(Talking Elephant TECD497)
By Brian R Banks
In the earliest days of progressive rock and folk there were not many groups who developed these in the true spirit of what those genres mean, as Gryphon did. The very name of a hybrid combines their ethos with the real and mythological, ancient with modern. No ‘once upon a time’ here though, as three of the quartet reunited to tour and record in this century again.
In a sleepy nook at the Tube’s end where Surrey evaporates into Greater London, midway between the Wimbledon of Sandy Denny’s birth not far up the suburban road from John Martyn, and Sutton a few miles away where the Rolling Stones first met at a club, near a famed recording studio for first demos by now-legends, and the birthplace of Jeff Beck then Mud (not to mention John Major), saw the first soundings of one of the 1970s more innovative groups rejuvenating the long-ago roots of English folk music with its bygone instruments, to blend it into the newest electric sounds of progressive rock.
Gryphon came together in the sprawling suburbia of Morden, and indeed have a studio there today. It was a fertile area for musical styles, from the Jazz legend Tubby Hayes schooling there to Mumford & Sons up the road. Graeme and Richard first met at a Kingston grammar school renowned for the performing arts, then Richard and Brian at London’s Royal College of Music around 1970. Graeme Taylor, Brian Guilland, Dave Oberlé (all of whom are on this release) and Richard Harvey played their first gig at the Upstairs Coal Hole in Wimbledon in late 1971, opening then as now with Kemp’s Jig as on their self-titled Transatlantic Records debut in June 1973.
Recorded in a few weeks at a Barnes attic studio, it briefly reached #17 in the chart though some songs were in numerous gigs before when advertised on posters as a “Medieval, Renaissance Baroque Folk Band”, suitably for a group of individuals interested in such as Lewis Carroll and James Joyce. This relative of the Snark let off for an evening romp were a hybrid too, loosely reminiscent of Amazing Blondel, Comus (named after John Milton’s monster) and Third Ear Band (who also flirted with Shakespeare), as well as the album Anthems In Eden by Shirley and Dolly Collins which merged the tastes of Graeme and Richard in a new blend, as a modern variety of what Dave calls “archaic folk music”.
Performing at folk clubs, restaurants and festivals they adapted a unique, widely inspired sound around an English folk song collection Marrow Bones. Midnight Mushrumps (1974) coincided the same month with Peter Hall’s production of Shakespeare’s The Tempest at London’s Old Vic Theatre (the 18-minute title track of that suite was from that play), becoming the first—and so far last—rock band to play there, supported by the eccentric Ivor Cutler. The cover was shot in Windsor Great Park in the middle of the night, with costumes from the National Theatre wardrobe. They’d also penned the opening music for Peter Neal’s film Glastonbury Fayre in 1972.
Third album Red Queen To Gryphon Three (Dec.1974) was instrumental only yet led to their first American (later U.K.) tour with friends Yes (33 gigs in 38 days in early 1975), Steeleye Span then Mahavishnu Orchestra as well as on Radios 1, 2,3,4 all in the same week while featuring on T.V., in magazines and even daily newspapers. Raindance (1975) was fractured by the record company dumping “non-commercial” tracks so that it wasn’t as the band intended, leading them to split too, ceasing with Treason (1977) on Harvest and an empty archive. The hibernation ended with a full reunion in 2009 at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall 32 years after their last show, a Cropredy Festival slot, then two new LPs (Reinvention 2018, Get Out Of My Father’s Car 2020) on the same label as this.
If Henry VIII had come across a discarded Melody Maker he’d probably have left his latest trouble-and-strife to join these rollicking minstrels. From 2023’s 50th anniversary U.K. tour this 16-track double CD was recorded (mainly at Cambridge) though lacks between-song banter. Odd reviewers say it’s hard to describe like an abstract painting, but maybe a landscape viewed in different directions during variable weather and seasons? Either way, it’s a kaleidoscopic fantasia of meticulously scored atmosphere reflecting that they prefer to create organically: “I don’t want to be arsey [but] we didn’t know what we were doing,” the guitarist said a few years ago, “there was no preconception of category or style, we just did what we pleased.” A curate’s egg still with hens’ teeth, gilded with lashings of whimsical Carrollian humour in melodic japes, the aural delight is from one of the most dexterously tight virtuoso performers of the age.
