Chapman Whitney Streetwalkers

Sleeve essay accompanying the Mystic Records 2009 CD reissue of the 1974 Chapman/Whitney Streetwalkers debut, resequenced and retitled as First Cut. New essay by Pete Feenstra drawing on fresh interviews with Roger Chapman 35 years on.

Chapman Whitney Streetwalkers turned out to be a bridge between the demise of the much-loved Family and the later Streetwalkers — a hard-edged touring band — who populated the club and festival circuit to great intent in the mid-70s. As far as Roger Chapman and Charlie Whitney were concerned it was business as usual in the song-writing department. And by May 1974 they had a new name and a new album if not a band as such.

Family may have split partly because of business problems and partly because they had run their course but the creative spark of the Chappo / Whitney song-writing duo still burned brightly.

Indeed posters for the following tour dates boldly announced the band and album as “A new phase” and “A cataclysmic album.” It further announced “From the FAMILY songwriters who brought you ‘Music In A Doll’s House’ …’The Weaver’s Answer’ etc. etc.” And concert promo hype aside, the poster was right to focus on the core duo at the heart of the new project.

As Roger now reflects, “People still don’t seem to get it! Charlie and I felt we were songwriters and being in a group was almost secondary to us. We started in groups as most kids do but then became craftsmen of a different ilk. There was no plan, in the same way as there was no plan for Family. Things just happened. It seems hard to believe but it’s true.”

But if nothing else, Chapman Whitney Streetwalkers was destined to be a completely new project starting with a fresh slate, although there were obvious musical lineages.

“In fact there probably wasn’t a big difference between Streetwalkers and Family to start with. After all Charlie and myself were the main songwriters. But I think there was a different feel created. Probably most of all there was a conscious effort to get away from the treadmill that some people had imposed on us as Family.”

1974 was a curious year for rock music. Streetwalkers just about found its niche in an album scene populated by a wide variety of music in which the top ten albums of the year ranged from The Carpenters, McCartney’s Band on the Run, and Mike Oldfield’s long-running Tubular Bells to a Top Ten Albums of the Year chart that found room for Floyd, Purple and Bowie but also for Presley, Perry Como, Simon & Garfunkel and of course the enduring Elton John.

Indeed by the end of the year the debut Streetwalkers album came in at a respectable if not somewhat disappointing No.48 in the NME Top 100, sandwiched between Michael Nesmith and Wet Willie, though they did have the satisfaction of being two places above Dylan’s Planet Waves.

Having found their feet relatively quickly and having written enough material to step out again, Charlie and Chappo needed high-calibre musicians to record an album. In retrospect it looks like they called on a bunch of old mates, when in fact back in 1974 it was quite the opposite. Chappo and Charlie’s musical reputation led to some of the top players of the time gravitating towards the new project.

As Rog explains, “Actually at the time, apart from the Poli (Palmer), Jim (Cregan), John (Wetton) and Rick (Grech) from Family, we called on people who we had met quite recently in relation to our Family days, so they got the nod. Maybe they heard about us and looked us up. I mean we were pretty famous back then and we were certainly well respected even if we didn’t know it at the time!”

The stellar cast of musicians includes King Crimson’s Mike Giles, Boz Burrell, Ian Wallace, Mel Collins and John Wetton.

“Well we’d known Robert Fripp and co from their gigs of course. Some people sneered at the time but we (me) loved them and in fact we championed them as a great band, which of course they were in their own right. Then of course there was John Wetton’s later relationship with them after he left Family and that also added to the script.”

In the event the album got recorded at three of the leading studios at the time with Chappo and Charlie producing.

“It was great working in those big studios but again it wasn’t particularly planned that way. We were never really influenced by ‘name studios,’ but that’s what we were brought up to be used to. Lucky old us!” (laughs)

Everything also seemed a lot brighter on the management side of things with the project being steered by Harvey Goldsmith no less and the more unlikely figure of Michael Alfandary (Mole Valley Management). Alfandary was described at the time as “the flamboyant Hampstead Young Conservative” and he was an example of how Rock can often throw together some strange bedfellows. So while from the outside it might seem curious for Alfandary to be in cahoots with working-class rockers from Leicester, he seemed to be a useful ally — if only for his part in the fight to save UK Rock festivals from the perils of the Night Assemblies Bill. And the fact that he also turned his hand to promoting (including the Crystal Palace Bowl) meant the band were in the loop.

The change of management seemed to work well for the band, certainly when compared to the problems in Family.

“Yes things worked well for us with Harvey until we kind of got farmed out to a distant relative… not distanced enough unfortunately.” (laughs)

As it was, the nascent band were to appear at all the major festivals in ’74 including Hyde Park in June, Buxton in July and Reading in August — although in recalling the Hyde Park gig, Rog says, “It wasn’t a band as such, it was more of a promo ploy for the album. They were studio guys in fact.”

But back to the album. The revamped sequencing works well bringing a sense of flow and coherence to the shifting musical moods, something that you could argue was missing on the original album. “Well the original order of the songs was determined by ‘the office,'” says Roger.

The new running order opens with a big hitter Hangman which closed the original album and was the third part of the segued Just Four Men / Tokyo Rose / Hangman. “Originally it was all one piece and we played it live in the studio as such. I’m not sure why we played the three songs as one piece, but looking back on it now, was that brave or what?? My assumption is that we had three songs that were short in their entirety, so we decided to just go for it. There’s some great playing on it and when you take everything into account we were very brave. There were no computers back then!”

