Tonight, he frequently pulls his trilby down low; despite the flow of anecdotes involving Keef and Ronnie, he seems nervous. The gig is as erratic as his demeanour. There are unnecessary Cole Porter standards and not enough of his own stellar material, in which he really should have more confidence. Maybe that was the problem all along. He can be genuinely funny, as when he introduces Rich Kid's Blues - famously covered by Marianne Faithfull, "who I knew back in the days with Mick and ... ah, don't go there!" But a switch into blue-eyed soul explains why he was recommended to Atlantic Records by Aretha Franklin, and suggests that the bon vivant front conceals a complex, emotional man.

When Reid bares those emotions, he is revelatory. His version of Brian Wilson's Don't Worry Baby is heartbreakingly beautiful; his own Too Many People suggests he can still write melodies of pure gold. When someone asks for Seed of Memory from 1976, he says, "I haven't played that in ... ah, no excuses, Terry, just do it," and he instantly peels it off to an ovation. Robert Plant once remarked, "He should have had my life," but Superlungs has much going for him in his own.

 

The Times September 18, 2006

Pop

Terry Reid
David Sinclair at Dingwalls, NW1

One of the great lost legends of the 1960s, Terry Reid reappeared last year on the British club circuit for the first time in decades. There was no new record to promote, no big comeback campaign and, truth to tell, not even any big hits from the past to peg him to. But an unlikely renaissance began, as word of this extraordinary performer’s enduring prowess began to spread all over again.

*
Back in North London on Thursday at the start of another tour, the East Anglian-born singer — long resident in California — cut an unlikely dash in a white hat. After a slug of something dark and strong from the glass beside him, he eased into a set which, although a little indisciplined and long-winded, was full of warmth and rugged charm.

Now 58, Reid had something of the discombobulated quality of the latterday Keith Richards about him. His anecdotes were mischievous and slurred, while his guitar playing was more about locating the right feel than the rigorous application of technique. “It was in tune when I bought it,” he said as he strummed a particularly approximate-sounding chord.

But his four-man backing band was superb, and so too was Reid, once he started singing. The wondrous tone and range of his voice, which echoed singers such as Tom Waits, Steve Marriott and Dr John, was impressive enough. But as he worked through an unpredictable mixture of his own and other artists’ songs — from blues and jazz standards to an epic rendition of the Beatles’ A Day in the Life — he displayed an uncanny feel for phrasing and timing. In particular his version of the Beach Boys’ Don’t Worry Baby gave the song a sensationally soulful spin. His own numbers — including Brave Awakening, Without Expression and a final, much-demanded encore of River — retained a sense of deep, bluesy, eternal mystery.

The only mystery about Simon Kirke, who opened the show, was how the former drummer of Free and Bad Company has managed to hide his talents as a singer, guitarist and keyboard player for so long. With Larry Oakes on guitar and keyboards, Kirke took us on an acoustic voyage round the legacy of his old groups, with surprisingly engaging versions of Be My Friend, Shooting Star and the inevitable All Right Now.

 

 

T
HUNTS POST

Reid’s a real joy

04 October 2006

Terry Reid
HUNTINGDON-BORN rocker Terry Reid is back in Britain for his first shows since his illness-hit winter tour of 2005.

The singer, who lived in Bluntisham and went to St Ivo School, has been staying in Needingworth before he embarking on a 10-date tour that takes his soulful rock from Brighton to Aberdeen - including two shows at London Dingwalls.

Both London shows are full band performances, while the remainder of the dates are as a duo - with Terry and his guitar accompanied only by piano.

Speaking to Terry this week he explained how the band prepares for the shows without being able to rehearse for weeks prior to them.

"I've sent the band tapes of the songs and we've talked on the phone about how we think it should sound - if we want it to go slower in parts we talk about it and know just what to expect. When we meet up we find we go through all the songs just like that."

He has a new album of tracks available to buy at the upcoming shows.

While, it's not his own material, he provides "atmospheric vocals'" to the music which sounds like a big departure from traditional rock singing. He is in the process of recording a new album of his own material - a process that that has been delayed recently - but is still in the pipeline.

