Music In A Doll's House

Sleeve essay accompanying the See For Miles Records CD reissue (catalogue SEECD 100H, 1998), commissioned for the band’s UK CD return after See For Miles secured the Doll’s House / Family Entertainment licence from Reprise.

Retrospectively, 1967 has been identified as THE year in which Rock & Roll finally came of age: when Pop and Rock noticeably separated; when the album market first really began to matter; when hit singles ceased to be the point of reference which reflected either an artist’s ability or popularity; when live gigs moved out of the old one-nighters / cinemas circuit and into the clubs, colleges, festivals, and stadiums which are now accepted as the norm; when musical virtuosity (or at the very least, proficiency on one’s chosen musical instrument — not previously thought to be important) became the accepted norm; in fact, when all the old barriers were transcended and a musical free-for-all developed — out of which all the different avenues which Rock Music would explore in the later sixties and seventies finally evolved. The Underground / Progressive scene, one such tangent, unleashed a hitherto unthinkable collision of musical diversification: this was a period of phenomenal growth, experimentation — and also an awful lot of unmemorable and frankly aurally offensive garbage. Although it was a musical era which had started both promisingly and optimistically, it rapidly degenerated into an orgy of pretentiousness and self-indulgence — and eventually, both ‘underground’ and ‘progressive’ became dirty words. Nevertheless, from this cacophony of improvisation a number of notable groups and musicians eventually emerged, many of whom would make substantial contributions to Rock during the seventies — and one of the very finest groups of these genre were FAMILY — yet they have somehow remained amongst the most underrated and unfeted groups: something which hopefully this reissue will help to rectify.

Although they first started to create something of a stir in 1967 (which we’ll get to in due course) Family’s roots can be traced all the way back to THE FARINAS, a group formed at Leicester Art College circa 1962 by John “Charlie” Whitney. Their initial line-up comprised Whitney on guitar and vocals; Jim King (sax & vocals); Tim Kirchin (bass); and Harry Ovenall (drums). Intensive local gigging helped to build up something of a regional reputation, built upon a repertoire not entirely dissimilar to that of countless dozens of other aspirant beat groups of the early sixties — i.e. based heavily on the Chuck Berry / Leiber & Stoller / R&B cover-versions songbook. During this first phase of the Beat Boom they began to attract attention from record companies — to which end they cut a single for Fontana in August 1964, “You’d Better Stop” / “I Like It Like That” — which unfortunately sank without a trace, and led to Fontana declining to take up their option to enlist The Farinas’ services for further releases.

In 1965 Ric Grech replaced Kirchin on bass. Raised in Leicester, Grech had played violin in the city’s Youth Symphony Orchestra, and added an entirely new dimension to the group’s sound. The following year, vocalist Roger Chapman was added, completing a five-piece unit. Chapman, another Leicester lad, had been with a succession of small-time local groups since his mid-teens, including the Rockin’ R’s, the X-Citers, and Danny Storm & the Strollers — and, so legend tells us, had once beaten Gerry Dorsey (later to become rather better known as Engelbert Humperdinck) in a local talent competition. Before Chapman’s intervention the Farinas’ repertoire had mutated into a rather more bluesy, soul-oriented set — but his inclusion entirely redefined their musical direction, and they began to take in a whole host of US West Coast sounds alongside their traditional material.

Perhaps sensing the impending radical changes which were about to stand Pop / Rock music on its head, they began working more and more on original material around this time, experimenting with acoustic numbers, and also with more ambitious stuff, built around Jim King’s skills on saxes and harmonica and Grech’s unusual violin playing. As a result, their sound altered immeasurably — and as their abilities and confidence increased, so did their horizons: and they were soon regulars on the motorways circuit, slogging the length and breadth of the UK in the back of a dodgy old van.

By the end of 1966 they were just about ready to move up a notch — and aid turned up from an unexpected quarter. They’d adopted a new identity — The Roaring Sixties — to tie in with their new sound: however, another, unrelated group apparently had prior rights to the name. Enter legendary US hitmaker / songwriter / producer / all-round weirdo Kim Fowley, then based in England working on a freelance basis, who’d already assisted a number of new-wave UK bands (notably Soft Machine) and who was looking for fresh talent to nurture. He caught up with the lads live and was mightily impressed — particularly with Chapman’s unusual vibrating voice and the extraordinarily fascinating melodic material which Chapman and Whitney were writing. Fowley came up with the new name for the band — they’d developed a penchant for dressing in baggy, double-breasted gangster suits. Fowley opined that they looked like the Mafia — and christened them The Family. He produced a number of demos with them (none of which, unfortunately, ever saw the light of day) which seems to have provided an enormous amount of encouragement at a crucial point in their development, and was the catalyst which led to their appearance on the burgeoning Underground / Psychedelic scene.

