1978

TEN YEARS LATER

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ALVIN LEE & TEN YEARS LATER

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
  

Melody Maker  -  February 17, 1978  

 

Alvin Lee, who emerged from the ashes of  Ten Years After to form Ten Years Later earlier this year, flies into Britain next month to play a one-off show at

London’s Hammersmith Odeon with his new band.

The band – Lee (guitar, vocals) Mick Hawksworth (bass) and Tom Compton  (drums), started a European tour in May that included a show in front of 5,000 Parisians. Melody Makers own Chris Welch was there for the evening and witnessed a show that included “Good Morning Little Schoolgirl.” “Help Me” and the song Lee once vowed never to play again, “Going Home”. Since, Europe and the release of the bands first album, Lee has been playing in America, but he and Ten Years Later return to Britain for the Hammersmith show on September 8, 1978

 

 

 

 




The Alvin Lee Photo to the left, is from this German T.V. guide magazine seen above. The Alvin photo was a part of Brigitte's vast collection of clippings. By accident, I stumbled upon the original cover on ebay. It gives us great pleasure to reconnect the original source with  the clippings.This gives us a valuable time frame within which to work Every fragment is a part of the whole Ten Years After / Alvin Lee history. 

<--  "...In March the band will be on tour in Germany"

 

 

  "Rocket Fuel"  released in April 1978

 

 

 

Ten Years Later in Hamburg - Photo by Jens Strube

              

Ten Years Later - Berlin, 10 April 1978

 

  26 April 1978 - Pavilion de Paris

"Melody Maker" mentions recent concert in Paris

 

click picture to enlarge

 

"Fingerflink" im PDF Format  

 

 

       

      

  

 

Bangor, Maine - 1978

“I first saw Alvin Lee and Ten Years After at London’s Royal Albert Hall in early May 1969, where they appeared with Jethro Tull and an unknown and now long since forgotten band called Clouds. As a guitar player in my own right, I was blown away. I was fortunate to see Ten Years After four more times between then and March of 1973, all in Berlin, Germany.

The concerts included the Berlin Superfest, which featured: Ten Years After with Procol Harem, when Robin Trower was with the group, Canned Heat, on the same day that they found Alan “Blind Owl” Wilson dead in California, and Jimi Hendrix, in what proved to be Jimi’s last “Live” concert. Ten Years After, was always a class act, taking time out to acknowledge their fans and pay them respect. It was some years later, while I was a working reporter with a Maine daily newspaper, that I got to meet Alvin Lee in person backstage before an appearance at the Bangor Auditorium. At that time, Alvin was heading his new band configuration called, Ten Years Later, and the audience they would be playing to was extremely small. Alvin and his crew came out swinging and burned the house down.

I’ve played guitar for more than thirty years now and Alvin’s influence on my style is hard to miss. Only a handful of guitarist have ever made me stop and take notice, and Alvin Lee stands at the head of the class. He is truly an original, and Alvin and Ten Years After more than deserve to be inducted into the “Rock `n´ Roll Hall of Fame.” They’ve paid their dues, and their influence on a generation of blues-based rockers cannot be over-looked.

By Peter Weaver



Alvin Lee and Ten Years Later in Michigan, 1978 - Photo by Thomas Weschler

 

 

 

 

CIRCUS Magazine - July 20, 1978

By Daisann McLane and Stan Soocher

 

After nearly a decade of false starts and stops, Alvin Lee’s come round to rock and roll again.

Eight years ago, he became a legend at Woodstock. His guitar rode the fast lane, and his solos on the classic “I’m Goin´ Home” screeched like burnt rubber on the track of the Indianapolis 500. Ten Years After, Lee’s British – bred rock and blues band, became one of the most in-demand acts on the American tour circuit. But his next eight years were all downhill.

Now, with a new band, Ten Years Later, and a new album, “Rocket Fuel” on RSO records, Alvin Lee is out to recapture the rock and roll audience. “After Woodstock, our audiences changed,” Lee recalls. “We got the rowdy fourteen and fifteen year olds, and all they wanted to hear was Goin´ Home”. I got very disillusioned with rock, and I experimented with lots of other kinds of music to see if anything would get me off again. Ten Years Later does just that.

My drummers got me buying running shoes, and we have a go round the block every now and then. It helps keep the energy level up,” the 32 year old guitarist laughs.

Sitting in a hotel room in Phoenix, Arizona (one stop on a four week American swing), the scruffy, rumpled Lee sounds like he’s more inclined towards napping than running laps.

His thick working class accent (Alvin grew up in Nottingham, the “Detroit Michigan of England”) often slurs his words. But he makes his reasons for “coming full circle” in his musical career quite clear. “I realized that what you do best is what comes easiest to you.