Teen founders from 1971 are Brian Gulland (bassoon, crumhorn, recorders, sax, melodica, keys, vocals), Graeme Taylor (acoustic/electric guitars, vocals) with Dave Oberlé (specially adapted percussion, vocals, later co-founder of Kerrang!), plus Andy Findon (flute, piccolo, crumhorn, clarinet, fife), Rob Levy (bass guitar), and Graeme’s daughter Clare (violin and keys). What the label calls “an antidote to genres” is exhibited by listing nearly 20 instruments, members having worked on films from Bond to Harry Potter, over 40 musicals including Lark Rise to Candleford, and a spectrum from ‘easy listeners’ such as Helen Shapiro and John Williams, through French medieval folk rockers Malicorne, Jon Anderson, David Byrne, to the Albion Band and Home Service. Quintessentially English, even baroque in the sense of dynamic, colourful contrast that surprises in a magical way: the woven thread of 500 years windes through sonorous lanes of foliage to weave a beguiling tapestry, as modern interlaces the fabric of tradition.
Surprisingly it’s Gryphon’s first official live LP, though BBC concerts came out a few years ago (About As Curious As It Can Be). Disc one opens with the classic Kemp’s Jig that was their first recording in 1972, a crowd pleaser (prompting Rick Wakeman to get them signed to Yes’ management) here with harpsichord-like keys for a definitive slice of Gryphon-interpreted tradition written for lute in the 18th century. Will Kemp, said to have been in Shakespeare’s troupe, danced for a bet from London to Norwich in 8 days in 1580, where it’s said he was welcomed “with hart and hande” no less.
The Astrologer is of the same vintage stock, whereby Taylor’s finger-picked guitar (a la Renbourn and Jansch) adds a melodic lilt to a tale about what used to be called a “dalliance”, a memory-nugget from late-night radio shows. A complex Tull-like flute and staccato beat from Reinvention (2018) and a keening instrumental-that-talks, both by new members, lead to Bonzo/Stackridge-like tomfoolery before the last LP’s bucolic Normal Wisdom From The Swamp (A Sonic Tonic) takes rock ‘n’ roll on a roller-coaster with quirky time signatures amid almost head-spinning instrumentation.
Sailor V is a themed instrumental with a pleasurable Irish tinge that’s progressive but playful in its breadth of styles including recorder and harmonium, the title a clever pun on French (C’est la vie). Co-write closer is Reduced Krum Dancing, a renaissance-style dance romp “sending the audience cavorting barward for a much-needed libation”. I like its titular dig at silly popular T.V. today; there’s a longer version on their last LP. After the interlude, disc two opens with a “tip of [their] 1920s hat” to the Bonzo Dog Band who are said to have taken up the unwieldy crumhorn after hearing Gryphon. The wonky vocals and wonkier lyrics lead into Christina’s Song, the evocative music of (Graeme’s daughter) Clare Taylor set to a beautiful poem by a famous father’s daughter, a respectful delight with Andy Findon’s dreamy flute playing to transport listeners.
More recent is the muted brass-woodwind-sinuous violin of Forth Sahara and the “open-hearted love song” Parting Shot, plus a lively mash of themes from Red Queen To Gryphon Three (1974), and the jazz-flecked 11-minute epic Haddocks’ Eyes that Graeme based on Lewis Carroll’s tragi-comic poem from Looking Glass. Whether a medieval Fairport or souped-up Amazing Blondel, this progressive folk-rock was renaissance to its core. Imagine Slade in the 13th century, it’s a fair inkling of the medieval rock encore Estampie from their debut where crumhorns meet rocking free jazz enough to tickle any Tudor.
But there is one other stone-cold debut classic here which if once heard can never be forgotten: a staple, heartbreaking lament (The Unquiet Grave) about love and loss with a middle passage even eerier than the original album, which is quite a feat. The original quartet’s first demise was regrettable but perhaps the wielding of a mighty crumhorn and deep bassoon would have put Punk to flight, who knows? I caught up with Graeme Taylor to ascertain then and now:
How did you all meet?
I met Richard Harvey in 1965, aged 11, at Tiffin School in Kingston-upon-Thames, and later around 1971, Richard and Brian Gulland met at the Royal College of Music in South Kensington, London. We met Dave Oberlé soon after that, through a mutual friend, and the band’s original bass player Phil Nestor was his friend.
Was it difficult in that suburb that just a few years earlier was rural Surrey? I recall there was only one rock club in Wimbledon and one in Sutton a few bus stops away?
As we first played all acoustic instruments and covered a few folk songs before we began writing our own material, the obvious choice of venue was the folk club, with well-established ones in Surbiton, Wimbledon and Richmond where we played early in the band’s career.
