Split

Product Information

That he was never short of younger musicians to work with says something about the extent of the Groundhogs’ influence. The sound of McPhee wrenching awesome swoops and screams out of his guitar on Garden, or of the jagged, impassioned soloing on Split Part 4, had a once-heard-never-forgotten quality: many of his fans became musicians themselves. BBC Live In Concert (2002, Strange Fruit) from 24 February 1972, 7 December 1972 and 23 May 1974. [12] Inspired by a Yardbirds’ freak out, hearing authentic Indian drumming and the magic that existed between this legendary trio, ‘Blues Obituary’ is a juggernaut of riffs.

The Radio 1 Sessions (2002, Strange Fruit) from 21 July 1970, 17 February 1971, 29 March 1971 and 26 July 1971. [8] BBC Radio One Live In Concert (1994, Windsong International) from 24 February 1972 and 23 May 1974. [10] a b Andrew Male (7 June 2023). "Tony McPhee And Groundhogs: The Best Albums Ranked". Mojo . Retrieved 22 October 2023.The LP which actually achieved that milestone was ‘Thank Christ For The Bomb’, released in 1970, which peaked in the Top 10 of the UK album chart. In 1997, McPhee recalled the circumstances behind the album with the attention-grabbing title, which ran against fashionable philosophy at the time (although some say that fearsome weapons like the Atom Bomb and the Hydrogen Bomb are the major reason for it being over 50 years since the last World War). McPhee refuses to take the entire credit for this revolutionary theory, admitting: “Well, it was forced on me a bit”. Roy Fisher suggested that McPhee should think of something controversial for the new LP. “John Lennon had just made his famous quote about The Beatles being more popular than Christ, and everyone was up in arms. So Roy said ‘Let’s marry it up with the bomb. How about ‘Thank Christ For The Bomb?’. So I went home and I had to write these lyrics, and my initial thoughts were that in the First World War, if you were injured you were sent home. And that was my first idea – a soldier is blown up and his toes are blown off so he goes home again. No, that’s not enough. So I thought, well, let’s make it the atomic bomb, really piss people off. My thought was, and it’s been said by other people, that once something is invented you can’t forget it, it’s there, so there’s no point in trying to pretend it doesn’t exist. I always felt that through the ages, the broadsword must have been the ultimate weapon at one point, because they could chop people’s heads off all over the place, and the crossbow and the longbow – there’s always been the ultimate weapon, it’s just a question of degree, really”. Breaking from their traditional influences, the first stepping stone for the power trio who would blossom with ‘Thank Christ For the Bomb’, ‘Split’ and ‘Who Will Save The World?’. McPhee was grounded in the early 1960s British blues scene that had taken hold in clubs including the Marquee in London’s Soho, where he watched musicians such as Cyril Davies. He joined a south London group, the Dollar Bills, in 1962 and renamed them the Groundhogs.

a b c d BBC Live In Concert (Media notes). Strange Fruit Records. 2002. :"Cherry Red" and "Split Part 1" from 24 February 1972; "You Had A Lesson", "3-7-4-4 James Road", "Sad Is The Hunter", "Split Part 2" and "Split Part 4" from 7 December 1972; "Ship On The Ocean" and "Soldier" from 23 May 1974

He never seemed fond of the spotlight. The Groundhogs sold a lot of records in the early 70s: after supporting the Rolling Stones on their 1971 UK tour, they found themselves subsequently filling the same venues as headliners. But to the end of his life, McPhee maintained that the highlight of his career wasn’t their run of Top 10 albums but the time he had spent in the 60s as a sideman with John Lee Hooker. He downplayed his shift from playing straight blues to something more experimental as merely a matter of pragmatism – “to keep the Groundhogs working and recording” when the late 60s blues boom began to wane – which didn’t really account for how far out he was prepared to take his music. Plenty of blues players diverted into heavier territory, but few released a 19-minute conceptual synthesiser piece bemoaning the cruelty of foxhunting and “the English upper classes … [who] I loathe”. The second studio album from The Groundhogs, now slimmed to the classic three piece line up of Tony TS McPhee on guitar, Pete Cruikshank on bass and Ken Pustelnik on drums. The Groundhog’s’ acclaimed 1970 album Thank Christ for the Bomb, which saw the band move away from the blues