"Ten Years After" by TEN YEARS AFTER - October 1967 UK Debut Album on Deram Records in MONO and STEREO featuring Alvin Lee on Lead Guitar and Lead Vocals, Chick Churchill on Keyboards, Leo Lyons on Bass and Ric Lee on Drums with Producer Mike Vernon of Blue Horizon Records and Audio Engineer Gus Dudgeon (June 2015 UK Universal/Deram 'Expanded Edition 2CD Reissue and Remaster' Offering Both Mono and Stereo Mixes of the Album on CD1 and Eleven Bonuses on CD2 with Andy Pearce Remasters) - A Review by Mark Barry...

 

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"...Blues Guitar Of..." 

On page 7 of the tastefully annotated 16-page booklet that accompanies this cool digital twofer is an advert for the 1st of December 1967 for TEN YEARS AFTER at the Manor House Club in London '...featuring the wonderful Blues Guitar of Alvin Lee...'

 

Yeah baby! Hell, if you popped along on the following Friday, the 8th of December 1967, you could also see some brats called John Mayall's Blues Breakers who might be kinda fun too. The clear downside was the extortionate entrance fee of three schillings and six pence (capitalist swine). 

 

I loves me a release like this - a 2CD Newly Expanded Edition chock full of goodies and sounding fan-tab-a-dooblay courtesy of Audio Engineer ANDY PEARCE and his frankly under-insured knob-twiddling fingers. Much to discuss, so let's get to Ten Years After over 55 years ago and their Blues Rock Debut righteously reissued here in 2015 by Universal on their DERAM Records label imprint as was the original LP: 

 

UK released 22 June 2015 - "Ten Years After/1st Album" by TEN YEARS AFTER on Universal/Deram 472 643-8 (Barcode 0602547264381) is an Expanded Edition 2CD Reissue and Remaster offering both the MONO and STEREO Mixes of the album on CD1 with Eleven Bonus Tracks on CD 2 (Two in Mono and 9 in Stereo). It plays out as follows: 

 

CD1 "Ten Years After" Debut Album in MONO and STEREO (73:27 minutes):

1. I Want To Know [Side 1]

2. I Can't Keep From Cying, Sometimes 

3. Adventures Of A Young Organ 

4. Spoonful 

5. Losing The Dogs [Side 2]

6. Feel It For Me 

7. Love Until I Die 

8. Don't Want You Woman 

9. Help Me 

Tracks 1 to 9 is the MONO MIX 

Tracks 10 to 18 is the STEREO MIX (same tracks)

"Ten Years After" was released October 1967 in the UK on Deram DML 1015 in Mono and Deram SML 1015 in Stereo and London/Deram DE 16009 in Mono and London/Deram DES 16009 in Stereo. Produced by MIKE VERNON (Engineered by GUS DUDGEON) - it didn't chart in either country. 

CD2 Bonus Tracks - All STEREO except Tracks 2 and 4 (41:43 minutes): 

1. Portable People (2:12 minutes)

2. Portable People (2:15 minutes) (MONO)

3. The Sounds (4:10 minutes)

4. The Sounds (4:27 minutes) (MONO)

5. Rock Your Mama (2:58 minutes)

6. Spider In My Web (7:15 minutes)

7. Hold Me Tight (2:16 minutes)

8. (At The) Woodchopper's Ball (7:44 minutes)

9. Love Until I Die - Live At The BBC (2:20 minutes)

10. Don't Want You Woman - Live At The BBC (2:18 minutes)

11. The Sounds - Live At The BBC (3:24 minutes) 

 

NOTES CD2: 

Tracks 1, 3 and 7 first issued in March 1972 on the UK Stereo LP "Alvin Lee And Company" on Deram SML 109

 

Tracks 2 and 4 are the Non-LP A&B-sides of their debut UK 45-single released 16 February 1968 on Deram DM 176 and March 1968 in the USA on Deram 45-85027 in Mono (first CD issue 2002) 

 

