The Move
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| The Move | ||
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 left to right: Bev Bevan, Roy Wood, Trevor Burton, Carl Wayne
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| Background information | ||
| Origin | Birmingham, UK | |
| Genre(s) | Rock, Pop, Psychedelic rock, British Invasion | |
| Years active | 1965–1972 | |
| Label(s) | Regal Zonophone Fly Records Harvest Records |
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| Associated acts |
Electric Light Orchestra Wizzard |
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| Members | ||
| Roy Wood Carl Wayne Bev Bevan Chris "Ace"Kefford Trevor Burton Jeff Lynne Rick Price |
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The Move were a 1960s rock music band from Birmingham, England, led by guitarist, singer and songwriter Roy Wood, who composed all the group's singles, and from 1968 also sang lead vocal on many of them.
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[edit] Overview
The Move was one of the leading British pop bands of the 1960s. They were extremely successful in Britain in their early career, scoring nine Top 20 UK singles in five years, but they were not as well known in the United States, mainly because they did not tour there until the latter part of their career. Nevertheless they have been credited as an influence on many later groups on both sides of the Atlantic. The group evolved from several mid 1960s Birmingham based groups, including Carl Wayne and the Vikings, the Nightriders and the Mayfair Set. The group's name seems to refer to the move various members of these bands made to form the group. Beside Wood, the original members of the Move were drummer Bev Bevan, bassist Chris "Ace" Kefford, vocalist Carl Wayne and guitarist Trevor Burton.
[edit] History
They played their first shows in early 1966, and became known for their elaborate vocal arrangements, and for their taste in soul music, and American West Coast bands The Beach Boys, the Byrds, Love and Moby Grape. Their manager, Tony Secunda (who also managed Birmingham's other major pop group of the day, The Moody Blues), got them a weekly residency at London's Marquee Club, where they appeared dressed in gangster regalia. Roy Wood wrote their first single, "Night Of Fear", a Number 2 hit in the UK singles chart in January 1967 which began the Move's practice of musical quotation (in this case, the 1812 Overture by Tchaikovsky). Their second single, "I Can Hear The Grass Grow", was another major hit, reaching Number 5 in the UK.
Strongly influenced by The Beatles, Motown and the emerging American 'West Coast' sound, The Move quickly established a reputation as one of the most accomplished and exciting live acts of the period. Their early career was marked by a series of publicity stunts, high-profile media events and outrageous stage antics masterminded by the flamboyant Secunda, such as Wayne's taking an axe to television sets, Cadillacs and busts of Adolf Hitler and Rhodesian leader Ian Smith; they generated further controversy when they were sued by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Harold Wilson for libel after Secunda, to promote their third single "Flowers in the Rain" produced a cartoon postcard of Wilson in bed with his secretary, Marcia Williams, with whom he was allegedly having an affair. "Flowers in the Rain", which reached Number 2, was less guitar-oriented than their previous two singles, and featured an inventive woodwind arrangement by producer Tony Visconti. The group lost the court case and had to pay all costs, with all royalties earned by the song being given to charities of Wilson's choice, a ruling which remained in force even after Wilson's death in 1995.
In mid-1966 the group moved its operations to London, where they took up the residency at the famous Marquee Club which had recently been vacated by The Who; however the band members reportedly remained resident in the Midlands. They secured a production contract with independent record producer Denny Cordell (Joe Cocker, Procol Harum) but even this was turned into a media event by Secunda, who famously arranged for the band to sign their contracts on the back of a topless female model. For their fourth single, the group had planned to release "Cherry Blossom Clinic", a lighthearted song about the fantasies of a patient in a mental institution, backed by the satirical "Vote For Me". However, they had been thoroughly unnerved by their court experiences; they and the record company felt it unwise to pursue such a potentially controversial idea, and the single was shelved. "Vote For Me" remained unreleased until it began to appear on retrospective collections from 1997 onwards, while "Cherry Blossom Clinic" became one of the tracks on their first LP, also called "Move". "Flowers in the Rain" was the first track played on Radio 1, when it began broadcasting on 30 September 1967, introduced by Tony Blackburn.