They arrived in London in January 1967 (initially commuting from Leicester), immediately establishing themselves as favourites at The Roundhouse and the UFO. They had totally dropped the old R&B material by now, concentrating entirely on their own original set, and were continuing to write new numbers prolifically — and firmly establishing what would shortly grow into a fanatical grass-roots fan following. They had, of course, jettisoned the double-breasted whistles when they’d changed musical direction — and were now kitted out in the regulation uniform of grandad-styled vests, tatty old jeans, and sneakers; in short, they looked exactly like the vast army of students and lowlifes who made up the vast proportion of their audience. Family’s relationship with their followers would always remain something quite special — they appeared to be on first-name terms with the first half-dozen rows at just about any gig — almost as though they’d brought their own supporters, like an away football team.

Having established a firm foothold in London, they set about looking for a record deal — but, in the main, the UK record companies had not yet woken up to the musical revolution which was taking place, and were slow to sign up new groups. The indies were, in those days, fairly thin on the ground — therefore they needed an outside benefactor to finance further recordings. The final piece in the jigsaw eventually turned up in the form of entrepreneur John Gilbert, who signed the band to a production deal and immediately set about the question of securing a suitable record deal. The initial result of this liaison was to be their marvellous debut single “Scene Through The Eye Of A Lens” / “Gypsy Woman” which was leased to the Liberty label and appeared in September 1967. Produced by Jimmy Miller, it was something of a minor masterpiece, a quiet, haunting piece which built steadily and was punctuated by several instrumental breaks contributed by ‘Traffic’ and some startling vocalising from Chapman, prefacing the shape of things to come. The fact that the single has never been reissued has lent it a now-legendary status — which it richly deserves.

At around this time they implemented the first of what would be several personnel changes — drummer Ovenall being replaced by Rob Townsend, yet another Leicester lad who’d previously played with numerous long-forgotten local groups, thus effectively completing the nucleus with Chapman and Whitney which would sustain Family through numerous other personnel changes during the forthcoming six or seven years.

Due to a severe lack of airplay (it was just too esoteric) the single was not the hoped-for hit — nevertheless it sold well among their grass-roots followers and aroused a considerable buzz within the music industry.

They began recording tracks for their debut album, production responsibilities generally being handled by Dave Mason, with Jimmy Miller making a valuable contribution whenever his busy schedule permitted (he was concurrently working with The Stones, also at Olympic) — overseen by Gilbert. Presumably, the Dave Mason solo single “Little Woman” which appeared on Island in 1968 on which he was backed by Family also emanated from these sessions. By all accounts, the album was in the can and the sleeve at artwork stage long before a record deal was actually finalised, Gilbert eventually signing the band direct to Reprise in the US on a long-term, multi-album deal, in the teeth of fairly fierce competition.

The early half of 1968 saw Family further establishing themselves as a major live draw — coinciding with the emergence of open-air gigs / festivals where their anarchic set guaranteed them a standing ovation — and also via a series of startlingly impressive sets on John Peel’s highly influential Top Gear on BBC’s Radio 1, where they previewed some of the material which would appear on their debut album.