Roxianna — which was subsequently released as a single — retains its slot as the second track and like Showbiz Joe has a New Orleans jazzy feel. “I think those tracks show what a clarinet (or should I say ‘claret’) bring into the music. Little Feat were a big favourite of all of us. So we decided that’s where we should go with ‘Roxianna,’ except we added a clarinet to the swamp feel. And lo and behold what appears? New Orleans jazz. Ain’t that a whirl?!! Thinking about ‘Roxianne’ though, the lyrics were set in Dixieland, so I guess you could call it Dixieland jazz!”

The following Sue & Betty Jean also features a sonorous clarinet and benefits from a slight stop-time pause before a beautifully measured instrumental break. Just like the later and equally impressive Systematic Stealth it’s the kind of well-crafted ballad that could have easily fitted into any of Family’s later albums from Fearless onwards.

Call Ya is possibly one of the most underrated tracks from the album and is certainly less cluttered. It greatly benefits from being moved forward in the pecking order with Roger delivering a relaxed, almost restrained and heartfelt vocal line over a nice piano accompaniment and Mel Collins‘s sweeping sax solo. The sax-led, jammed-out groove on the outro is very cool as Roger raps away in style.

Just 4 Men with its drifting piano intro and rapped-out Americana noir narrative retains its original function as part of the segue into Tokyo Rose. Rose is another one of Chappo’s clever word plays in which the eclectic subject matter is magically transformed into a stark rock format.

“I got a lot of my ideas from the movies I saw when I was a kid. I used to go to the movies a lot (didn’t everybody?). They have been a big influence on my writing every since, especially storylines etc. In fact I went back to the subject on a later ‘Streetwalker band’ album with a track called ‘Between Us.’ It was basically an attempt to take the piss out of Hollywood movies always winning wars.”

Creature Feature remains a Chappo tour de force, employing a brooding intro similar to Burning Bridges from the Fearless album. It’s a slow burner on which Rog effortlessly slips from the laid-back to a full-blown bleat as the arrangement makes the most of the two contrasting vocal lines before resolving itself in a powerful groove. Linda Lewis adds her superb powerful vocals, cleverly switching from accompanying to backing vocals, while Del Newman‘s string arrangement perfectly teases out the dynamic with one of the very best production moments of Chappo’s post-Family career.

“We knew Del Newman from the previous stuff he’d done with Family — ‘Bandstand’s ‘Top Of The Hill’ etc — so we knew him to be ‘the business.’ So given that Charlie and myself were producing, he seemed like the only guy for the job. Basically we just sent him the tracks and he subsequently came up with his own ideas. And really he was never far wrong, never too far from what we liked to hear.”

Parisienne High Heels is one of the most complex songs on the album and opens with Charlie’s characteristic slide and finds Chappo at his imperious best, wailing away at full throttle while demonstrating the art of great phrasing.

The folky, almost pastoral Systematic Stealth wouldn’t have been out of place on any Family album from Fearless onwards. As Roger explains, “It started with my lyric and verse and melody and Charlie added the bridge.” It’s a fine example of the high song-writing standards to be found on the album from a song-writing duo capable of delivering something as hard-hitting and explosive as they could produce something delicate and gentle.

The album is nicely rounded off by Show Biz Joe, a horn-led slice of nostalgia. Again the song benefits from the new sequencing, being the perfect finish to a rough-hewn gem of an album.

The new artwork to First Cut is wholly due to Roger’s negative memories of how the album was originally marketed. “I hated that running away from the ‘Doll’s House,’ trippy nonsense. What really set us off on the wrong foot was the third-rate sleeve, the terrible management, some very poor marketing and the fact that Warner Brothers changed the label on us at the last moment.”

How ironic that one of the original ‘Wild Men of Rock’ should end up on Reprise, the label that Sinatra started! “Of course,” concludes Roger, “Charlie and I take no blame at all for anything. We’re fucking saints after all!” (laughs)

And what does Roger himself think of the album some 35 years after the event? “Actually I think it’s a fine piece of work but I would love to have the time etc to remix the whole thing if possible and especially redo some of the edits, but other than that I think it’s stood the test of time.”

— Pete Feenstra · www.feenstra.co.uk

Musicians: Guitars & steel guitars: Charlie. Vocals & percussion: Chappo. Drums: Ian Wallace, Mike Giles. Guitar: Neil Hubbard. Bass: John Wetton, Rick Grech. Keyboards: Max Middleton, Tim Hinkley. Congas: Godfrey McLean. Vibraphone: Poli Palmer. Brass & woodwind: Mel Collins. Backing vocals: Linda Lewis, Jim Cregan, John Wetton & Boz Burrell. String arrangements: Del Newman. Brass arrangements: Mel Collins.

Technical credits: Produced by Roger Chapman & John Whitney. All songs written by Roger Chapman & John Whitney. Engineer: George Chkiantz. Tape ops: Rod Thea & Richard Elan. Recorded at Island, Olympic & AIR Studios, all London, England. Cover design: John Kosh.

Reissue (2009): Mystic Records, label co-ordination by Don McKay and Martin Darvill. ℗ Half Cut Productions 2009. Mystic Records, 60 Babbacombe Road, Bromley, Kent BR1 3LW.

First Cut running order:
1. Hangman · 2. Roxianna · 3. Sue & Betty Jean · 4. Call Ya · 5. Just 4 Men · 6. Tokyo Rose · 7. Creature Feature · 8. Parisienne High Heels · 9. Systematic Stealth · 10. Showbiz Joe.