Madfish [Release Date: 28.03.25]

The Wishbone Ash At The BBC 1970 -88 box set will please more fans than it will disappoint.

It comprises 11 CD’s of never-before-heard sessions and live concerts restored and re-mastered, plus a DVD spanning the 1971, ’77 and ‘80 line-ups.

There’s also a superbly researched 72-page hardback book with rare photos, session documentation and insightful band member recollection, making for a good chronological spread.

The box set includes the sought after last recorded 1974 performance for 14 years by Ted Turner and the mark one line-up.

There’s also the heralded May 1972 session and the highly regarded May 1978 ‘In Concert’ show,

Given Madfish’s track record with previous Ash box set releases, you know the legacy is in safe hands in terms of research, audio quality and band support.

Any potential gripes from die-hard fans who have already bought everything on offer, and who continue their search for unreleased tracks are offset by this box set release which does its job in documenting an ever changing musical journey, while also doing the right thing, by publishing the extant sessions that they have yet to get hold of.

The box also set traces the flourishing relationship between the band and BBC, which finds both parties evolving in an integral relationship at the dawn of the rock era.

Live At The BBC is coherent story of a band who quickly fulfilled its potential, signed to an American label and engaged an extrovert American manager, moved to the States, arguably lost something of their public identity.

And yet despite significant line-up changes they explore different musical directions to the point that they were sometimes musically unrecognisable from their early days.

Disc 1 opens with a 1970 John Peel session full of Steve Upton’s cymbal bluster on Jack McDuff’s jazzy ‘Vas Dis’, a song that seems unencumbered by the dry sound of the BBC studio.

It’s the perfect start, highlighting the lovely interplay between the wah wah inflected guitars and Martin Turner’s honeyed bass lines.

Several repeated takes appear later, on an ‘Old Grey Whistle Test’ DVD, which Martin Turner describes as “full of gusto and energy.”

There are two early versions of ‘Phoenix’ – a song Andy Powell described as “our anthem really” – on which the guitars rise jubilantly over a stop-time rhythm to build a tremulous tension, which is finally ruptured by a galloping tempo change with ethereal vocals.

The May 1972 version (Disc 2) is expanded by a further 5 minutes, complete with controlled feedback. It illustrates how the band had palpably grown in confidence on the back of relentless road work.

Everything in the second version seems up in the mix, from the steely guitar lines and growling bass to the extended percussion and staccato drums.

You can hear the audience starting to show its appreciation long before the final crescendo.

The 1971 ‘Top Gear’ version of ‘The Pilgrim’ is another essential exciting example of the band’s tight melodic interplay.

The 1972 version of ‘Warrior’ is equally good, with intricate guitar interplay and deft vocal harmonies, while ‘Throw Down The Sword’ is a unison guitar celebration (described by Andy as: “The finest, classic, stadium rock Ash anthem of all time”).

It’s good example of both the band and BBC evolving mellifluously into the dawn of the rock era.

The “lost” 14 February 1974 BBC ‘In Concert’ show featuring the last Ted Turner mark one line-up for 14 years, is well worth the wait. (Disc 3). It’s a cool reminder of just how good the band was, especially on the stellar versions of ‘Blowin Free’ and the previously mentioned ‘Phoenix’ but with a shift towards folk rock on the waltz-time ‘Ballad Of The Beacon’.

‘Blowin’ Free’ provides a signature guitar opening, a pulsating drum break and smoother harmonies, capturing a band that had come straight off a West Coast tour.

The second version is extended by an extra 30 seconds or so, and rocks harder.

‘Rock & Roll Widow’ also offers more bite. That said, the session sounds slightly mixed back, in effect smoothing out the edges to be found on the fledgling sessions.

The burgeoning ‘Time Was’ is also a guitar fest, glued together by some rock solid bass and topped by a vocoder.

Disc 4 spans 1976/77, and opens with material from the ‘New England’ album with the edgy rocker ‘Runaway’ which sounds like a band in flux, while ‘Lorelei’ features what Steve Upton describes as: “mythological themes similar to that of Greek sailors being lured onto the rocky coasts.”

It’s a shade closer to what you might expect from earlier Ash, while the riff rocking ‘Mother Of Pearl’, sounds very American even in a BBC setting.

Laurie Wisefield describes it as emanating from his opening riff led jam, tinged by his interest in Bowie’s ‘Fame’ at the time.

‘Baby Come In From The Rain’ is a veritable stomp with a great vocal, subtle gnawing guitar work and a salient hook, and is arguably the strongest track from this session.

Then there Wisefield’s Miami recorded, but West Coast sounding and harmony drenched ‘Goodbye Baby, Hello Old Friend’.

