Marvin, Welch & Farrar

It's a bit difficult to explain to anyone not from England, or not part of the baby-boom generation, the significance of Marvin, Welch & Farrar as a group -- not that they were lacking in any way; far from it, their music speaks (or, more properly and significantly, sings) volumes, and they made some superb vocal pop, very much influenced by Crosby, Stills & Nash, amongst other harmony vocal music of the early 1970's. But that's the hard part to explain -- to anyone who doesn't know Hank Marvin and Bruce Welch as core members of the Shadows, a quartet renowned since 1958 for their instrumental music; or to anyone who does know them that way. It's as though members of the New York Philharmonic string section decided to form a choral outfit and ended up being really good at it. The key to understanding what Marvin, Welch & Farrar were about is to recognize that the Shadows didn't just make instrumental music, and we're not referring to their work with vocalist Cliff Richard. Rather, Hank Marvin and Bruce Welch did occasional vocal numbers, and while these never "took" with the public, the critics and more discerning listeners all approved of what they'd heard. Cut to 1968 -- after 10 years of success as a rock 'n' roll outfit, most of it quite immense during the first four and a lot of the rest receding gradually amid the rise of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones et al, the Shadows, consisting then of Marvin, Welch, bassist John Rostill, and drummer Brian Bennett, decided to put the band on hiatus. Rostill and Bennett went their separate ways in music, whilst Welch took some time off and Marvin kept his hand in music with a series of solo releases and a record cut in tandem with Richard. But by 1970, Welch was ready to pursue a new musical venture and he and Marvin decided...