Clouds (60s rock band)
Encyclopedia
Clouds were a 1960s Scottish rock
band that disbanded in October 1971. The band consisted of Ian Ellis (bass and lead vocals), Harry Hughes (drums) and Billy Ritchie
(keyboards).
), ‘Shammy’ Lafferty (rhythm guitar
), Derek Stark (Lead guitar
), Harry Hughes (drums
) and Ian Ellis (vocals
). It was decided that an organ would help the sound of the band, and Billy Ritchie
joined.
Cyril Stapleton took the band to London to record some demos, but nothing came of that, and Derek Stark, Bill Lawrence, and James Lafferty decided to leave. It seemed that Ritchie joining the band had prompted more changes than had been intended. Ian Ellis decided that he would take up the position of bass guitarist as well as lead vocalist. The group decided to move in a new musical direction, and changed their name from The Premiers to 1-2-3.
The band were given a now-legendary headlining residency performing at the Marquee Club
, attended by future prog icons such as Rick Wakeman
and Keith Emerson
. That an unknown band was chosen to headline at the Marquee was unusual, as they hadn't first performed the customary support spots. At the time, they were described as "a unique group...who have created an entirely new sound in pop group music". The same publication referred to "the truly exciting nature of 1-2-3.". Tamla motown was the order of the day, but this band offered up a potent mix of blues, classics, pop, and scat-jazz, wrapped in arrangements that defied categorisation. Their set consisted of original songs and standards, but these latter pieces were studiously reshaped to become, in essence, new. It anticipated the techniques later used by America's Vanilla Fudge
, but where the US group slowed their creations down for melodramatic emphasis, 1-2-3 were more concerned with swing, and used the pieces as stepping stones to self-expression, rather than a means in themselves.Yet they balanced this esoteric desire with a conspicuous focus on melody. There was nothing remotely like it around.
During the time the group performed at the club during 1967, they were signed by NEMS
management company and Brian Epstein
of The Beatles
fame. This event was heralded in the national press, complete with photograph and accompanying article.
Among the Marquee audience was future superstar David Bowie
, who said, when interviewed by Record Mirror
in 1967, that they were "three thistle and haggis voiced bairns [who] had the audacity to face a mob of self-opinionated hippies with a brand of unique pop music which, because of its intolerance of mediocrity, floated, as would a Hogarth
cartoon in Beano
". Later, in 1994, speaking about the 1-2-3 treatment of his own song ("I Dig Everything
"), Bowie said that "the song was radically altered, yet retained its heart and soul". He said he regarded Billy Ritchie
as "a genius".
The death of Brian Epstein, founder of NEMS, left the band in the care of Robert Stigwood
, his successor. But Stigwood had just signed The Bee Gees, fellow Australians, and was preoccupied with making them a success. This brought an end to the management relationship shortly afterwards. After parting company with NEMS, the band kept busy playing in the local London club circuit. At a club in Ilford
, east London, the band were seen by Terry Ellis
who quickly signed them to his new agency, and re-named the band Clouds.
. Clouds had also risen in prominence, playing many major tours, and appearing at the Royal Albert Hall
and many of the headlining concert venues in the world, including the Fillmore East
in New York. The band released a number of albums during this period. The recordings were generally very well received by the critics, with respectable sales. Concert reviews were also favourable. A Billboard magazine review of a 1970 concert at the Arragon ballroom, Chicago, began by saying 'This band will be a giant.'
But despite some initial success for the band, Chrysalis increasingly focused its attention on Jethro Tull
, and the momentum that began with 1-2-3 was lost. Though the later incarnation, Clouds, was still interesting, invention was now part of the mainstream, and the group disbanded in October 1971, unable to find a niche in an overcrowded progressive rock scene. As years passed however, it was the band's earlier incarnation as 1-2-3 that became the subject of a critical reappraisal. Ritchie, the organist, was credited as being the first of his kind, standing and taking a lead role, paving the way for others, such as Keith Emerson
and Rick Wakeman
. With accolades from the likes of David Bowie
and others, the band's distinctive guitar-less, organ-driven sound is now viewed as a definitive precursor to the progressive rock movement.
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
band that disbanded in October 1971. The band consisted of Ian Ellis (bass and lead vocals), Harry Hughes (drums) and Billy Ritchie
Billy Ritchie (musician)
William Edward Ritchie is a British keyboard player and composer. Formerly a member of The Satellites, The Premiers, 1-2-3, and Clouds. He is generally acknowledged as being the first keyboard player in rock music to stand and take a leading role, thereby providing a model for others such as Keith...
(keyboards).