One new song, Raging Storm, is about hurricane Katrina. "I don't normally write protest songs," he says, "but this just came. It's really something the band can get their teeth into - it starts quiet and builds right up."

INFORMATION : Terry's tour reaches London Dingwalls on Thursday September 14 and Sunday September 24. Tickets are £17.50 from Stargreen Box Office on 020 7734 8932

See www.stargreen.com and www.terryreid.com www.dingwalls.com

CHRIS BOLAND

“SUPERLUNGS RETURNS”

 

 

Birmingham Post

TERRY REID
The Robin 2 Bilston

19th September

When Terry Reid stepped on stage at the Robin on Tuesday night, dressed for all the world like he’d just strolled out of a beach bar in St Tropez, nobody could have expected a 2 hour show that ranged from The Shirelles to The Beach Boys via Cole Porter. Exquisitely accompanied by long time pianist Bruce Malament, Reid’s performance was a little ragged at times, but there were certainly more than enough high spots to remember. The one thing that is still there is the voice – a mixture of velvet and sandpaper – which explains why he is regarded by many as Britain’s most soulful singer.

Early highlights included “Rich Kid Blues” from his 1969 album, a glorious “No Expression” which legend has it he was supposed to perform at Woodstock with Crosby Stills Nash and Young and “Too Many People”. In between all this music were some great snippets of stories about his contemporaries like Steve Marriott, Marianne Faithfull and Dennis Wilson. The story about Wilson came before the most incredible version of “Don’t Worry Baby” which was done as a samba/bossa nova – beautiful.

Reid is known for his liking for a drink onstage and after sending for reinforcements, mid way through the set, the focus tended to drift a little, but he brought it around again with three absolute classics to finish. Starting with “July” he then followed it with a stunning version of “River” before the encore of “Seed Of Memory”. What a tragedy that this guy never became the star he deserved to be – but if he had, would he still be with us today. I somehow doubt it.

A special mention must be given to Caroline 7, who supported Terry Reid. A talented 24 year old from Walsall who writes her own material and has a lovely clear bell-like voice. She performs music would fit into the acoustic folk category of Cara Dillon/Sandy Denny. Despite admitting to being nervous before the biggest gig of her short career, she acquitted herself very well and finished strongly with a great version of Slade’s “Mama Weer All Crazee Now”, which really showcased her vocal range. Definitely one to watch for the future.

Chris Field

 

The Times September 15, 2006

The superstar who got away
Pete Paphides meets Terry Reid. In the Sixties he could do no wrong — until he could do no right


As befits a man who arrived in Britain just two hours ago, Terry Reid’s dress mode is Californian. The tan is expat orange. Crumpled white shorts, red T-shirt and — because it was the first thing he found in his suitcase — a jacket orphaned from the rest of its suit.

Now 56, he’s not the sharply attired mod of his first publicity pictures, but the blue-eyed glare is unmistakeable. An hour into our rendez-vous, he’ll finally alight upon the one irreducible lesson that life has taught him:

“The trouble with record companies is that there’s always trouble with record companies.”

*
So amused is he by this summation that the ensuing laugh drowns out the sound of a plane taking off nearby.

Star quality never blossomed into stardom for Reid. However, for a brief period his prospects burnt brighter than those of almost any of his peers. “There are only three things happening in London: the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Terry Reid,” said Aretha Franklin in 1969, while his high-voltage blues wail made him the first person Jimmy Page approached when looking to recruit a singer for his new band.

Touring commitments with the Stones, Cream and Jimi Hendrix prevented Reid from joining what became Led Zeppelin. But then, why would he have wanted to? With the hitmaker du jour Mickie Most having signed him to a deal, only good things were possible — or so it seemed.

But on returning from Mick and Bianca Jagger’s wedding in Saint Tropez, Reid discovered that Most had mastered his second album, Bang Bang You’re Terry Reid, in his absence. “I told him where to stick his five-album deal,” Reid says, “which effectively put my career in limbo.”

Despite electing not to work with him any more, Most refused to release Reid from his contract. For the next three years, Reid’s live reputation sustained him.

