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Barry Monks' liner notes for "The Deram Anthology":
 A
RECENT POLL in Record Collector magazine, placed the name Patto for the
first time at the dizzy height of no 469 - well ahead of such luminaries
as Cat Stevens, Bad Company and Gary Glitter(!). Not bad for a band that
split nearly a quarter of a century ago and released just three albums.
Dubbed after their vocalist Michael Patrick (‘Patto’) McCarthy,
Patto was the 1970’s ‘progressive’ incarnation of a pop group
called Timebox. Tuning-in to the Ed Stewart or Jimmy Young show on ‘Onederful’
Radio One (BBC) in 1968, it wouldn’t be long before you heard a ‘house
band’ distinguished by the unusual sound of the vibraphone. The
Timebox saga is a long and often tragic tale which begins in the
unlikely setting of Southport, a small seaside town near Liverpool,
England.
In 1965, bassist Clive Griffiths had a band called Take 5, which
typically comprised just 4 members, the others being Peter Liggett
(vocals), Peter James (vocal/guitar) and Jeff Dean (drums) later
immortalised alongside one Peter Abraham on Patto’s 1973 ‘Roll ‘em,
Smoke ‘em’ album - After a particularly harrowing tour of Germany,
James’ departure left the band in disarray. Meanwhile in another part
of town! the Music Students - evolved from school bands Pete and the
Pawnees, The Gunslingers and Rhythm and Blues Incorporated - were
experiencing similar problems. The Music Students featured guitarist
Bill Lovelady (later of ‘Reggae For it Now’ fame) and a 15 year old
drummer called Peter Halsall. Somewhat of a ‘child prodigy’ in the
vein of Steve Winwood, young ‘alsall (‘ally and thence Olly or
Ollie) dabbled expertly on a multitude of instruments including guitar,
piano and - more unusually - the vibraphone. He persuaded his parents to
purchase a set on the condition he first learnt to play them. He
overcame this somewnat daunting prospect by acquiring a pair of beaters
(with his pocket money) and practising on strips of paper on his bed.
Such was his inexplicable innate musical ability, he could actually play
the real thing when the deal was honoured. The maturity of performance
on ‘Misty’ included here, totally defies the short time it took to
achieve. (Chris Holmes now knows the right chords!)
Clive invited Chris and Ollie (who he knew from art school) to join
the remnants of the band in a sort of Take 5 take two which, with the
addition of ex-Teenbeats vocalist Kevan Fogarty, now totaled the
requisite 6 members! They turned professional, headed for the bright
tights of London and were soon taken under the wing of drummer-turned
agent Laurie Jay of the George Cooper Agency (who’s stable included
Rock ‘n Roll survivors like Joe Brown and Marty Wilde). Being a
percussionist himself, Jay (who had backed such names as Dusty
Springfield, Screamin’ Lord Sutch, and Gene Vincent and enjoyed the
perhaps more dubious credit of tutoring Dave Clark!) was intrigued by
the inclusion of vibes in the Take 5 line-up. Then, as now, you could
count the ‘household names’ of the vibraphone world on the finger of
one hand (Gary Burton) so the instrument was hardly oversubscribed in
pop.
They worked solidly on package tours with The Kinks, The Small Faces,
Tommy Quickly, Lou Christie etc. and landed a Wednesday night residency
at London’s Whisky a Go Go, a trendy and prestigious venue frequented
by no less than The Beatles Early in 1966, they secured a ‘season’
at Butlin's Holiday camp in Filey, Yorkshire. During which vocalist
Peter Liggett was succeeded by Frank Dixon. Shortly afterwards, Dixon
contracted tuberculosis - a condition no doubt exacerbated by cold
nights in the back of group vans and was forced to leave.
In November 1966, a replacement vocalist was found in US singer John
Henry (ex.Zig-Zag Band). For no particular reason Take 5 had now become
Timebox, US slang for a prison cell. This change of name spelled a
particularly irony for John Henry who, as a GI deserter, was shortly to
be unceremoniously carted off by two large military policemen! But not
before the February 1967 debut single for Piccadilly which coupled ‘I’ll
Always Love You’ and a vibes-based instrumental ‘Save Your Love’,
produced by John Schroder. By an appalling twist of fate, Jeff Dean also
went down with tuberculosis (which shares an unfortunate acronym with
the band) and top session drummer Ronnie Verrell guested on the next
single. John Henry’s involuntary retirement from the music business
dictated the solely instrumental April release of ‘Soul Sauce’ and
the superbly titled if otherwise unremarkable ‘I Wish I Could Jerk
Like My Uncle Cyril’ (possibly the earliest evidence of Ollie’s
underlying insanity). New drummer Andy Peters lasted just a few months
and Laurie Jay stood in at gigs, where Halsall was forced to take lead
vocals pending a suitable replacement.
