In 1967 one of the backing singers from The Ike And Tine Turner Revue stayed behind in England after their tour ended and landed a record deal with the up and coming Immediate Records, brainchild of one time Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham. The singer's name was Pat (PP) Armold and with the help of the various writers and bands signed to Immediate contributing to her soul based repertioire, she started to have some succes.
With the need to go out on the road to promote herself on the back of her initial success, it was decided to assemble a capable backing band drawn from the many talented bands that were 'doing the rounds' in swinging London. The band that came together consisted of Davy O'List on guitar, Keith Emerson on organ, Lee Jackson on bass and initially Ian Hague on drums. They were collectively known as The Nice and it was with them that Miss Arnold set out to wow the masses in clubs and theatres up and down the country.
Being as the band appeared to be quite a handy outfit in other musical genres too, it was decided that The Nice would be the support act at the shows and they set about building up a reputation for being musically adventureous and soon started to overshadow what was meant to be the star attraction. After a visit to her homeland, PP Arnold found that, on her return, she no longer had her own backing band as Andrew Loog Oldham had suggested that the band 'go it alone' and start recording an album for the label.
Sometime around this point Ian Hague's increasingly unreliable and 'erratic' behaviour was deemd to be beyond the pale and he was replaced by the much more sober Brian Davison and the classic line-up of The Nice was born.
The album that they recorded and released was titled 'The Thoughts Of Emerlist Davjack' and it is within the grooves of this record that it is generally perceived that the origins of what was later to become known as progressive rock were first seeded.
It is for sure an album that contains elements that were indeed copied by other bands and used as a basis for the prog sound, but essentially it should be regarded as freewheeling and adventureous with psychedelic leanings.
The album opens with 'The Thoughts Of Emerlist Davjack' which was issued as a single around the same time and was about the most commercial sounding the band were ever to be. It featured lead vocals by guitarist O'List and although it bore hallmarks of a band with a bit more up their collective sleeves than they were letting on, by it's very nature, it was a little too left field for the tastes of the record buying public in general and so did very little in terms of sales. However, as an album opener it serves to lead you in to what follows quite effectively. Next up is 'Flower King Of Flies' which is a lightweight but slightly edgy slab of psychedelia which sort of works by virtue of the fact that there are a lot of ideas floating around within the song structure, but 40 years later, it sounds quite dated. The third offering is 'Bonnie K' which always has the air of album filler about it now, as it doesn't seem to have any standout moments within it's 3 minutes and 22 seconds.
With three songs down and no sign of any real prog influences, it would appear that the general consensus about their being forefathers of the genre might be unfounded, but track four is where the real meat lies and it's there in spades....boy is it!
With Dave Brubeck's weirdly time signatured 'Blue Rondo A La Turk' as it's basis 'Rondo' is where the band display all their strengths. It's an organ driven piledriver of a piece whereby Keith Emerson shows off to the max playing his socks off over a rhythm section going along like a runaway train, with Davy O'List taking the opportunity to also fire salvos of highly original and very menacing distorted guitar all over it too, at 8 minutes and 25 seconds it is the centrepiece of the album and it's pace and frenzied playing takes your breath away. It was the song that caused the greatest stir when the band played live and Emerson's penchant for showmanship ensured that once seen and heard it was never forgotten. It was during performances of this piece that he put together the visual displays that would serve him well in his later band, Emerson, Lake and Palmer.
Track five is called 'War And Peace' and is basically a twelve bar blues workout taken to an extreme with another example of O'List's stinging guitar playing to the fore and Emerson taking to opportunity to reel off classically based organ runs to lift the song from it's predictable blues pattern. Follwing that is the humourous ditty entitled 'Tantalising Maggie' which has slightly distorted vocals which are used to mask the slightly risque lyrics sung by Lee Jackson. the song is manic, amusing and a bit rude, but has a charm that makes it listenable even all this time later. This is followed by 'Dawn' which basically ruminates on the destructive tendancy of man towards mother nature and is quite disturbing to listen to. Lastly, there's 'The Cry Of Eugene' which reverts back to the fairly lightweight 'psyche' values of the first few songs almost as if to say, 'there there, the nightmare's over now, it's all ok'. But it's lyric does seems to be telling the story of the ghost of a small boy making his prescence felt, so there's a slight sting in the tail as a final gesture.
After the recording of this album the band would never again display the psychedelic traits that were present on this first outing and with the departure of Davy O'List they would proceed to move towards the sort of music that would sound as a fanfare for the exploits of Emerson, Lake and Palmer a few short years later. The subsequent success of ELP and the level of revulsion that was also heaped upon their highbrow musical aspirations from some quarters has overshadowed the achievements of the band that spawned the prog ideal, which is a shame, because although their output can sometimes be patchy and somewhat dated, The Nice deserve their place in musical history as a very influential and pioneering outfit, that were much loved by the critics of the time, so much were they loved, that when Keith Emerson decided to jump ship to form ELP, such was the critical backlash to his actions, it made ELP a band that found it very hard to gain favour anywhere within the music press and dogged them throughout thier career.
This album is entertaining, has a 'period' charm about it and was indeed used by other bands as a blueprint for getting really serious and self indulgent, like most prog bands did some time later, but is well worth getting hold of a copy if you can.
Submitted by Kevin Wallbank
of M100 & Honeymoon On Mars (U.K.)