By the time he appeared at the first Glastonbury Festival in 1971, Reid was in the process of relocating to America. But while his surroundings changed, his luck did not.

Despite having recorded a cover of his song Without Expression for their Zeitgeist-defining album Déjà Vu, Crosby Stills Nash & Young left it off at the last minute. He had been due to perform alongside them at the Woodstock festival in 1969, but a strike by US helicopter pilots left him in the Pan Am building watching it all on television with a forlorn Joni Mitchell, whose song Woodstock CSN&Y was covered on Déjà Vu. “It was poor Joni I felt sorry for,” contends Reid, his East Anglian burr softened by the years abroad. “She’s humming along, watching them do her song on TV.”

An afternoon in the company of Reid only serves to underscore the sense that you might be talking to the boomer-rock Zelig. That some of his more spectacular anecdotes might come with an element of lily-gilding is understandable. Bereft of gold discs to account for his place in the annals of rock, Reid has just a small but loyal following to argue his case.

It’s a case strengthened by the reissue in 2004 of what, in recent years, has come to be regarded as Reid’s masterpiece. As with Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks and Talk Talk’s Spirit of Eden, Reid’s River (1973) is an album that seems to exist apart from its creator’s canon.

Listen to the three songs that comprise side one and you can hear a gradual cutting loose from Reid’s past — the Soho basements and provincial ballrooms — into the wide vistas of possibility. By the time the title track appears to float in on a Brazilian breeze, the leonine bluesman has swapped his earthly container for a place beyond mere happiness.

The critical re-evaluation accorded to River in recent years seems genuinely to have touched Reid. But he takes the compliments modestly, deflecting them in the direction of Atlantic Records’ co-founder Ahmet Ertegun, who bought Reid out of his contract with Most and suggested that he work with the soul producer Tom Dowd. “We were blown away, although, at the end of the sessions, when we played it to Ahmet he said: ‘I love it, but it’s a jazz album.’ He knew that he wasn’t going to be able to sell it to the record company.”

Still only 24 when River sank, Reid made two more albums in the late 1970s until no more deals were forthcoming. For Reid, the 1980s was a decade eked out with session work for California pals such as Don Henley and Jackson Browne. Then, in 1991, the Warner Brothers chairman Rob Dickens tracked Reid down and decided he would be the one finally to launch the singer chartwards.
His big idea — that Reid’s voice be let loose on the Waterboys’ 1985 single The Whole of the Moon — had promise. But, as the single left the pressing plant, the Waterboys’ original was enjoying a bizarre new lease of life as a rave anthem. By the time Reid’s version appeared, its creators were enjoying a Top Five hit with it.

What might seem like an extraordinary run of bad luck to some is, to Reid, nothing more than a salutary life lesson. His point — that “there’s a world of difference between making records and making music” — is worth lingering on. The argument that he could have been a Rod Stewart or a Joe Cocker had things gone his way is persuasive, until you remember just how many awful records his gravel-voiced contemporaries have made.

“It comes down to how you want to live,” says Reid. “I got to see my children grow up. And I never stopped playing.”

*
Indeed not. Before he moved out of town in 2004, to a golf course on the edges of the Californian desert, his Monday night residency at the Los Angeles restaurant The Joint attracted a cast of illustrious side musicians: the Eagles’ Joe Walsh, Graham Nash, Keith Richards.

Give or take a few celebrities, it’s essentially this show — a mix of old favourites, new tunes and well-chosen covers — that he brings to Britain this week. But then Reid has survived by doing what he has always been doing.

With Heathrow behind us, we negotiate a roundabout on which a model of Concorde remains perched. “If you told me in 1969 that I’d be going longer than that thing,” smiles Reid, “I would have been happy with that.”

Terry Reid plays the Cheese & Grain, Frome (01373 455420), tonight; Komedia, Brighton (01273 647100), on Monday; Robin 2, Bilston (01902 401211), on Tuesday; Lemon Tree, Aberdeen (01224 642230), on Sept 21; Dingwalls, London (08700 600100), on Sept 24