Meanwhile in another part of the country! The Bluebottles (formerly
The Breakaways) had been brought to London from Norwich by promoter Jack
Barry. Vocalist Mike Patto stayed and had begun to carve a promising
solo career with a single (‘Can’t Stop Talking ‘bout my Baby/Love’)
on Columbia in December 1966. After fronting the final version of the Bo
Street Runners (which included Tim Hinkley on keyboards) on their final
single (The Beatles ‘Drive My Car’), Mike formed Patto’s People
(later The Chicago Blues Line) with Hinkley and Viv Prince. Although
gaining a reputation as an arch looner, Patto could also be found in
June 1967 crooning Sinatra ballads with the National Youth Jazz
Orchestra. After a late-night jam at The Playboy Club, Mike agreed to
join Timebox but not until his forthcoming wedding! In the interim, the
others set off for gigs in St. Tropez with Laurie Jay once again on
drums.
On their return in July - with Patto now at the helm - things were
beginning to go right until Kevan Fogarty quit. Ollie was nearly
poached by drummer Mick Walter but decided to stay and double on guitar
(which he would often do, uninvited, on Foggerty’s instrument
anyway!). After an obscenely short period of time, he was playing
brilliantly. Drummer John Halsey recalls that Ollie would keep him awake
in hotel rooms practising scales until the early hours of the morning.
Entire books could (and will) be written about Ollie’s
extraordinary talent. Whilst you’ll find only the earliest evidence
here, he was to perfect the lightning runs now taken for granted by
today’s players. More importantly, his later playing possessed an
inventiveness, subtlety and humour that has never been equalled. To
quote John recently "He may not have been the greatest guitarist in
the world - but he was among the top two!"
The vacant drum stool was finally filled via a Melody Maker
classified advertisement placed by North London boy John Halsey. Having
already enjoyed considerable success with Felder’s Orioles, who played
such top venues as The Flamingo, Klooks Kleek and The Ram Jam and had
released 4 singles on Piccadilly, John was invited to sit in at The
Scotch of St James and next day began a tour of USAF bases, thus
completing the definitive line-up.
Timebox were a formidable live act: ‘Professor’ Holmes’ dual
Hohner Symphonic 30’s (noted by Andy Bown of The Herd as the most
convincing Hammond substitute around) bouncing off Halsall’s guitar
and vibes, Griff and ‘Admiral’ Halsey’s superbly tight backline
and, of course, Mike ‘ducks in flight’ Patto wailing the blues! They
could, and did, play anything and probably invented the genre of
jazz/rock before anyone had coined the phrase. Although numerous radio
sessions and at least one TV performance (on ‘Colour Me Pop’) were
broadcast what, if anything, remains looks set to stay consigned to the
archives.
A prestigious gig at The Windsor Jazz Festival on 12 August 1967
caught the eye and ear of ace Decca Records producer Gus Dudgeon who
immediately signed them to their new subsidiary Deram. In October 1967,
they released a splendidly raga-esque cover of Tim Hardin’s ‘Don’t
Make Promises’ c/w Ollie’s capable rendition of ‘Walking Through
the Streets of My Mind’ and in November set off for France where they
had already achieved considerable popularity.
1968 was the year of the blues-boom, student uprisings and skinheads.
There were essentially two musical camps, the ‘heads’ or weekend
hippies who followed the new progressive sounds and the ‘skins’ who
lacked the intellect to appreciate anything but for some reason adopted
US soul music. The sound of ‘68 was dominated by the click-bass and
heavily orchestrated brass of The Love Affair, The Herd and Marmalade.
Against this backdrop (and, it could be argued, somewhat reflective
of it) appeared the new Timebox single, a finely crafted cover of The
Four Seasons ‘Beggin’ produced by Michael Aldred and arranged by
Mike Vickers (of Manfred Mann fame). The B-side, ‘A Woman That’s
Waiting’, was penned by Mike Patto and guitarist Ivan Zagni from the
Chicago Blues Line days. If everyone can be famous for five minutes
Timebox’s 300 seconds arrived in June of that year when ‘Beggin’
made a brief chart entry at number 38! The ‘hit’ sparked some press
interest, prompting Jay’s partner Laurie Boost (in the best traditions
of not letting the truth get in the way of a good story) to feed some
impressive, if not entirely accurate, copy such as ‘tours of Italy.
the USSR and the States’, ‘van overturned by rioting students in
Paris’ and ‘live album at the Club Noriek’ (in reality, a disused
cinema where the band rehearsed).
