Cricklewood Green

Many a debate has been waged over this album & the album "WATT" by Ten Years After, as to which one is better!! Music is subject to each individuals taste & I love this album but I lean towards "WATT" as being the better! Much more important than this is that Ten Years After was often overlooked & I envy those who are about to discover them for the first time! There Woodstock performance drew short term attention to them & the success of their song "I'd Love to Change the World" gave many the impression they were just another hippie type band! This could not be farther from the truth they were a Powerhouse Blues band that delved into many different genre's to add extra flavor to their songs! I would have no problem putting Alvin Lee T.Y.A.'s guitarist on the same ground as Page, Hendrix , Clapton, Les Paul or any other guitar genius people love to talk about! As I would put the band Ten Years After right up there with some of the music industries giants like Led Zeppelin!!! Now I am not saying they were better than Zeppelin but there music is right up there with the greats! Wheather they were overshadowed by there contemporary's or they didn't have as good promoters I just don't know! But I do know great music when I hear it & T.Y.A. offers a lot of hours of great music on their many album's. I just hope that the fans that are familiar with this under the radar band will draw some new fans attention with there reviews! T.Y.A. is just to good to be missed & after all these years there music is still as exciting & potent as ever! My 18 & 21 year old children can testify to that as they hear me playing T.Y.A. & ask WOW!! who is that Dad those guy's are really shredding & rocking up a storm!!!! If your a fan from the old days you know I am right, this band deserves way more credit than they ever got & new fans are in for a treat with a back log of awesome music to experience!!!

When Ten Years After released Cricklewood Green, most British albums and nearly all American albums suffered from thin production values that made the albums sound as if they were playing back from far away or through a five cent speaker. But not this one! Ten Years After finally found a room (Olympic Studios) and a producer (Glyn Johns, as I recall) who together worked to make the fattest, punchiest and most intense album ever to issue from Alvin Lee & Company. Alvin is at his best here -- even better than the more commercially successful 'Space In Time' that came a few years later. But this one's the band at their peak. Chick Churchill's organ work is the perfect bed to hold together the rythym section section of Leo Lyons (bass) and Ric Lee (drums and no relation to Alvin). This album is the way that Ten Years After sounded live. Some of the songs from their subsequent album 'Ssshh!' sounded as they did live -- as did a few from 'A Space in Time' and 'Rock n Roll Music to the World.' But for pure TYA fans who loved the way they came out on stage and tore down the house, this is the one to get! Not only is it the best reflection of a great band at its performance peak, they were also at their best in their choice of material also. These are songs that are just as vicious and brutal today as they were when they first ripped the radiowaves back in early 1970. 'Sugar the Road' and 'Working on the Road' are still some of the quintessential TYA tracks -- as are the more mystic '50,000 Miles Beneath My Brain' and 'As the Sun Still Burns Away.' Even the mellower 'Circles' is a beautiful counterpoint to the rest of the album -- as is the swinging blues of 'Me and My Baby.' This album is a testament to the power of the Marshall Amplifer! Given enough of these things stacked floor to ceiling, and a great studio like Olympic; add a great engineer and producer; make sure you have a great band in front of those Marshalls and include their best material -- and what you end up with is 'Cricklewood Green.' A true rock masterpiece and a legendary album that blistered the airwaves and concert halls from a great band that cranked alongside groups like Led Zeppelin, Spirit, Deep Purple and Jeff Beck Group. But ah! When Ten Years After took the stage, they played like they were out to strip the paint from the walls -- and it's here, recorded just the way it happened on 'Cricklewood Green.'