Across the park from one of your first schools was one of the most famous studios of the ‘60s. Did you ever record a demo there?
I think you are referring to R &G Jones Studio (Morden) which still exists to this day in Wimbledon. I think I did an independent session there once, but the band did not record there at all.
Did you ever relocate to a more central or remote location for your career?
Only temporarily—we stayed at Chipping Norton studios in Oxfordshire for the recording of both Midnight Mushrumps and Red Queen to Gryphon Three. Then we relocated for a month or so to Golant, Cornwall for the creation of Raindance.
How did your label choice come about? Some criticized Transatlantic later for not being too supportive back then, with its mix of folk (Pentangle, Ralph McTell) and rock (Stray, Skin Alley), as well as a successful line in sex education LPS!
We didn’t choose Transatlantic, they chose us! One of their talent scouts spotted us at an early folk club gig and almost immediately offered us a contract, which was a source of great celebration at the time but led to us being forever in their debt…
Did they give you the freedom at first to pursue your own course, because we know that later there was a dispute over some of your tracks?
Transatlantic actually gave us total freedom. It was only later when seeking an American deal for Raindance that our musical integrity became threatened by Arista Records.
In hindsight, do you regret being on that label? You went afterwards to Harvest which seems maybe a more fitting place for your originality.
I think Transatlantic were the perfect label at the time for Gryphon, and certainly the fresh-faced new PR man Martin Lewis did us dozens of favours, gaining coverage in all the papers as well as TV and radio.
Did your musical originality present any problems for venues, such as amplification and tuning for the array of instruments used?
We were forever trying to discover the best ways of amplifying bassoons, crumhorns, acoustic guitars etc. I remember, when we started to play the bigger venues, hardly ever being able to hear what I was playing: the technology just wasn’t up to it in those days.
Were there any acts back then that caused dissonance on a shared bill?
Not that I recall. We tried to keep out of trouble for fear of damaging our fragile instruments!
You memorably contributed to the theatre; did you consider continuing that path (I’ve often thought Mervyn Peake’s adapted novels align for example)?
Gryphon’s single involvement with theatre was Richard’s brilliant score for Sir Peter Hall’s production of the Tempest. My greatest contribution to the theatre was through my work with the Albion Band and Home Service, where I worked pretty solidly at the Royal National Theatre from 1977 to 1986 as both guitarist, composer, and sometimes Musical Director for such major shows as The Mysteries, directed by the brilliant Bill Bryden.
Did you ever play quirky venues such as cathedrals like Amazing Blondel and Quintessence, or stadiums when everyone played where they could back then?
We played a memorable show in early ’73 at St. Paul’s Cathedral—I seem to remember recorders and crumhorns beaming around the famous whispering gallery, much to the surprise of the tourists.
You show artistic interest in Lewis Carroll’s work, are there any other influences? Famous writers such as Robert Graves and William Morris lived or worked near you in Wimbledon for example.
Not really. Carroll’s Alice books seemed to be full of perfect inspiration for Gryphon (not least in providing its name). The whimsical, psychedelic tones of the book, the dreamlike scenarios and humorous poetry, the chess-game theme, all provided strong influences.
I heard there is nothing still in the archive awaiting the light of day, is that true also for your BBC work?
As far as I know all extant material has now been published, in one shape or form.
Apart from the absence of Richard Harvey, you have remained true to your core ethos as a working unit. Is there a secret elixir at work?
Simply long-term friendship and a quirky Gryphon sense of humour are our bonds, no real secrets at work.
You released two great albums in recent years that are both pure Gryphon. Is there the possibility of a new album, perhaps some concerts?
Yes, we are very proud to have created what we feel are albums with plenty of new and fresh ideas, but which nevertheless maintain the strong Gryphon identity of old. We toured extensively last year but are spreading our shows a little further apart this year. We do have some new tracks recorded, but currently no plans for an imminent release.
With thanks to Graeme for his time and kind insights, this current six-panel digipack is beautifully illustrated in pastel with many photos (quibble: maybe better to have the printed-for-ants track listing and details on the back not inside?), no history but lyrics, no Midnight Mushrumps, but this isn’t a history or retrospective it’s a superb overview from 1973 to date that’s essential for fans both of the band and the genres of progressive rock and folk. It is also worthwhile for those who might have missed them first time around, for it is sheer joyful beauty that never disappoints.
Brian R. Banks