Early days: The Premiers
In early 1964, Ian Ellis and Harry Hughes were playing in a band called The Premiers. The band itself consisted of Bill Lawrence (bass guitarBass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
), ‘Shammy’ Lafferty (rhythm guitar
Rhythm guitar
Rhythm guitar is a technique and rôle that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse in conjunction with singers or other instruments; and to provide all or part of the harmony, ie. the chords, where a chord is a group of notes played together...
), Derek Stark (Lead guitar
Lead guitar
Lead guitar is a guitar part which plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs within a song structure...
), Harry Hughes (drums
Drum kit
A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
) and Ian Ellis (vocals
Singing
Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
). It was decided that an organ would help the sound of the band, and Billy Ritchie
Billy Ritchie (musician)
William Edward Ritchie is a British keyboard player and composer. Formerly a member of The Satellites, The Premiers, 1-2-3, and Clouds. He is generally acknowledged as being the first keyboard player in rock music to stand and take a leading role, thereby providing a model for others such as Keith...
joined.
Cyril Stapleton took the band to London to record some demos, but nothing came of that, and Derek Stark, Bill Lawrence, and James Lafferty decided to leave. It seemed that Ritchie joining the band had prompted more changes than had been intended. Ian Ellis decided that he would take up the position of bass guitarist as well as lead vocalist. The group decided to move in a new musical direction, and changed their name from The Premiers to 1-2-3.
1-2-3
1-2-3 had a much different sound from the previous band, or from almost any other band at that time. After achieving little success in Scotland, the band moved to London, England where they hoped that their original music would catch on, but early audiences were confused by the lack of a guitarist.The band were given a now-legendary headlining residency performing at the Marquee Club
Marquee Club
The Marquee was a music club first located at 165 Oxford Street, London, England when it opened in 1958 with a range of jazz and skiffle acts.It was also the location of the first ever live performance by The Rolling Stones on 12 July 1962....
, attended by future prog icons such as Rick Wakeman
Rick Wakeman
Richard Christopher Wakeman is an English keyboard player, composer and songwriter best known for being the former keyboardist in the progressive rock band Yes...
and Keith Emerson
Keith Emerson
Keith Noel Emerson is an English keyboard player and composer. Formerly a member of the Keith Emerson Trio, John Brown's Bodies, The T-Bones, V.I.P.s, P.P. Arnold's backing band, and The Nice , he was a founder of Emerson, Lake & Palmer , one of the early supergroups, in 1970...
. That an unknown band was chosen to headline at the Marquee was unusual, as they hadn't first performed the customary support spots. At the time, they were described as "a unique group...who have created an entirely new sound in pop group music". The same publication referred to "the truly exciting nature of 1-2-3.". Tamla motown was the order of the day, but this band offered up a potent mix of blues, classics, pop, and scat-jazz, wrapped in arrangements that defied categorisation. Their set consisted of original songs and standards, but these latter pieces were studiously reshaped to become, in essence, new. It anticipated the techniques later used by America's Vanilla Fudge
Vanilla Fudge
Vanilla Fudge is an American rock band. The band's original lineup – vocalist/organist Mark Stein, bassist/vocalist Tim Bogert, lead guitarist/vocalist Vince Martell, and drummer/vocalist Carmine Appice – recorded five albums during the years 1966–69, before disbanding in 1970...
, but where the US group slowed their creations down for melodramatic emphasis, 1-2-3 were more concerned with swing, and used the pieces as stepping stones to self-expression, rather than a means in themselves.Yet they balanced this esoteric desire with a conspicuous focus on melody. There was nothing remotely like it around.
During the time the group performed at the club during 1967, they were signed by NEMS
NEMS
NEMS may refer to;* Nanoelectromechanical systems* National Energy Modeling System* Nems * NEMS Enterprises , based in Argentina...
management company and Brian Epstein
Brian Epstein
Brian Samuel Epstein , was an English music entrepreneur, and is best known for being the manager of The Beatles up until his death. He also managed several other musical artists such as Gerry & the Pacemakers, Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, Cilla Black, The Remo Four & The Cyrkle...
of The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
fame. This event was heralded in the national press, complete with photograph and accompanying article.
Among the Marquee audience was future superstar David Bowie
David Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
, who said, when interviewed by Record Mirror
Record Mirror
Record Mirror was a British weekly pop music newspaper, founded by Isadore Green and featured, news articles, interviews, record charts, record reviews, concert reviews, letters from readers and photographs. The paper became respected by both mainstream pop music fans and serious record collectors...
in 1967, that they were "three thistle and haggis voiced bairns [who] had the audacity to face a mob of self-opinionated hippies with a brand of unique pop music which, because of its intolerance of mediocrity, floated, as would a Hogarth
William Hogarth
William Hogarth was an English painter, printmaker, pictorial satirist, social critic and editorial cartoonist who has been credited with pioneering western sequential art. His work ranged from realistic portraiture to comic strip-like series of pictures called "modern moral subjects"...
cartoon in Beano
The Beano
The Beano is a British children's comic, published by D.C. Thomson & Co and is arguably their most successful.The comic first appeared on 30 July 1938, and was published weekly. During the Second World War,The Beano and The Dandy were published on alternating weeks because of paper and ink...
