BGO Rec.
Michael Chapman : Window / Wrecked Again -2cd- (UK,1970/1971,re.2004)****'/***°'
According to Ptolomaic Terrascope’s interview with a slightly cynical Michael Chapman, it sounds like he grew up as the biggest fan of music and seeing the special status accorded in those days to the guitar, literally rolled in music playing/writing, after having had a great almost accidental opportunity to play, -he started doing jazz and blues covers and such-, to make his first masterpiece, “Rainmaker”, a very unusual kind of guitar driven song album. Then he was introduced to Mick Ronson who had played on Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’, assembling a great electric band on his second masterpiece, “Fully Qualified Surviver”. –certain comparisons of sound can be found on Bowie’s “The man who sold the world” and especially “Ziggy Stardust”, when Mick returned to Bowie-. “Windows” was his next album, which was actually only in a demo state, with more guitar work and other ideas to add on later, but it was already published by the label (a 20,000 copies) when he was on a European tour.
Whatever he had in mind to include otherwise, the album musically hangs well together, in a nice to listen to way, with only more rocking dynamics on the first two tracks, as well as on “Fennnario”, (a style which was at most a continuation of his previous albums), and a more acoustic core on most other tracks, of which the most “blue” ones to some degree could use such a core very well to come out with this mood.
Michael Chapman himself played only acoustic guitars. P.Harold Fatt (or Phil Greenberg) played lead guitar ; Richie Dharma (an Indian drummer who was soon going to play on Lou reed’s solo album) on drums and tambourine ; Rick Kemp (Steeleye Span) on bass, maracas, vocals ; Johnny Van Derek on violin and Alex Atterson on piano. The last track features a whole bar of guest voices, including a dog.
The next album, “Wrecked Again” was the only LP I haven’t found previously on LP yet, and also sounds more different compared to the others. At first hearing it was already obvious to me that this hung more together as a singer-songwriter theme album, with the inspirations of the songs coming first, and the music following after. The first impression was that the arrangements were not organically created together, but more like arranged afterwards, and with a variety that has different contexts and hangs in different areas. But when more focused on the lyrics, this pretty much makes sense completely. This is as this is a slightly cynical, but more dramatic dropback concept, hanging in lighter bar-styled contexts of blues and countryblues, witnessing dryly a construction of a relationship and behaviour that failed, while gaining a perspective on it. The added orchestrational touches appear at the most dramatic conclusions ; with the lyrical contexts fits perfectly. In purely musical terms the production and ideas were lighter and less “progressive” as before in the old sense, but hanging together with the contexts is as perfectly done as on previous albums.
While Michael Chapman played not only acoustic but also more electric guitar, other participants were Rick Kemp (as steady member) on electric bass & cello bass ; Pique Withers (from Spring), on drums and percussion ; Ray Martinez (Spring) on lead guitar ; Jack Emblow on accordion ; Liza Strike, Neil Lancaster, Claudette Houchen and Albert Hammond appear on backing vocals. A hidden, not mentioned guest musician was Rick Wakeman on piano on one track.