One night George Harrison was telling me how he wished he could write simple stuff like Little Richard does. I told him, ”It’s easy, you just vamp in A, then go up to the D when you feel like it.” Well we both had a good laugh, cause what is easy for me isn’t always easy for the next bloke. One more thing brought me around; I realized that if I want to hear Jerry Lee Lewis, I would feel very cheated if I didn’t get to hear “Whole Lotta Shakin´.” Jerry Lee Lewis is one of three musicians (the others are Chuck Berry and Little Richard) that Alvin Lee idolized as a youth in Nottingham. “That’s why I never liked the Beatles very much,” he explains. “I thought they did weaker versions of those great Chuck Berry tunes that I liked.”

Alvin’s dad, who collected old 78-RPM records, was responsible for his son’s lifelong romance with the blues.

After leaving school at sixteen, Alvin formed the Jaybirds who became Ten Years After with a name change in 1967. The blues were enjoying renewed popularity in England at the time, and Ten Years After’s blues / rock fusion made them one of the most popular of the revival bands. Their early albums, especially “Undead,” that was recorded “Live at Klooks Kleek” a small British club, (“you could hear the sweat dripping off the walls that night,” Alvin recalls), earned them a spot in the rock and roll history books. But that moment on the stage at Woodstock was their peak. Subsequent albums sounded tired, and Alvin complained to the press that Ten Years After had become a “Travelling Jukebox”. His solo experiments with country-rock, jazz and funk failed to generate the popular excitement of Ten Years After.

Two years ago, Alvin retreated to his 15th century home in Oxford, England, and spent his days puttering around his barn-turned-studio. “When I first met Alvin in 1976, he was trying to put together the old Ten Years After”, related his manager Jon Brewer, a veteran of several large English talent agencies, who got an invitation from Alvin to come up and hear the band.

Brewer reassured Alvin, that there was an audience for hard, energetic, rock and roll. Alvin decided to recruit some younger musicians to get that excitement, and he found bassist Mick Hawksworth and drummer Tom Compton. “When I auditioned Tom,” Alvin remembers, “he drummed like a freight train pushing you down the rails. He impressed me straight away.

“Alvin and his new band were christened “Ten Years Later”, and worked ten hours a day, five days a week on brand new material. “It was like jamming two and a half years into one”.

As for Alvin Lee’s exhaustive tour schedule, Brewer chuckles. “I don’t think that Alvin’s laced up his racing shoes today, but he’s got tremendous reserves. He goes out on the road, but he’ll never go out of his head”.   

 

 

 

Albany - Saratoga Springs Rock Music Festival 1978
Blue Oyster Cult, Alvin Lee of Ten Years After with his new band band Ten Years Later, Rick Derringer
and the British Lions

 

 

 

 

    

 

ALVIN LEE & TEN YEARS LATER 

3.Rockpalast Rocknacht 15.-16.September 1978

 

Alvin LeeALVIN LEE TEN YEARS LATER ist die dritte Band, die beim 3. ROCKPALAST FESTIVAL in der Essener Grugahalle live auftreten wird. Der Engländer ALVIN LEE zählt seit über 10 Jahren zu den besten und populärsten Rockgitarristen. Er gründete 1966 die Gruppe TEN YEARS AFTER, die mit intensiven Tourneen innerhalb der nächsten Jahre zu den bekanntesten und bestverdienenden Gruppen überhaupt wurde. Ab 1973 trat ALVIN LEE vor allem als Solist auf, veröffentlichte Platten und spielte Konzerte mit wechselnden Begleitmusikern. Anfang 1978 gründete er wieder eine feste Band, TEN YEARS LATER, mit der er auch beim FESTIVAL auftreten wird. - ( Offizieller-Text)

Avin Lee? Da denkt man unwillkürlich an die Gitarre mit dem Peace Symbol, Woodstock und "Goin´ Home".
"Woodstock Atmosphäre wollte vor dem Konzert jedoch nicht so recht aufkommen. Alvin Lee war sehr skeptisch "Weißt Du ich bin schon oft genug betrogen worden." Er reiste mit zwei Managern an und es gab jede Menge Beschwerden. Die Gitarre machte zudem Brumm Probleme auf der Anlage und die Tonabnehmer mußten heimlich abgeschirmt werden, da das bloße Anrühren dieses Woodstock Wahrzeichens ein Sakrileg war. Nach dem Konzert war Alvin jedoch zufrieden: "Das war die beste TV Show, in der ich aufgetreten bin."
- aus 10 Jahre Rockpalast

