Ten Years Alive

When I started my record collecting at a young age I knew I had to find all the stuff I found in a book about Sixties Rock.  It was a book that I took out often for long periods of time and would dive in.  The books brief introduction to an album and or artist was enough to entice me to go record shopping.  I would bring this book on family trips and ask or even more, beg to stop at local record stores to get something to add to my ever expanding collection. 

One such trip I blew all my trip money on a few noteworthy records.  One such record is the album Undead by Ten Years After.  At fifty years old this year, it still burns and sends smoke coming out my speakers wherever I play it.  I knew a bit about them and had the awesome album Stonehenge (I stole that from my uncle) and even had a crappy and overplayed cassette of greatest hits.  It was a tape that was always in my Walkman.  

When I picked it up to check it out I could see it was not in the best of shape.  I also noticed that someone was eying it too.  I kept it with the other ones in my hand.  I remember I spent about an hour in this record store.  Mom was impatient and Dad defending my lengthy stay.  The album was recorded live, and the only song I heard of was At The Woodchoppers Ball because that was on my greatest hits cassette.  One song did get an interest because the version on Undead was shorter then on a Woodstock soundtrack that I owned.  I just had to get it, no matter what the condition the album was in.  Hey! Live means awesomeness right?  As a teenager hearing anything live was the best part of listening to anything in my collection.  

The live setting of Undead is a small club in England.  It's a club very few of us have heard of.  Klooks Kleek is not like a Ronnie Scott's or The Marquee, but it held great musicians like Led Zeppelin, John Mayall, and Graham Bond just to name a few.  It attracted attention to all the Blues greats over the years 1963-64.  I can only imagine being there for one of those sessions.  Like my post on Allman Brothers Live at the Fillmore I think this album should get duly brought up in classic live albums conversation. One reason because of it's small crowd size, and two it's classic Boogie and Ten Years After signature style.  

The raw energy of this live session is what makes me smile.  It's an album of great presence and the choice of tunes that Alvin Lee and group play are given a renewed sound and perspective.  The crowd seems to like it and I sure do.  The performance is one of the best and after listening to it you will standing too for some Alvin Lee magic encore.  The only surprise is that this was Ten Years After's second album.  I'm sure hearing this Deram knew they had a winning band and my only wish they had a more successful career.  A career that we would talk about them in the same breath as other classic Blues based rock bands of the time.  It really is a joy to listen to and make sure like all the others in this blog, cranking it to eleven will be surely justified.