Search - Family :: BBC Radio 1: 1968-69

Interesting In Both Directions

Michael Strom | Chicago, IL USA | 02/19/2005

(3 out of 5 stars)

"After so many years of near-drought conditions for live Family recordings, the long-suffering faithful have been duly rewarded. It is now feasible to hear live (or semi-live) works from early, mid-period and late era Family - essentially, three very different bands. We can even draw some tentative conclusions on questions that have perplexed the US fandom for years. So, here goes.



How different was the live sound? In many respects, this may be the most surprising news. Family's LPs sounded like they were creatures of the studio. Apparently, they really did sound like that, even with minimal knob fiddling or overdubs. The BBC Radio '68 - '69 recordings were apparently fudged a bit by allowing use of the recorded mellotron backing tracks but, my goodness, the songs See Through Windows and The Breeze sound exactly like they did on their mucho-psychedelic debut, Music In A Doll's House. The selections from the 2d LP, Family Entertainment are also very faithful. I'd be more likely to attribute this to the BBC Radio studio conditions (no audience, probably pretty sterile) if it weren't for the ability to hear the later editions of the band found in Family Live (Fearless era, real concert conditions) and the endgame BBC Radio 1 Live In Concert (at least there's an audience there, apparently enthused). In all three editions, the songs that were then-current are extremely close to the studio versions. Who knew? What sounded like the work of studio rats turns out to be their live sound. This might even make them more peculiar than we suspected.



The exceptions to the above are found in the '68 - '69 versions of songs that would ultimately be recorded by a different band lineup in the A Song For Me and Anyway albums. Also, the It's Only A Movie band heard in the 1973 BBC Radio Live CD was looser and funkier when looking back at Sat'dy Barfly.



How did the loss of Jim King affect Family? As a devoted Family fan, I can only say thank goodness he left (or got tossed). BBC Radio '68 - '69 includes very telling recordings of A Song For Me, Drowned In Wine and Holding the Compass. Yikes! All of them got much, much better without Jim King. In fact, Holding the Compass was downright awful. We have three later live recordings (Anyway, Live, BBC Radio Live) and all thankfully approach the song the same way as in Anyway rather than what we have here. The title cut from A Song For Me apparently never would have had Whitney's defining guitar riff if King had stayed. Instead, there is a tepid sax riff from King - the song just didn't work until Whitney took charge. Drowned In Wine isn't bad with King's sax riff up front, but it's clearly better without it, as evidenced by the versions in Song For Me and Live. Me, I love saxophones and often dislike flute. Family is the only band in history to profit from losing the sax player and leaving more room for flute.



In general, King's departure required Charlie Whitney to step up and fill more of the band's sound. This was a very, very good thing for Family. I've often read that King's departure hurt the band's live impact. Can't prove it by the evidence in BBC Radio '68 - '69. I'd also say that the world was better off with Ric Grech playing the violin solo for Blind Faith on Sea of Joy rather than contributing more of his songwriting to Family. The Whitney-Chapman combine was consistently better than Grech's songs (e.g., Second Generation Woman, How Hi The Li, contributor to Wheels) - none of which got better in the BBC Radio versions.



So, do you need to buy this CD? If you're obsessive, you aren't asking this question. Even if See Through Windows and The Breeze live sound identical to the studio versions, you need to have it. But honestly, this CD is more interesting than necessary. Hearing this tells us a lot, but much of the news is not pleasant to hear. There is not a single track here that is better than what we had before. For anyone who doubted that these guys had blues roots, we now have the original lineup covering I Sing `Um The Way I Feel. It's just fine but really, they weren't the Yardbirds and had no particular future covering Chicago blues. It stands to reason that their tastes in cover versions would be obscure. At a time when the rest of the Brits were strip mining the fertile fields of Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf (plenty of great stuff not yet covered by 1969), they picked J.B. Lenoir to cover. Better to go their own way. I consider this a keeper, but just for historical and archival purposes.

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