Im August 1965 gründete der am 19.12.44 in Nottingham geborene Alvin Lee die Gruppe Ten Years After. Der Name bezog sich auf sein erstes Zusammentreffen mit Leo Lyons, zehn Jahre nach Geburt des Rock `N Roll. Ihre ersten Erfolge hatten sie in England, der weltweite Durchbruch kam mit ihrem phantastischen Auftritt in Woodstock, Goin´ Home wurde zu ihrem Markenzeichen. Die Studio Lp´s hatten nur verhaltenen Erfolg, die Stärke lag in den Live Auftritten. Dort konnte Alvin Lee seine Fingerfertigkeit demonstrieren und die Mischung aus Boogie, Rock `N Roll und Blues mit seinen Hochgeschwindigkeits Läufen bereichern. Die Live LP "Recorded Live" von 1973 ist ein Beweis dafür. Der Abschluß für Ten Years After sollte am 22.3.74 das Konzert im Londoner Rainbow Theatre sein. Nach 10 Jahren Zusammenarbeit und unzähligen Touren löste die Band sich auf. Lee gründete die Alvin Lee and Company. 1975 tourten Ten Years After noch einmal in den USA. Im Jahr 1978 stellte Lee seine neue Band "Ten Years Later" vor, ein Trio das etwas rockiger war und ein gelungenes Konzert im Rockpalast gab. 1980 wurde die Band wieder aufgelöst, zeitweise gab es wieder die Company und 1988 sogar eine Reunion von Ten Years After die auf 4 Festivals in Deutschland spielten. Noch Heute tourt Alvin Lee in verschiedenen Formationen und spielt auch öfters bei Jazz Festivals.

 

Besetzung:

Alvin Lee - guit/voc
Tom Compton - drums
Mick Hawksworth - bass

 

 

 Titelliste:

01  Gonna Turn You On                          (3'35'')
02  Help Me                                            (8'27'')
03  Ain't Nothing Shakin'                        (14'03'')
04  Bass Boogie                                      (6'50'')
05  Hey Joe                                            (6'00'')
06  I'm Going Home                                (9'21'')
07  Choo Choo Mama                            (2'12'')
08  Rip It Up                                           (1'43'')
09  Sweet Little Sixteen                           (2'25'')
10  Roll Over Beethoven                         (3'07'')

 
 


 
 
 
TYL backstage with Alan Bangs (left) and Albrecht Metzger (right) from Rockpalast

Ten Years Later - backstage

  

 
 
 

 

  

 

 

 

16 September 1978

ALVIN LEE

By Karl Dallas

Oh dear, I thought, same old thing: a hundred million choruses of “Going Home,” and each more boring than the last. Then I thought: That’s no attitude to take when you’re going to a big comeback concert, so I pulled myself together, tried to remember those halcyon through sweaty days down at the Marquee, when Alvin and his band really deserved the title of guitar heroes, buckled on my faded denims and prepared to enjoy myself at Hammersmith Odeon.

 I’m afraid I was right, the first time. Undoubtedly, there is still an audience for this kind of thing, as evidence the seemingly unending stream of sound alike heavy metal bands. American record companies seem to dredge up from old corners of the mid-west, and though the audience was not jam-packed, there were enough of them to ensure that Harvey Goldsmith didn’t loose any money on the gig.

 He came out in person, incidentally. To ask for a minutes silence for Keith Moon, and got it surprisingly, which was nice. Then he introduced the band, and all hell let loose long before  the interval had ended, about ninety per cent of the audience had left their seats and packed the area in front of the stage, and they got no hassles from the usually ubiquitous Odeon bouncers, for doing so. Fists grabbed for sky as Alvin came on, and from then on it was your actual time warp. Woodstock and all that, the fingered V-Signs, (two arms extended up into the air, making a third V). and even to the peace symbol on Alvin’s guitar.  Me, I found it quite easy to stay in my seat. It wasn’t merely that it was so predictable, which was probably the charm of it all to the audience, but that Alvin seemed determined to grab for himself the mantle of all the heave metal guitarist who had gone before.

 So we got a bit of Cream, a version of Jimi Hendrix’s “Hey Joe”  that was sufficiently alike to provoke invidious comparison, but not good enough to be described as a true tribute. And  even, incongruously enough a brief chorus of “That’ll Be The Day”.

I might have thought Alvin was thrashing around, wondering what in hell to do next, if everything hadn’t been so tight, for this is a good little band. If only the leader could display a little more creative inspiration. After the first couple of numbers, a treacherous thought crossed my mind, that I had actually heard it all by now, and I could reasonably slope off without hearing the same licks done to death for the rest of an evening, which I might spend more profitably elsewhere. I perished the thought and sat it through to the end, which was (of course) “Going Home”.

It didn’t go on as long as it did in the Woodstock movie, but out of its time it didn’t have that performances period charm either. I chewed my knuckles and waited for the inevitable, because I think those heavy metal freaks would have torn the place apart if Alvin hadn’t come back, though God knows why, They had all the same licks on all their Ten Years After albums at home.                

 

 

    

             

 

 

 

 

 

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