They were totally unlike any other band on the circuit. Fronted by the demonic, manic Chapman — a man blessed with one of the most remarkable voices in the history of Rock’n’Roll — they had just about everything going for them. They were visually arresting: just about the most exciting live band around town; and musically, they were absolutely magnificent — in a class all of their own. And what set them so far apart from (and considerably in front of) their contemporaries was their instrumentation. They had a sound which was not only unique, but readily and unmistakably identifiable; with Ric Grech doubling on bass and electric violin they possessed phenomenal range and width, and at times achieved an almost medieval sound — and they were almost certainly the very first rock band in the UK to feature the violin as a permanent and prominent feature of their live performance; the peerless Jim King on tenor, soprano and alto sax and harmonica added a rich, luxuriant resonance to their sound — he also weighed in with some extraordinary falsetto back-up vocals; the eternally underrated Charlie Whitney on double-necked guitar was at least as powerful an axeman as any of the more prominent heavy brigade (and considerably more subtle); Rob Townsend was a fluent, flexible, frantic drummer, and at home in most musical formats — able to switch from the acoustic material, through the harder rock, to the looser, jazzy numbers effortlessly. AND, of course, they had the ace in the pack, the irrepressible Chappo — who virtually defies written appraisal. Although he had yet to perfect the totally OTT mike-stand-destroying / idiot-dancing / mass-murderer stage persona for which he later became infamous (which was, it must be stressed, entirely at odds with the real Roger Chapman), he was even in those early days a bit special. Chapman claimed that his earliest influences had ranged from Gene Vincent, through the Coasters, to Ray Charles — yet he’d emerged with a style and sound which was entirely unique. He’d seem to go into a trance, eyes rolling, head jerking, veins standing out on his neck like he had worms crawling about under his skin; his arms making sudden, disoriented, uncoordinated movements; twitching wildly, fingers pointing randomly at imaginary, distant horizons. And his strangulated, vibrating contralto effectively became yet another musical instrument as he bleated out the lyrics, battling it out for aural prominence with the rest of the band. Those privileged to see their live performance during this period saw them at their most imaginative, innovative, and very probably at their very peak as a live band — they were the business, mate, and no mistake!

Music In A Doll’s House, the debut album, was eventually released in mid-July 1968, preceded a couple of weeks earlier by the single taken from it, “Me My Friend” / “Hey Mr Policeman”. They undertook a series of prestige gigs to coincide with the album, appearing at the Woburn Festival (going on immediately before Hendrix and successfully pacifying a previously impatient crowd), supporting US singer / songwriter Tim Hardin at London’s Royal Albert Hall (a memorable gig, that one), and playing to 10,000 punters at Hyde Park‘s first major free gig, alongside Ten Years After, Fleetwood Mac, and Fairport Convention. A prestige mini-tour with old mentors Traffic was aborted due to an illness to Steve Winwood — however Ten Years After and Jethro Tull proved to be more than adequate replacements and all three bands benefited from the resultant exposure.

But, back to Doll’s House. This was, by any stretch of the imagination, an audaciously ambitious album — and remains among the all-time magnificent debuts. Furthermore, whilst the bulk of records which came out during this era haven’t aged too gracefully, this one STILL makes you sit up and listen — try playing it to somebody who’s never heard Family before: their response will be interesting. The material is, with one exception, all self-penned, predominantly from the Whitney–Chapman team. The exception, Dave Mason’s “Never Like This,” is entirely in empathy with the rest of the material however, and apart from its sometimes overtly surreal lyrics, sounds as though it belongs to the same suite of songs — which indeed, it does. The album presents a startling assault on virtually every front: the quality of the actual material — there’s literally not a single duff track in sight, these numbers comprising the bulk of what was their live set at this stage, including the marvellous “The Chase” (as good an opening cut on an album as you’ll hope to hear anywhere) and the powerful “Peace Of Mind,” a great live favourite and the number with which they closed their set; the way in which the tracks inter-relate and fade into one another — and the “Variations on a Theme of…” which link several of the tracks together; the superb arrangements — Mike Batt, believe it or not, got his first big break here, arranging “Mellowing Grey” among others; the haunting violin and rich brass; Chapman’s fascinating, wavering vocals — aided and abetted in places by Jim King, noticeably on “The Voyage”; the softer, gentle numbers such as “The Breeze,” “Mellowing Grey,” and “See Through Windows”; and the dreadful racket with which they close the album — a ludicrous, out-of-tune, and uncredited burst of “God Save The Queen.”

Doll’s House cost a fair old budget to make back then — and had, remarkably, all been achieved on 4-track. The late Tubby Hayes with his brass section appeared on “Old Songs New Songs,” a contribution they repeated at the Tim Hardin / Albert Hall gig, coming on stage all decked out in white tuxedos for just the one number!

Despite the obvious quality of the album, it was centuries ahead of its time — and as such, its commercial appeal was limited. Nevertheless, it was a strong and steady seller and even managed to make a dent in the national Album Charts, making No.35 on Record Retailer’s Top 40, and even entering Melody Maker’s Top 20.

A more than encouraging start.

— Roger Dopson

NB: The second half of Family’s story can be found on the companion album to this, Family Entertainment, which is available on SEECD 200H.