{"id":16455,"date":"2019-04-30T05:30:55","date_gmt":"2019-04-30T09:30:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=16455"},"modified":"2019-03-21T08:39:14","modified_gmt":"2019-03-21T12:39:14","slug":"where-but-for-caravan-would-we-a-look-back-at-caravans-debut-lp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2019\/04\/30\/where-but-for-caravan-would-we-a-look-back-at-caravans-debut-lp\/","title":{"rendered":"Where But for Caravan Would We? A Look Back at Caravan\u2019s debut LP"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"By 1968, the burgeoning musical underground in England was attracting notice in wider circles. Thanks to the success of ambitious works like the Beatles\u2019 Sgt. Pepper\u2019s Lonely Hearts Club Band<\/i>, the Moody Blues\u2019 Days of Future Passed<\/i>, Pink Floyd\u2019s The Piper at the Gates of Dawn<\/i> and Procol Harum\u2019s debut album (to name but four of many), record company A&R men were more receptive to lesser-known artists making music that lay outside the three-minute pop song norm. Even bands that drew inspiration from (and sometimes actually played) jazz would find themselves being eyed by record labels keen to capitalize on the public\u2019s growing interest in boundary-pushing music.<\/p>\n

In the southeast of England, the city of Canterbury was home to a thriving musical underground of its own. Combining elements of avant-garde music, jazz, psychedelic and progressive rock, the so-called \u201cCanterbury Scene\u201d would give rise to a number of band gaining widespread critical (if not commercial) success. Thanks in some part to their early association with Pink Floyd, Soft Machine would go on to become the most widely appreciated band from the Canterbury Scene, but other acts of note would include Camel, Egg, Hatfield and the North, Khan (featuring a young Steve Hillage), National Health and Caravan.<\/p>\n

The last-listed of those, Caravan, was formed in 1968 by four musicians\u2014Richard Coughlan, Pye Hastings, and brothers David Sinclair and Richard Sinclair\u2014who had played in the Wilde Flowers alongside other musicians who went on to launch Soft Machine. While Caravan never truly broke through on a large scale, the band\u2019s work\u2014especially its albums released through the middle of the 1970s\u2014are highly regarded among progressive rock fans. The band received even less notice in the United States, though (if nothing else) its album cover art became familiar to millions of listeners thanks to being reproduced on Decca Records\u2019 promotional inner-sleeve jackets along with titles by John Mayall, Keef Hartley and other British acts.<\/p>\n

Prior to the relative breakthrough of Caravan\u2019s classic third album, 1971\u2019s In the Land of Grey and Pink<\/i> (on which the group perfected its developing style, exemplified by the masterful side-long suite \u201cNine Feet Underground\u201d), the band released two superb albums that found it working toward a signature approach. Caravan\u2019s self-titled debut album was released mere weeks after it was recorded in London\u2019s Advision Studios with producer Tony Cox. All of the tunes on Caravan<\/i> would be group-composed.<\/p>\n

The album opens with \u201cPlace of My Own.\u201d Dave Sinclair\u2019s distinctive organ tones form the basis of the tune. Pye Hastings\u2019 gentle, upper-register lead vocal is its centerpiece, while Richard Coughlan\u2019s inventive drumming holds things together. Even though the track runs a mere four minutes, Sinclair\u2019s expressive and tonally varied organ solo takes up a significant share of its run time. The group would perform the song on taste-making DJ John Peel\u2019s \u201cTop Gear\u201d BBC radio program in 1968; an off-air recording of that performance would appear on the 2007 Caravan compilation The Show of Our Lives: Live at the BBC 1968-1975<\/i>.<\/p>\n

The first 90 seconds \u201cRide\u201d feature little more than Hastings\u2019 vocal and Coughlan\u2019s drumming; after that, the song explodes into a gurgling organ solo, subtly supported by Richard Sinclair\u2019s bass guitar. Hastings engages in a bit of scat vocalizing as the song fades. Despite Caravan\u2019s subsequent reputation as a jazz- and prog-flavored outfit, this tune\u2014like most of the others on Caravan<\/i>\u2014feel more like pop songs delivered with a jazz\/prog sensibility and a focus on instrumental work. \u201cRide\u201d was also performed on Peel\u2019s radio show in 1968.<\/p>\n

