Chris Spedding’s forgotten masterpiece

 

Chris Spedding - Songs Without Words - Rare first pressing on EMI Harvest Odeon 1971. Catalogue number SHVL 776, the album was never issued in the UK on Chris’s insistence as he did not want to be identified purely as a Jazz guitarist. 

Recorded before ‘Backwood Progression’ though after he terminated The Battered Ornaments, it is actually a very accomplished LP. Now available as a CD on both Hux and Esoteric.

Chris Spedding: guitars

Roger Potter: bass

John Marshall: drums

John Mitchell: piano

Paul Rutherford: trombone

produced by :

Peter Eden & Chris Spedding

recording data in the late 1969

Here is a comment on this album by Chris Spedding (written in 1992)

“I've been making records now for twenty years.

Records with other artists and records of my own.

During that time I learned a lot, and the lessons I learned, as usually happens,

I learned mainly from trial and error. By making mistakes and trying not to

make the same mistakes again! I still make mistakes - different ones I hope

- and in a way I hope I continue to do so. Wouldn't it be awful to know

everything about making music? I think so.

I still need to learn. When I don't have that need to learn it will be time to stop making music.

Now, some of my early records I find very difficult to listen to.

I hear things I would do very differently now. But I do remember that at the time

I was very serious about them and I know that I made an honest and sincere attempt to do the best I could. And some of that early stuff

I actually liked at the time and remember being quite proud of myself

when the records got released. And I quite frequently got favorable reviews too, so they must not have been all that bad.

Plus I still get fans that say they still enjoy listening to this material,

so | try to live with it, consoling myself that I had done the best

that I could at the time.

In the case of my own records (as distinct from my session work),

I naturally had a lot more control over what got recorded and released.

One outstanding exception, however is the album

"Songs Without Words"

This album bothers me more than any other.

In the early 60's I had gone through a period of forsaking my first love of Rock music and I became a bit of a "Jazz Snob".

This was before "Jazz-Rock Fusion" became the fashion, of course.

By the time the Fusion movement came about in the late 60's and early 70's

I was happily back to playing Rock music. But these “new" fusion players were mostly just jazz musicians looking to try something new and most of them were pretty unknowledgable about Rock - a music many of them had been pretty quick to disparage and look down upon!

These men badly needed a credible rock element in their music

- preferably a guitar - and preferably a guitarist with some jazz background.

So I seemed to fit their needs very well. Even though my interest at this

had moved from jazz back firmly to Rock, where it was to remain,

I found myself playing with every conceivable fusion outfit working around London during the period 1969 to 72. Names like Mike Gibbs, Mike Westbrook, Nucleus and Jack Bruce come to mind. I even remember a Melody Maker Jazz poll when the readers voted me the number two (John

McLaughlin was number one) best Jazz guitarist! It was probably this surprising poll result which led to me being asked to record a Jazz album under my own leadership.

They obviously figured that the poll result demonstrated that I had a big enough following for such a record to sell quite well.

I was a little dubious since I knew my heart and soul was not into this fusion

stuff, but I hated to turn down the offer! Who knows, it might turn out great.

But I was wary enough to agree to try it only on the condition that it was to be

an experiment, and if I didn't feel happy with the result then the record would

never be put out. This condition was agreed to and I went ahead with the writing and recording, hoping that something special and magical would happen on the day of recording.

Despite my best efforts I thought the result uninspiring, I felt I sounded ill

at ease and unconvincing and there was nothing new being said.

The producer stood by our agreement and said he wouldn't put it out.

So imagine my feelings when I discovered it had been released a year

or two later in Japan! I don't know how or why this happened

and it was obviously too late for me to do anything about it."