give a concert there when they go over to the States later this year.

“We were all knocked out by that,” said Alvin, “the fastest guitarist alive” Lee. “We hadn’t approached them or anything — the letter just arrived out of the blue. And when we got it, our manager framed it, and it’s up on the wall of our office now! I think he’s even more knocked out than we are.

TOO SERIOUSLY

“I like the way things are going for the group, because we’ve made our reputation so far by playing our sort of music. And we’re being taken seriously. But I’m a bit worried in case we start taking ourselves too seriously — you know, with things like this lecture tour of colleges and universities that we’ll be doing shortly, people might start saying that we’re getting a bit above ourselves. Most people only see us when we’re on stage, and we’re very serious then — knocking ourselves out to try and play better each time.

And perhaps they don’t realise that there’s another less-serious side to us. Another thing that worries me slightly is that I think we might be getting a bit too freaky on stage. Sometimes when we’re playing, I go into a guitar solo that lasts about twenty minutes. And although the group’s enjoying themselves, we tend to forget about the audience. If they don’t understand what’s going on, they might get very bored — and they sometimes do.

Portable People

“Most of our numbers are very long — some of them go on for sixteen minutes or so. And we’re having a bit of a problem trying to re-organise our stage act to get some new numbers in — we really ought to play ‘Portable People’, which is our new single. But it’s difficult, because it’s not particularly suited to what we do on stage.”

While we were talking Eric Burdon walked into the room — he’s in the country on a short visit in the middle of his American tour — and shouted across to Alvin that the Ten Years After LP is doing very well over in the States. “It’s very close to the sound they’re making over on the West Coast at the moment,” said Eric, “and everyone’s playing it and talking about it.”

“That’s very pleasing news,” said Alvin, “but it’s funny that we seem to be meeting with more success in other countries than we are over here. When we go to some places there are crowds to meet us at the airport, and all that sort of thing. When we were over in Denmark recently, I was interviewed by a newspaper, and I started talking about the Vietnam war. And apparently the article has caused an enormous amount of interest and controversy over there — and the paper has asked all the group to write controversial articles for them!

‘OUR NEXT MOVE’

“The group is very busy thinking about policy at the moment — having come so far, it’s difficult to know In which direction to go next. We’d planned this far ahead — now we’ve got to start thinking about our next move.”

Perhaps Ten Years After haven’t got a widespread reputation in this country. But the reputation they have is excellent—and I don’t think they have to worry too much about the future, because I’m convinced their music is going to be appreciated by an ever-widening circle of people. (Record Mirror, 30/03/68)