Lucky Breaks For Wishbone

Melody Maker, 13 Feb 1971 by Roy Hollingworth

JOHN PEEL: "I heard Wishbone Ash for the first time, and haven't been so impressed with a relatively new band for a long time. Their music is original, exciting and beautifully played."

Wishbone Ash are indeed a fine band. I levelled criticism at them in a review of the. new album. Maybe because they were, a little "samey- but hope did lie within them.

It's an unbelievable fact really that Wishbone have only been on the road for one year.  During that time they have chalked up an enviable reputation for "fair dos," good playing, and sheer hard work. In Ted Turner and Andy Powell they possess two of the most listenable, together lead guitarists around and there's fine gelling with vocalist Martin Turner, and Steve Upton (drums) as well.

For an out of town band, they've done remarkably well. The album has already made the MM album charts. "In one year's work we are able to look back and see that we have been making a progression. We have never stagnated. If we had done we would have been very depressed," Andy told me.

We didn't want to come up with an album first, and play around that, it could have been very bad for us. Instead we got to work, and worked, and worked, then we laid down an album - and we were very careful in choosing material for it.  I'm not going to turn round and say now that it could be a lot better. . It's nice to get an album done. We were careful not to be too ambitious, we just wanted to put over down-the-line representation of what we ware doing.  We wanted It lb be fair heavy, we wanted a solid first effort. The more mellow items on the album are not too adventurous. Mellow things don't really go down in London clubs.

"It's certainly not stale old rock, that's for certain," says Martin. "Riffs, and the massive use of them are becoming an easy way out for most bands. People fall to realise, when they hear us on record, that we have two lead guitarists. They'll hear us and say great, bloody good double tracking. Possibly we're more effective on stage for that reason."

"When two lead guitarists have been working solidly for one year', it's inevitable that they got an incredibly tight sound. We aimed to be dynamic, and I feel it turned out that way," says Andy. "I feel we are then a little different to a two guitars drums and bass unit as such we wring every ounce out of our format, and can't for one minute think there's an end to rock music. So many groups have, missed the point, they've missed out. We keep going on straight down-the-line.

Wishbone will undertake their first American tour at the end of the month. "I don't want people to get the impression we are going over there, because we aren't going down too well over here. That's just not true. With being with MCA. a lot of our business is dealt with in America, the album has been released over there, and it's as simple as that. It's a shame that we are going so quickly, just when the album's starting to go in England," said Andy.

ROY HOLLINGWORTH

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