". Later, in 1994, speaking about the 1-2-3 treatment of his own song ("I Dig Everything
I Dig Everything
"I Dig Everything" is a single by David Bowie.Released in 1966, the track was originally demoed with Bowie's touring band, The Buzz, but Tony Hatch was unhappy with their efforts, and replaced them with session players. The song was performed in 1966-67 as a rewritten version by 1-2-3 , which David...
"), Bowie said that "the song was radically altered, yet retained its heart and soul". He said he regarded Billy Ritchie
Billy Ritchie (musician)
William Edward Ritchie is a British keyboard player and composer. Formerly a member of The Satellites, The Premiers, 1-2-3, and Clouds. He is generally acknowledged as being the first keyboard player in rock music to stand and take a leading role, thereby providing a model for others such as Keith...
as "a genius".
The death of Brian Epstein, founder of NEMS, left the band in the care of Robert Stigwood
Robert Stigwood
Robert Stigwood is an impresario and entertainment entrepreneur who relocated to England in 1954...
, his successor. But Stigwood had just signed The Bee Gees, fellow Australians, and was preoccupied with making them a success. This brought an end to the management relationship shortly afterwards. After parting company with NEMS, the band kept busy playing in the local London club circuit. At a club in Ilford
Ilford
Ilford is a large cosmopolitan town in East London, England and the administrative headquarters of the London Borough of Redbridge. It is located northeast of Charing Cross and is one of the major metropolitan centres identified in the London Plan. It forms a significant commercial and retail...
, east London, the band were seen by Terry Ellis
Terry Ellis (manager)
Terry Ellis is an English record producer and manager best known for his early work with Jethro Tull, and as co-founder of Chrysalis Music in 1969....
who quickly signed them to his new agency, and re-named the band Clouds.
Clouds
Originally known as the Ellis-Wright agency, the organisation grew and became ChrysalisChrysalis Records
Chrysalis Records was a British record label that was created in 1969. The name was both a reference to the pupal stage of a butterfly and a combination of its founders names, Chris Wright and Terry Ellis...
. Clouds had also risen in prominence, playing many major tours, and appearing at the Royal Albert Hall
Royal Albert Hall
The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall situated on the northern edge of the South Kensington area, in the City of Westminster, London, England, best known for holding the annual summer Proms concerts since 1941....
and many of the headlining concert venues in the world, including the Fillmore East
Fillmore East
The Fillmore East was rock promoter Bill Graham's rock venue on Second Avenue near East 6th Street in the East Village neighborhood of the Manhattan borough of New York City. It was open from 1968 to 1971, and featured some of the biggest acts in rock music at the time...
in New York. The band released a number of albums during this period. The recordings were generally very well received by the critics, with respectable sales. Concert reviews were also favourable. A Billboard magazine review of a 1970 concert at the Arragon ballroom, Chicago, began by saying 'This band will be a giant.'
But despite some initial success for the band, Chrysalis increasingly focused its attention on Jethro Tull
Jethro Tull (band)
Jethro Tull are a British rock group formed in 1967. Their music is characterised by the vocals, acoustic guitar, and flute playing of Ian Anderson, who has led the band since its founding, and the guitar work of Martin Barre, who has been with the band since 1969.Initially playing blues rock with...
, and the momentum that began with 1-2-3 was lost. Though the later incarnation, Clouds, was still interesting, invention was now part of the mainstream, and the group disbanded in October 1971, unable to find a niche in an overcrowded progressive rock scene. As years passed however, it was the band's earlier incarnation as 1-2-3 that became the subject of a critical reappraisal. Ritchie, the organist, was credited as being the first of his kind, standing and taking a lead role, paving the way for others, such as Keith Emerson
Keith Emerson
Keith Noel Emerson is an English keyboard player and composer. Formerly a member of the Keith Emerson Trio, John Brown's Bodies, The T-Bones, V.I.P.s, P.P. Arnold's backing band, and The Nice , he was a founder of Emerson, Lake & Palmer , one of the early supergroups, in 1970...
and Rick Wakeman
Rick Wakeman
Richard Christopher Wakeman is an English keyboard player, composer and songwriter best known for being the former keyboardist in the progressive rock band Yes...
