Friday 30 March 2012

SPOOKY TOOTH: A Fantastic band

I blush to admit that although I had been vaguely aware of Spooky Tooth and had heard a few tracks here and there, I didn't really know anything much about them. The one thing that I did know was that organist Gary Wright was a good friend of the late George Harrison, and played on a number of his albums. So I was particularly interested to get the latest installment of the 'Lost Broadcast' series on Gonzo, which features the band.

Now I am a huge fan of the 'quiet Beatle' and have always rather meant to check out Gary Wright. Over the years I have found some great music, just from checking out the sidesmen on various albums by ex-Beatles. One of the best was Lon and Derek Van Eaton who are massively good and even more massively obscure and whom I probably shouldn't eulogise about too much because they have no records out on Gonzo.

I can see why Gary Wright was George Harrison's keyboard player of choice, but I was particularly impressed by the ensemble playing of the band themselves. The interplay between two different keyboards (always something that impresses me) with completely disparate textures, gave it an unexpectedly funky edge, and the whole thing sounded like an English analogue of The Band which as this is a clip of them singing 'The Weight' in November 1968 (the song originally appeared on The Band's 'Music From Big Pink' earlier that year) is quite a convenient analogy:

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