Strawberry Music [Release date 5.12.25]

Like most musicians, Keith West’s life as a professional musician began inauspiciously. His career cycled through several bands in the early sixties, including most notably, Four Plus One and The In Crowd, before settling on the more promising Tomorrow.

These two CDs, curated by West himself, cover the ground from 1965 to 1989, comprising 46 tracks in total.

CD1 delineates the Four Plus One, In Crowd and Tomorrow years,
plus West’s late sixties’ solo material.

CD2 consists entirely of West’s subsequent solo recordings in the seventies and eightes, including a handful of previously unreleased tracks.

1965: Mod soul band, the In Crowd, threatened to break through by exploring the same new sonic territory, imported from the USA, as was being exploited successfully by The Yardbirds and The Stones.

Success beckoned after ‘That’s How Strong My Love Is’ broke the UK Top Fifty. But it was a singular event, even with Steve Howe, later of Yes, and John Alder, later of The Pretty Things in the band.

1967: Tomorrow looked like it would make it. They quickly became regulars at the famous Marquee Club. John Peel gave the band considerable airtime on his Perfumed Garden radio show.

But despite their unquestionable commercial appeal, the singles, ‘Revolution’, (recorded by West with studio band, Steve Howe, Ronnie Wood and Aynsley Dunbar), and ‘My White Bicycle’, later a hit for Nazareth, managed somehow to avoid any form of best selling success. This despite enjoying whole hearted praise from John Lennon (recording in the studio next door).

His subsequent collaboration with musical wunderkind, Mark Wirtz was remarkably successful, leading to a million selling Top Ten Uk hit with ‘Excerpt From A Teenage Opera’ (Grocer Jack) and a Top Forty hit with follow up, ‘Sam’.

But again, West’s career stalled. The hits didn’t keep on coming.

1971: Wirtz’s influence pushed West towards mainland Europe. German label, Kuckuck released his new solo album, Wherever My Love Goes. Self produced, with assistance from Andrew Loog Oldham. Its tracks make up the bulk of the second CD, supplemented by a mix of released and unreleased material from West’s last band ambitions with Moonrider.

Some standouts here. Like ‘The Power and The Glory’ – the Mamas and The Papas channel the Fifth Dimension. Classy track.
The folksy, homegrown ‘West Country’ strays nicely into Crosby Stills and Nash territory, and ‘Leitmotif’s music and mood remembers 1967’s “Summer Of Love”.

There’s a lot to like across these two discs. They tell the story of a talanted artist whose music had a distinctly grown up resonance. But it just didn’t resonate with enough of the record buying public.

His excellent 1986 collaboration with Steve Howe, ‘Cross That Bridge’ provides theAnthology’s title. ***

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Power Plays w/c 1 December 2025

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