Cricklewood Green

Performer: Ten Years After
Distributor: EMI Music Distribution

Notes: Ten Years After: Alvin Lee (vocals, guitar); Chick Churchill (organ); Leo Lyons (bass); Ric Lee (drums). Recorded at Olympic Studio 1, London, England. All songs written by Alvin Lee. One of the most noted of the progressive blues bands to emerge from the U.K.'s Summer Of Love in 1967, Ten Years After arguably reached its peak with its appearance at the Woodstock festival in 1969. First released a year later in 1970, CRICKLEWOOD GREEN contains the band's hit single, "Love Like a Man," as well as some of the bluesy guitar workouts, courtesy of the virtuoso Alvin Lee, that made it famous. Cricklewood Green provides the best example of Ten Years After's recorded sound. On this album, the band and engineer Andy Johns mix studio tricks and sound effects, blues-based song structures, a driving rhythm section, and Alvin Lee's signature lightning-fast guitar licks into a unified album that flows nicely from start to finish. Cricklewood Green opens with a pair of bluesy rockers, with "Working on the Road" propelled by a guitar and organ riff that holds the listener's attention through the use of tape manipulation as the song develops. "50,000 Miles Beneath My Brain" and "Love Like a Man" are classics of TYA's jam genre, with lyrically meaningless verses setting up extended guitar workouts that build in intensity, rhythmically and sonically. The latter was an FM-radio staple in the early '70s. "Year 3000 Blues" is a country romp sprinkled with Lee's silly sci-fi lyrics, while "Me and My Baby" concisely showcases the band's jazz licks better than any other TYA studio track, and features a tasty piano solo by Chick Churchill. It has a feel similar to the extended pieces on side one of the live album Undead. "Circles" is a hippie-ish acoustic guitar piece, while "As the Sun Still Burns Away" closes the album by building on another classic guitar-organ riff and more sci-fi sound effects. ~ Jim Newsom

Best known for their epic performance of "I'm Going Home" in the WOODSTOCK film, British blues-rock band Ten Years After was a vital part of the U.K./U.S. rock scene in the hippie era, but over time, their legacy hasn't lasted as well as that of their peers. Led by blazing guitarmeister Alvin Lee, the band debuted in 1967, their psych-tinged blues-rock taking a more accessible tone on 1971's A PLACE IN TIME, which contained their biggest hit, "I'd Like To Change The World." The band broke up in 1974, with Lee going solo, though there were a couple of brief reunions (one without Lee) in later decades.

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