Caravan\u2019s light touch is applied to a blues-flavored melody on the brief \u201cPoliceman,\u201d featuring a Richard Sinclair lead vocal. His throbbing bass lines and Coughlan\u2019s rumbling toms provide a solid bottom end. Again, it\u2019s Dave Sinclair who takes the instrumental solo. Hastings focuses mainly on providing vocal harmonies.<\/p>\n

First heard here on the band\u2019s debut album, \u201cLove Song With Flute\u201d would go on to become a Caravan standard. Hastings\u2019 brother Jimmy guests on the titular instrument. Initially a model of subtlety, the song features some quiet strumming from Hastings, joined eventually by organ, then bass, then massed vocal harmonies. After a minute, it transforms into a catchy jazzy number reminiscent of Brian Auger. The flute finally shows up in the second half of the tune; Jimmy Hastings is trilling away in a manner not unlike Ian McDonald would do the following year with King Crimson. Often a part of Caravan\u2019s live sets, the song would sometimes\u2014for obvious reasons\u2014be retitled \u201cLove Song Without Flute.\u201d Caravan played it in exactly that fashion on a 1971 BBC program, \u201cSounds of the Seventies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Avant-garde percussion, thumping bass and chiming, churchy organ are some of the highlights of the off-kilter \u201cCecil Rons,\u201d a demented tune that at times sounds like something from The Cheerful Insanity of Giles, Giles and Fripp<\/i> or a tune by the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band crossed with John Entwistle. But Caravan\u2019s pop inclinations give the song a catchy vocal chorus that keeps it rooted in a kind of accessibility, \u201868 style.<\/p>\n

The second side of the Caravan<\/i> LP leads off with \u201cMagic Man.\u201d A laid-back, echoey vibe characterizes the mid-tempo tune. Intentionally gauzy production and arrangement give the song a languid, psychedelic haze, but the melody itself its a simple folk-pop one. Dave Sinclair\u2019s shimmering organ work flits in and out between the vocal lines.<\/p>\n

\u201cGrandma\u2019s Lawn,\u201d too, is built around Sinclair\u2019s organ playing\u2014here reminiscent of Richard Wright\u2019s Farfisa work for Pink Floyd\u2014while Hastings\u2019 chunky guitar takes its most prominent appearance on the album here. He even engages in a brief bit of wah-wah work. Richard Sinclair takes his second of two solo lead vocals. The tune\u2019s chord progression strays from pop convention.<\/p>\n

The closing nine minutes of Caravan<\/i> are filled by the thrilling and inventive \u201cWhere But for Caravan Would I,\u201d a tune composed by the group plus Brian Hopper, saxophonist and brother of Soft Machine bassist Hugh Hopper. More than any other tune on the band\u2019s debut release, it points the way toward future Caravan works with its multi-part approach, effective use of sharp musical contrast, odd meter, extended instrumental breaks and a dedicated emphasis upon memorable melody.<\/p>\n

Despite its quality, Caravan<\/i> didn\u2019t chart. Like most all of the band\u2019s albums, vinyl copies of the record are quite hard to come by today, especially in America; an original vinyl pressing of the LP commands about $300 on the used market, assuming one can even locate a copy. British pressings routinely sell for half again as much. Caravan<\/i> has received a number of CD-era reissues; a 2015 UK release combined the monaural and stereo versions of the album onto a single CD, adding an early single, \u201cHello Hello.\u201d<\/p>\n

The band\u2019s lineup shifted with most every album; in 2019 Caravan remains active, with Hastings leading a lineup that includes several longtime members but no other original band members. Caravan\u2019s most recent release of new material is 2013\u2019s Paradise Filter<\/i>. Caravan\u2019s 50th<\/sup> Anniversary Tour this year includes dates in Poland, Germany and (of course) England.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By 1968, the burgeoning musical underground in England was attracting notice in wider circles. Thanks to the success of ambitious works like the Beatles\u2019 Sgt. Pepper\u2019s Lonely Hearts Club Band, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16456,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56,62,65],"tags":[465],"class_list":["post-16455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-prog","category-rawk","category-review","tag-caravan","cat-56-id","cat-62-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16455"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16455\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16457,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16455\/revisions\/16457"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}