The February/March 1968 sessions which produced the ‘hit’ also
spawned a proposed Chris Holmes solo release of Billy Preston’s ‘Billy’s
Bag’, a version of The Young Rascals’ ‘Come on Up’ (released
only in France) and the first Patto/Halsall collaborations for a
projected album provisionally titled ‘Moose on the Loose’. The songs
told fanciful tales of Barnabus Swain (their road manager, with his
brother Eric) and ‘Eddie McHenry’ (a drummer friend of Halsey’s) -
this wonderful vaudeville piece would certainly have been a hit given
the right circumstances as would the (presumably) fictitious ‘Country
Dan’ (‘and City Lil’). Also in the can were the fairly
conventional ‘Leave Me to Cry and ‘Love the Girl’ but more
importantly, the small masterpieces of ‘Stay There’, ‘Promises’,
‘Tree House’, ‘Black Dog’ (later to become a stage favourite)
and the quite unbelievable track ‘Timebox’ itself. Although I am
assured otherwise, the lyrics, guitar and drums could place this at
least from the Timebox/Patto transition, if not the first Patto album
sessions. A coincidentally titled Ob La Di, Ob La Da (predating the
Marmalade’s more celebrated Beatles cover) and ‘Froogly Boogly’
are lost forever. The remainder have gathered dust in the vaults until
now, save for one notable exception: Relegated to the B-side of the
November 1968 ‘Girl, Don’t Make Me Wait’, Ollie’s ‘psychedelic’
masterpiece ‘Gone is the Sad Man’ remains an icon of it’s time
which might otherwise have secured a place in the annals of rock.
Although fostering an ostensibly progressive stable of artistes and
considerably more enlightened than Piccadilly, Deram saw Timebox as a
chart band. Consequently, provincial ballroom punters expecting the
singles were perplexed by a bizarre mix of Chuck Berry, Ben E. King,
Nina Simone and Beatles covers like ‘Helter Skelter’ and ‘It’s
All Too Much’. Sometimes there would be the surreal ‘Twist
competition, accapella 50’s hits and The Dwarf’s Chorus,
approximated visually by kneeling on shoes (a device first employed to
humour a hostile skinhead audience). London was, perhaps, a bit more
appreciative and a cult following developed around their Marquee Club
residency (where they opened with ‘Strangers in the Night’ for the
benefit of proprietor John Gee!).
The self-penned A-side was finally achieved in March 1969 with the
rather silly but, nevertheless, endearing ‘Baked Jam Roll in Your Eye’
(composed during a drunken return from The Black Swan, Sheffield), the
featured track should have been the more credible ‘Poor Little
Heartbreaker’, notable for some spectacular octave guitar licks from
Ollie.
By the Summer of 1969 Chris Holmes was becoming more and more
disillusioned but was persuaded to stay long enough for the October
release of their swan song ‘Yellow Van’ (b/w ‘You’ve Got The
Chance’. Produced by Wayne Bickerton this out and out rocker complete
with brass section, was politically incorrect enough to warrant a radio
ban (not, unfortunately, sufficiently newsworthy in itself to project
the record into the charts!.
Having finally begun to establish their own material, it seemed that
Timebox had, effectively, run its course. The 70’s heralded a new
found freedom which demanded a new chapter. Chris left and Mike, Ollie,
Clive & John became the legendary Patto for another three anarchic,
but perhaps more focused, years. But that, of course, is another story.
This album includes all the material from the legendary 1968 sessions
together with all the A and B-sides featuring the final classic Timebox
line-up of Clive Griffiths (bass). Chris Holmes (keyboards), Ollie Halsall (vibes/guitar/keyboards/vocals). Mike
Patto (vocals) and John Halsey (drums).
In March 1979, after stints with Dick and the Fireman, Spooky Tooth
and brief reunion with Ollie in Boxer, Mike Patto died of cancer.
Following an extraordinary session career (Jon Hiseman’s Tempest,
Neil Innes, The Rutles, John Otway, Vivian Stanshall, Scaffold Grimms,
John Cale, Kevin Ayers etc.) Ollie settled in Spain to record and
produce. In May 1992 he died alone of a heart attack in his apartment in
Madrid.
John Halsey became a Rutle and did sessions for Grimms, Joan
Armatrading etc. Returning from a gig with Joe Brown and the Bruvvers,
both John and Clive were involved in a crash which left the latter
partially paralysed and with little recollection of his career. John
survived and runs a pub in Cambridge (in between Rutles reunions!)
Chris Holmes went on to join Babe Ruth, The Tommy Hunt Band and still
plays in No Spring Chicken.
BARRY MONKS
Many thanks to Chris Holmes, John Halsey, Nick Saloman and Richard Lane.
Liner notes reproduced with the kind permission
of Barry Monks. Thanks, Barry! |