Tracks 5 and 6 are the Non-LP A&B-sides of a May 1968 Export-Only Stereo 45-single on Deram DM 191 (first CD issue 2002) 

 

Track 8 recorded January 1968 and first released on the 2002 Deram Expanded Edition 1CD Reissue of "Ten Years After" on Deram 8828972 

 

Tracks 9 to 11 recorded live for the BBC "Top Gear" Radio Program in 1967 and are PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED

 

TEN YEARS AFTER was:

ALVIN LEE - Lead Guitar and Vocals 

CHICK CHURCHILL - Keyboards 

LEON LYONS - Bass 

RIC LEE - Drums

 

The booklet has 16-pages with new liner notes from noted writer MALCOLM DOME. His text is accompanied with the usual plethora of 60ts memorabilia repro'd across the pages to great effect - the American 1968 advert for their debut 45 "Portable People" where the groovy ad tells us that the British band's LP in breaking everywhere and the debut 7" single has something for the underground in its flipside "The Sounds". There's suitable cool black and whites of our fearsome foursome and even a snap of Alvin Lee, Leo Lyons and Ric Lee as The Jaybirds - their incarnation before 1967. The colour shot of the harder-edged Blues Rock band that was Ten Years After on Page 14 is particularly striking - a fourpiece Cream in the making. And there's a suitably trippy shot of the band on the rear inlay much like the fuzzy album cover photo. 

 

But for me the big news is ANDY PEARCE Remasters from original tapes - clean, precise and full of room to breathe. Andy Pearce and his Audio Engineer partner Matt Wortham have been at many Universal projects of note - Budgie, Rory Gallagher, Free, Mott The Hoople, Wishbone Ash and many more - and I actively seek out his work. The Stereo version of the nine-minute cover version of Sonny Boy Williamson's "Help Me" that ends the debut is so good. For sure the separation is a tad too harsh on some other tracks - but the audio is beautifully clear - Mike Vernon letting the band stretch out but still keeping it produced.And that Al Kooper cover "I Can't Keep From crying, Sometimes" is little short of gorgeous.

 

It's kind of weird to hear "Portable People" in STEREO - seriously separated vocals in the left and right - but man what a Remaster - Churchill's organ and Lee's so delicate guitar picking clear as if he's in front of you. Actually, when you listen to "Portable People" and its underground flip-side "The Sounds" - you wonder if it might have been a smarter move to throw the wild guitar-playing of "The Sounds" over to the A and give it a DJ-whirl. "The Sounds" is so fuzzed and in my head out there - it might have taken with the arm-swaying faithful. A bit fuzzier but no less boogie-tastic is "Rock Your Mama" - a stay in bed all day guitar and organ bopper that is followed by the superb slow blues of "Spider In My Web" - Lee showing his feel for the genre. 

 

"Hold Me Tight" with its boogie-woogie barrelhouse piano is just such a blast - England's Canned Heat echoing those vocals - you half expect Jerry Lee Lewis to put out of the speakers any moment. TYA goes Late Night Lounge Jazz Bop with "Woodchopper's Ball" - a guitar workout that confuses and feels wildly out of place even if his playing is impressive. A real downside is the three unreleased BBC cuts which the notes say are 'historical' - which means of course they are hissy and virtually bootleg. But man are they playing like wild men - harmonica - guitar - piano - all of it. He goes Slide Acoustic for "Don't Want You Woman" and again Lee and his boys play up a blinder. What a shame this "Top Gear" session isn't in better shape.

 

In May 2022, their 1967 debut "Ten Years After" is dated for sure in places and forgotten too to the dusty murk of a long-ago past. But I urge you to get your lugs around their beginnings (five of the cuts are superb Alvin Lee originals), because in my house, it's the equal of the Beano "Blues Breakers" LP from 1966 and a reminder of days when Brilliant Blues roamed the land cheap and cheerful. 

 

Despite the niggles about the less-than-stellar BBC recordings (obviously unreleased until now for good reason), make no mistake - this is a top job done and I'm stilling feeling it...