Ten Years After – Ten Years After

the version of "I can't keep from crying" on this album is a true gem. a slow build burner with that timeless soul in his voice.
the subtle overdriven solo section is a thing of beauty, given enough of it's own space to exist.

"feel it for me" is another burner of raw ion. and the finisher "help me" has a kind of honesty that is rare to find in modern music.

if i could only change one thing, it would be to put Adventures Of A Young Organ at the end of the side rather than it's weird place in the middle right after 'crying'.

Primarily ed for their stage splintering version of “Going Home” preformed at Woodstock, and often lumped in with the likes of The Yardbirds, Ten Years After lived in world all their own, with this, their self titled album “Ten Years After” hitting the shelves in 1967, being their least known, though probably their best and most consistent adventure into the British blues/rock genre ... and my first adventure into lies and deception.

For a week I’d laid out and reevaluated the clothes I was gonna wear to the show. For a week I’d told my parents I was gonna be baby sitting that Saturday night in October [the 25th of 1968]. For a week I’d studied a map of Philadelphia, and how to get to The Electric Factory, a converted tire factory on the very wrong side of town, now painted in day-glow designs, black-lights that caused everything to glow, a riser in the middle of the venue from which a liquid lightshow was projected onto the wall of a small stage, and bench seating for no more than a couple hundred people. This was the first tour of America for Ten Years After, and they opened for the Jeff Beck Group with Rod Stewart, whom I’d never heard of, yet were laid to waste by Alvin Lee, his magical voice, along with his guitar and organ driven band. I Alvin walking on stage in a pair of clogs [something else I’d never seen], slapping the stash bag he wore on his belt saying, “We’ve been paid,” slipped out of his shoes, and stole the night.

With an album cover that embraced the psychedelic illusions of the day, their music was anything but. Ten Years after was tight and smoothly frenetic, they’d taken the best values of American blues and reinvented them with a solid sonic pallet of rock n’ roll that often encomed a swinging jazz feel; and actually seeming like they were having fun. Their songs sounded like they were relaying a truth, as if they were preaching from on high, with no need to convert the smiling upturned faces. This wasn’t the thematic music the band became known for, this album had substance, body and soul ... building and ebbing like a tidal tide at the beach. Often the songs were slow, as if existing for a purpose, and when you hear “Spoonful,” you’ll know exactly what I mean.

Of course this is the point where I try and convince you to give this gem a listen, but I won’t, I’m happy to sit here feeling that I’m part of the in-crowd, knowing something that others don’t, and that sits just fine with me.

Review by Jenell Kesler