In March 1968 they returned to the charts in style with "Fire Brigade", another UK top three hit, and the first on which Roy Wood sang lead vocal. But a few weeks later, around the time of the release of the LP, Kefford left the band due to increasing personal and musical differences. They became a four-piece, with Burton switching to bass. It was also during this line-up transition that the band first invited Jeff Lynne to join. He declined at the time still hoping for success in his present band, Idle Race, another Birmingham based group. In the summer of 1968 their fifth single "Wild Tiger Woman", a much heavier song acknowledging the group's love of Jimi Hendrix, failed to chart at all - in chart terms, a disaster as it followed four top five hits.
They responded with their most commercial number yet, the evergreen "Blackberry Way", which topped the UK chart in February 1969. This new, more easy-listening musical direction was the last straw for the increasingly disenchanted Burton, who wanted to work in a more hard rock/blues oriented style, and he left the group after an altercation on stage one evening with Bev Bevan. He was replaced by Rick Price, another veteran of several Birmingham rock groups.
"Wave Your Flag and Stop the Train" referenced the Monkees, while "Fire Brigade" contained a guitar figure straight out of Duane Eddy, and the bridge of "Blackberry Way" is taken from the intro of Harry Nilsson's "Good Old Desk".
1970s Shazam continued their practice of musical quotation, and of elaborately re-arranged versions of other performer's songs; "Hello Susie", which was a top five hit for Amen Corner in 1969, quotes Booker T. Jones' and Eddie Floyd's "Big Bird," and the album includes a cover of a Tom Paxton song, "The Last Thing On My Mind". It also included a slightly slower remake of "Cherry Blossom Clinic" that began in with a proto-metallic grind and finished with an acoustic guitar-dominated extended quotation from Johann Sebastian Bach's "Joy".
According to an interview published in 2000, Wayne devised a plan to revive the group's fortunes by bringing Burton and Kefford back in; well aware that Wood was intent on setting up his new orchestral rock project (which became ELO), he suggested that Wood could concentrate on performing with ELO but could also continue to write sngs for The Move. However his suggestion was bluntly rejected by the other members so Wayne finally quit the group in January 1970. He subsequently worked in a variety of musical ventures and appeared on TV and radio. In 2000 he replaced Allan Clarke as lead singer of The Hollies and performed with them as lead singer until his untimely death from cancer in 2004.
Price left to form the band Mongrel; whilst Wood, Lynne and Bevan then made two more hit singles, "Tonight" and "Chinatown", and the final Move LP, Message From The Country (1971), which many regard as their best. The title track quoted Jimmy Webb's "Up Up and Away," Wood's "Ben Crawley Steel Company", were Bev Bevan's bass vocal was obviously modelled on Johnny Cash, and Bevan's "Don't Mess Me Up" was homage to Elvis Presley, complete with fake Jordanaires.
Ace Kefford recorded a solo album in 1968 after his departure, but it remained unreleased until 2003 when it appeared as "Ace The Face". Trevor Burton played bass with yet another Birmingham group, The Steve Gibbons Band, and later fronted his own blues group as lead guitarist. Rick Price later joined Wood in Wizzard, and the shortlived Roy Wood's Wizzo Band, playing steel guitar for the latter, then went to work in musical management, and also formed the duo Price and Lee with Dianne Price.
Down to the trio of Wood, Lynne and Bevan, the Move released a farewell disc, a "maxi-single" in 1972 consisting of "Ella James," "California Man" and "Do Ya." "California Man", a Number 7 UK hit, featuring baritone saxophones, a double bass, and a riff borrowed from George Gershwin, was an affectionate tribute to Jerry Lee Lewis,(The double bass had "Killer" written on it) with Lynne and Wood trading verses and lines. It was one of the first records to kick off the 1950s rock and roll revival in the early 1970s in Britain. "Do Ya" became the Move's best-known song in the U.S., the original version reaching the lower rungs of the American charts in 1972. Meanwhile Wood and Lynne had embarked on their side project, The Electric Light Orchestra (whose remake of "Do Ya," recorded after Wood left the band, was a US hit in 1977).
Wood released a solo album in 1973, Boulders, and went on to front the glam rock band Wizzard, while Lynne and Bevan achieved massive success with the Electric Light Orchestra. Wood had appeared on the ELO's debut album and been joint leader with Lynne; it was Wood who played many of the album's classical instruments, and articles of the time discussing the new group noted Wood would play them one note at a time and overdub until he had become more familiar with each instrument.