. With accolades from the likes of David Bowie
David Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
and others, the band's distinctive guitar-less, organ-driven sound is now viewed as a definitive precursor to the progressive rock movement.
Discography
| Date of release | Title | Record label |
|---|---|---|
| 1969 | Make No Bones About It b/w "Heritage" (single) | Island Island Records Island Records is a record label that was founded by Chris Blackwell in Jamaica. It was based in the United Kingdom for many years and is now owned by Universal Music Group... WIP6055 |
| 1969 | You Can All Join In You Can All Join In -External link:*... (compilation) |
Island Island Records Island Records is a record label that was founded by Chris Blackwell in Jamaica. It was based in the United Kingdom for many years and is now owned by Universal Music Group... IWPS2 |
| 1969 | The Clouds Scrapbook (album) | Island Island Records Island Records is a record label that was founded by Chris Blackwell in Jamaica. It was based in the United Kingdom for many years and is now owned by Universal Music Group... ILPS9100 |
| 1969 | Scrapbook b/w Carpenter (single) | Island Island Records Island Records is a record label that was founded by Chris Blackwell in Jamaica. It was based in the United Kingdom for many years and is now owned by Universal Music Group... WIP6067 |
| 1969 | Scrapbook b/w Old Man (single) | Island Island Records Island Records is a record label that was founded by Chris Blackwell in Jamaica. It was based in the United Kingdom for many years and is now owned by Universal Music Group... (European continent only) |
| 1969 | The Best of Island (compilation) | Island Island Records Island Records is a record label that was founded by Chris Blackwell in Jamaica. It was based in the United Kingdom for many years and is now owned by Universal Music Group... 88418Y (Netherlands only) |
| 1969 | London Pop News (compilation) | Island Island Records Island Records is a record label that was founded by Chris Blackwell in Jamaica. It was based in the United Kingdom for many years and is now owned by Universal Music Group... 88514UFY(Germany only) |
| 1969 | Bumpers Bumpers (album) Bumpers was a double sampler album from Island Records, released in Europe and Australasia in 1970; there were minor variations in track listings within Europe but the Australian release was fundamentally different... (compilation) |
Island Island Records Island Records is a record label that was founded by Chris Blackwell in Jamaica. It was based in the United Kingdom for many years and is now owned by Universal Music Group... IDP1 |
| 1970 | Up Above Our Heads (album) | Deram Records Deram Records Deram Records was a subsidiary record label established in 1966 by Decca Records in the United Kingdom. At this time U.K. Decca was a completely different company than the Decca label in the United States, which was then owned by MCA Inc. Deram recordings were also distributed in the U.S. through... DES18044 (USA/Canada only) |
| 1970 | Take Me To Your Leader b/w "Old Man" (single) | Island Island Records Island Records is a record label that was founded by Chris Blackwell in Jamaica. It was based in the United Kingdom for many years and is now owned by Universal Music Group... (European continent only)6014017 |
| 1971 | Watercolour Days (album) | Island Island Records Island Records is a record label that was founded by Chris Blackwell in Jamaica. It was based in the United Kingdom for many years and is now owned by Universal Music Group... /Chrysalis Chrysalis Records Chrysalis Records was a British record label that was created in 1969. The name was both a reference to the pupal stage of a butterfly and a combination of its founders names, Chris Wright and Terry Ellis... ILPS9151, Deram Deram Records Deram Records was a subsidiary record label established in 1966 by Decca Records in the United Kingdom. At this time U.K. Decca was a completely different company than the Decca label in the United States, which was then owned by MCA Inc. Deram recordings were also distributed in the U.S. through... 18058 |
| 1992 | Nice enough to Join in (CD reissue) | Island Island Records Island Records is a record label that was founded by Chris Blackwell in Jamaica. It was based in the United Kingdom for many years and is now owned by Universal Music Group... IMCD150 |
| 1996 | Scrapbook/Watercolour Days (reissue) | BGO/EMI EMI The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major... BGOCD317 |
| 1999 | Coda | Sunrise Records (private collection) |
| 2002 | The Birth of Prog (1-2-3) | Sunrise Records (private collection) |
| 2005 | Strangely Strange but Oddly Normal (compilation box set) | Island-Universal Records 9822950 |
| 2008 | The Clouds Scrapbook (reissue CD & Download) | Island-Universal Records |
| 2009 | Strangely Strange but Oddly Normal(compilation box set reissue) | Universal UMC8472 |
| 2010 | Up Above our Heads(Clouds 1966-71) (2CD anthology) | BGO/EMI EMI The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major... BGOCD966 |