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byPete Feenstra

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L eicester band Family was the first British act to sign to an Americanlabel (Reprise) on both sides of the Atlantic. They cut seven chartalbums, enjoyed four hit singles, appeared twice at each of the Hyde

Park and Isle of Wight festivals and toured the USA three times with thelikes of Ten Years After and Elton John. This was achieved despite anotorious rupture with the influential Fillmore venue owner Bill Grahamon their first North American trip.

Back in the late sixties Family were a band on the up, with a hip youngmanager-cum film director, John Gilbert who had access to the beautifulpeople of the era. They even graced the pages of society magazine TheTatler with John and George from The Beatles, had a book written abouttheir early career sexual proclivities in the swinging sixties and, in RogerChapman, had one of the original wild men of rock. His one man dadaisticperformances frequently caused mayhem and destruction all around him,but he nevertheless inspired undying devotion from the fans.

Chappo was, alongside multi-instrumentalist guitarist Charlie Whitneyand improvisational drummer Rob Townsend, part of an originaltriumvirate to which were added leading musicians of the day. Theseincluded the hugely talented Ric Grech, who later joined the all-star BlindFaith, on bass and violin. Then there was Poli Palmer, another multi-instrumental innovator, who later played a significant part in Chappo’ssolo career, and former Animals guitarist and violinist John ‘Willie’ Weider,who was asked to play bass and who, in his own words, “never joined a bandfrom the beginning.” John Wetton doubled on guitar and bass and sangsuperbly on Fearless before heading for King Crimson. Guitarist JimCregan, who later made his name with Rod Stewart, was recruited to play

bass in the band’s later period, while the late keyboard maestro TonyAshton sadly failed to see out the seventies. That’s not to forget Jim King,an integral member of The Farinas and the band’s original leader, whodoubled on vocals, horn and harp, and who left Family on the cusp of ASong For Me in search of Charlie Parker, but of that more later...

In between the comings and goings and the countless gigs, Familyrecorded consistently glorious music as is to be found in this box set. Theywere a band who never rested on their laurels and took each setback as achallenge. They saw each line-up change as a chance to explore a newdirection and each album as another step forward.

Spontaneous yet combustible, creative but sometimes self destructive,optimistic though hampered by apprehension, exciting but alwaysgrounded, hip but self-effacing, one part musically introspective, the othergiven to violent bluster, Family were stable and dependable but also arevolving door of top drawer talent. They may have briefly been darlingsof ‘The Underground’ but they never lost sight of their East Midlandsorigins in Leicester. At the height of their success Penny Valentine calledthem: “Provincial in the nicest sense of that word, it’s given them longevityand served them well.” [1]

Family were a patchwork quilt of different musical and lyrical impulses,a band with different characters pursuing unfettered creativity, sometimesstraining at the leash to push in different directions, but always creatingfresh, challenging music. Four decades after their psychedelic debut MusicIn A Doll’s House, they still fill reissue catalogues and influence a newgeneration of listeners. This box set is both a celebration of the group’s firsttwo albums - restored in their rightful place at the top of the catalogue -

Foreword“We never planned anything at all. It was always, let’s just go for it.” Charlie Whitney

“We just soaked everything in from events around us. It was the mood of the moment and in fact it had little or nothing to do with theLondon scene at the time.” Roger Chapman

“There weren’t any set parameters. We threw stuff at the wall and if it stuck we’d use it. Sometimes there were bits in a song that wereincongruous and you’d often end up with something different from what you started out with. It was that way of experimenting that made

Family unique.” Poli Palmer

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[1] ‘Family - The Lads Keep A Rockin’ - Penny Valentine, Sounds 16th December 1972 [2] ‘What To Do About Family’ - Andrew Bailey, Rolling Stone 1st April 1971 [3] ‘Chappo Chats’ - Penny Valentine,Sounds 26th August 1972

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and a fresh reappraisal of one of the most vital bands of the era. If MusicIn A Doll’s House represented a groundbreaking slice of musical historyand Entertainment refined that startling style, then the leading Frenchmagazine Rock & Folk [March 1999] got it just about right when theydescribed the band’s initial brace of recordings as the “petits chefs-d’oeuvredu psychédélisme anglais.”

It is doubtful whether there has ever been a more contradictory bandthan Family. The gentle lyrics and dynamic music were created byChapman and Whitney respectively; two characters whose on stageperformances were diametrically opposed to their musical output. RollingStone magazine [2] devoted a full page spread to Family in spring 1971outlining the career frustrations of a talented band which didn’t quite fitinto the bigger picture, especially in the States. They came from a counter-cultural backdrop in the UK which had its own press, its own influentialfigures such as DJ John Peel and its own iconic venues including UFO andMiddle Earth. That aside, Family had the musical chops, adventurousmaterial and a sufficiently exciting live show to make a splash, althoughthey weren’t as easily digestible as their American touring partners TenYears After or The Nice. They were a band with one of the most aggressivelead vocalists in the history of rock who were equally capable of writingsome of the most moving songs of the era. They were also a democraticgroup with real integrity, a point which led Chapman years later to remark:“That was the problem really. We always ran the band democratically.”

Ironically it was this sense of esprit de corps that almost obscured theself-evident fact that Roger was the focal point if not the band leader, anobservation he often refuted: “I could never have coped with the responsibilityof being looked on as any kind of leader.” [3]

The band faced up to the old counter cultural no-no of selling out. Comethe time of hitting potential pay dirt with one of their very best songs

(though, ironically, not their biggest hit) ‘Burlesque’, they actually agonisedover whether to include it on an album, as it was considered toocommercial.

Family were innovators, fresh, exciting, visceral and different. Theirmusic stretched from R&B and soul antecedents to folk, country, jazz,prog, psychedelic and art rock. No musical boundaries could restrict themas a natural outpouring of creative songwriting from Chapman andWhitney pushed the band into hitherto unexplored directions. Roger: “Thepoint was that there was no defined direction really, it was simply that we hadstarted writing.We’d been in a sort of cocoon while we were in Leicester, it wasn’tuntil we got to London that other influences started to come in.”

The one consistent structural element in all of this was the startlingquiet/loud dichotomy that continues to influence so much contemporarymusic. Poli: “We always had that bolt over the head followed by the quiet stuff,though it wasn’t always planned. We once played the Olympia in Paris and thepower blew out. So I’m there on vibes which, though plugged in, are essentiallyacoustic instruments. Because of the power cut there was just me and Rob playingtogether but neither of us actually stopped playing and so Roger carried onprojecting his voice and we’re then an acoustic trio. Charlie picked up an acousticguitar and I guess John Weider did the same and we carried on until the powercame back on and BOOM, we were back into our performance, and the crowdwent WOW, but none of this was supposed to happen. Typical Family, really.”

Put simply, Family were everything that made rock music so essentialall those years ago. The recorded highs were worth waiting for and theirlive shows proved to be as memorable as the flashpoints proved legendary.At the end, the band also avoided a slow decline by suddenly calling it aday. As Chappo later admitted: “We wanted to get out at the top.”

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Backstage at Carnegie Hall, New York, April 1970

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