But after several disappointing live performances, and growing disagreements about musical direction, it was apparent that one of the front men ought to leave and form his own band. Wood's aspirations to combine rock and jazz elements, incorporating saxophone players, seemed at odds with the group's initial classical style ideas and Lynne's pop sensibilities; the lone song from the Wood-Lynne ELO's only album (called Electric Light Orchestra, in Great Britain and No Answer in the United States) that stayed in the group's repertoire was "10538 Overture," a composition that most seemed to unite the best of the Move's eclectic style with the direction in which Lynne would eventually take the new group.
Message From The Country, the band's highly acclaimed 1971 album, was remastered and released on EMI/Harvest in the UK in 2005 and in the US in 2006.
Although never as popular in the United States as they were in their native England, the Move were a seminal pop/rock group of the era, and are often cited as one of the main progenitors of power pop. Cheap Trick recorded a version of "California Man" on their Heaven Tonight LP, while Glen Matlock of the Sex Pistols admitted that one of the guitar riffs on "God Save The Queen" was inspired by that on "Fire Brigade".
[edit] Selected discography
[edit] Singles
- "Night Of Fear" - (Jan, 1967) - UK #2
- "I Can Hear the Grass Grow" (April, 1967) - UK #5
- "Flowers In The Rain" (Aug, 1967) - UK #2 -- first record ever to appear on BBC Radio 1
- "Fire Brigade" (Feb, 1968) - UK #3
- "Wild Tiger Woman" (Aug, 1968) - UK #53
- "Blackberry Way" (Dec, 1968) - UK #1
- "Curly" (July, 1969) - UK #12
- "Brontosaurus" (April, 1970) - UK #7
- "When Alice Comes Back To The Farm" (Oct, 1970)
- "Tonight" (June, 1971) - UK #11
- "Chinatown" (October, 1971) - UK #23
- "California Man" / "Do Ya" / "Ella James" (April, 1972) - UK #7
Note: "Do Ya" (B-side of "California Man" single - 1972 US #93 Billboard Pop Singles; 1974 UK; 1976 - rerecorded by ELO)
[edit] EPs
- Something Else From The Move (1968)
[edit] Albums
- The Move (April, 1968) - UK #15
- Shazam (1970)
- Looking On (1970)
- Message From The Country (1971)
[edit] Compilations
- Split Ends (1972)
- The Best Of The Move (1974)
- Great Move!: The Best Of The Move (1994)
- The BBC Sessions (1995)
- Movements: 30th Anniversary Anthology (1997)
[edit] Reissues/Remasters
[edit] Cover versions of songs by The Move
- A cover of "California Man" was released by Cheap Trick on their 1978 album Heaven Tonight. It features a quick snippet from Brontosaurus in the middle section.
- A cover of "I Can Hear the Grass Grow" was released as a single by The Fall in 2005, and is also included on their album Fall Heads Roll. It was also recorded by Status Quo on the first of their cover-versions albums, Don't Stop (1996). In addition, the song was recorded by New York psychedelic act The Blues Magoos on their third LP, Basic Blues Magoos, released in 1968.
- As an odd note, there is also a brief (uncredited) cover of "I Can Hear The Grass Grow" on Spirit guitarist Randy California's 1972 solo album ;;Kapt. Kopter And The (Fabulous) Twirly-Birds. It appears at the end of the sixth track "Things Yet to Come", and is backwards and played at double-speed. Noel Redding is the vocalist.
- "Fire Brigade" was released as a single by The Fortunes in the US in 1968, in a vain attempt to compete with the original; neither made the US charts.
- In addition to the 1969 No. 4 hit version by Amen Corner, "Hello Susie" was also recorded by British soul band Buddy Curtess and the Grasshoppers as a single in 1986.
- "Do Ya" has been recorded by Todd Rundgren and Ace Frehley.
- "Flowers In The Rain" has been recorded by Nancy Sinatra.
- "Ella James" has been recorded by The Nashville Teens.
- "Brontosaurus" was later recorded by Cheap Trick and released in 2002 as a 7 inch vinyl single by Sub Pop Records.
[edit] References
- Guinness Book of British Hit Singles - 16th Edition - ISBN 0-85112-190-X
- The Guinness Book of 500 Number One Hits - ISBN 0-85112-250-7
- Guinness Book of British Hit Albums - 7th Edition - ISBN 0-85112-619-7
- Guinness Rockopedia - ISBN 0-85112-072-5
- The Great Rock Discography - 5th Edition - ISBN 1-84195-017-3
