The ones who have forgotten about them usually go, “Oh yeah, the album with the warrior guy and the flying saucer, I remember those guys, they were great!”
Yes, they were great.
I first learned about Wishbone Ash in the very early ‘70’s. A girl I knew at the time was hanging out with some guys who lived in an old farmhouse near Kingston, Missouri - not exactly a commune, but as close as it got for the time and place.
I went out there with her once to see a band practice. Some of the guys living there had put together a group called Pilgrimage. They had taken their name from the second Wishbone Ash album.
I don't really remember much about them, I was more interested in her at the time. But, Wishbone Ash stuck with me, and I bought their album Argus when it came out.
And while I haven't seen or talked to that girl in thirty years, I'm still listening to Wishbone Ash.
*****
Album: Wishbone Ash - Argus
Original Release: 1972
Label: Decca /MCA
Back in the day, as they say, my friends and I spent a lot of time riding around town listening to music, and since all that was available on the car radio was AM top-forty stations - which we were happy to listen to most of time, but began to outgrow as music started changing - we quickly got into eight track tape players.
And, if I really liked an album, I would buy both the record and the eight-track tape. I had Argus on both. And, I have it on CD as well.
Argus was one of those tapes people would plug into my player as soon as they got in my car. I think I was the only person in town who had it on eight track. They always wanted to hear 'Warrior'. That song had a certain feel to it that summed up the way a lot of small town kids felt at the time, with the opening lyrics...
"I'm leaving to search for something new,
Leaving everything I ever knew..."
And, of course it had that revolutionary feel to it as well, with the closing refrain ...
"I'd have to be a warrior
A slave I couldn't be
A soldier and a conqueror,
Fighting to be free."
The way the song is put together in a kind of slow march tempo building to a dueling dual guitar crescendo...it literally rattled the windows of my Ford Mustang.
Wishbone Ash, though they don't get nearly the credit they deserve, were one of the early bands to utilize the twin lead guitar sound made famous by Derek and the Dominoes (Eric Clapton/Duane Allman) and The Allman Brothers.
Andy Powell and Ted Turner (not that Ted Turner) delivered some of the most hard-rocking and beautiful dual guitar work that has ever been recorded.
Wishbone Ash is still one of most under-rated and under-appreciated bands around. I'm not sure why that is, but they have never really had mainstream success.
At the time of Argus, even though it got great reviews, they couldn't seem to get the sales or the radio play to put them on the charts. But with songs like 'Time Was','The King Will Come' , 'Blowin' Free' and 'Throw Down The Sword', Argus was the quintessential progressive rock (when's the last time you heard the term prog-rock?) album of 1972.
If you want to surprise your friends and confuse your enemies, put on a copy of Argus and see if they can guess who it is...I'm guessing they can't, but if they can, they'll look at you, nod, smile and say, "Oh yeah, I remember those guys, they were great!”
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