Martin Turner accurately describes it as having “real feel”, but “it didn’t seem to achieve the success that I thought it deserved, maybe because it sounded too American for a British band?”

The Glasgow Apollo 1977 set (Disc 5) comes from one of the band’s favourite venues and mixes classic Ash rockers like ‘Blind Eye’ – the vocal is dominated by the opening guitar lines – which is mixed in with newly integrated tracks such as the laid back ‘Front Page News’, with its radio friendly chorus.

They round off the set with some over extended audience participation on ‘Bad Weather Blues’, an unremarkable rock-a-boogie with a bluesy edge, often used as an encore, in this case from a Newcastle show!

Disc 6 features the 1978 double helping of the highly regarded Hammersmith Odeon, show featuring Laurie Wisefield on the impressive jangle of ‘You See Red’, and Martin Turner’s bass anchored ‘F.U.B.B.’ which is a flashback to the band’s twin guitar interplay of their early days.

By the time of ‘Way Of The World’ they sound as if they have come full circle on another harmony drenched slow burner, which Laurie says was part of an attempt: “to get back to a more English sounding album.”

When it became part of the enduring Ash and BBC umbrella, how could they fail?

Disc 7 starts with the rest of the ‘78 Hammersmith show and the forgettable ‘Runaway’ which Andy describes as “A bombastic little rocker, based on a staccato Laurie power-chord riff.”

In truth, it sounds a bit like a Thin Lizzy cast off , while 79’s externally written single ‘Helpless’ from the ‘In Concert’ (Wembley Empire Pool) was included because as Martin says: “we were trying to be ‘commercial’.”

It opens with some Alice Cooper style bluster and boogie’s along inoffensively into a limping chorus, though the twin guitars bluster does its best to resuscitate it, but ironically sounds like Thin Lizzy.

By Disc 8 we are back at the Hammersmith Odeon for a 1980, 10^th anniversary tour show , given a voice over by Brian Matthew and the band’s vibrant version of 1973’s ‘Doctor’, with uplifting vocals and tight interplay to the fore.

There’s also new material from ‘Just Testing’ including ‘Insomnia’, which percolates, but never takes off.

In sharp contrast, there’s the cascading flurry of ‘Queen of Torture’ and the tub thumping ‘Living Proof’’ on which is the band once again sound at its best.

In between the two tracks, there’s ‘Lifeline’ which features a lovely riff and some nifty guitar work as it revisits an early career feel with staggered tempos and bursting guitar lines.

Disc 9 comes from another Hammersmith Odeon concert in 1981 in support of the ‘Number The Brave’ album’, with John Wetton having replaced Martin Turner.

If nothing else, it provides a snapshot of a band trying to find a foothold in changing times,

The problem here is the poor vocals, especially on staples like ‘Blowin’ Free’, a song reduced from bursting at the seams, to an almost by numbers rendition, though in fairness, it’s still well received.

Both the plodding ‘Where Is The Love’, and funky ‘Loaded’ are dogged by poor vocals, on which Claire Hamill’s presence doesn’t help.

‘Underground’ is another Andy Summers/The Police inflected tune, with better harmonies, but is of little interest to early Ash fans, though Steve Upton revels in some cool percussive work.

‘Kicks On The Street’ has a strong rhythmic presence, while the harmony vocals sound like String Driven Thing.

The band does sound as if they were searching for a more purposeful direction, though that is belatedly tempered by the misstep step of Smoky Robinson’s ‘Get Ready’, which in spite of a snappy arrangement lacks an essential soul ingredient.

Disc 10 extends the 1981 Hammersmith concert, before leaping to ‘85 for material from the very moderate ‘Raw To The Bone’ album.

‘Long Live The Night’ sounds like anonymous American AOR, while ‘Love Is Blue’ is well sung by Mervyn Spence, but is dogged by an ’80’s drum sound.

I’d wager any early Ash fan who has never heard this material before, would be hard pressed to recognise it as Ash

‘People In Motion’ opens like a Robert Palmer cast off, before hitting the heights vocally on another AOR outing, while ‘Cell Of Fame’ ups the tempo slightly and is a highlight of the band’s new musical AOR direction.

Disc 11 focuses on the reformed classic line-up for the instrumental ‘Nouveau Calls’ album.

It is represented here by the creditable ‘Tangible Evidence’, the intro of which could be an update of The Shadows.

The band beautifully rakes over old coals on a soaring version of ‘Living Proof’, but they remain dogged by the AOR feel on ‘No More Lonely Nights’.

The latter is a good song which rises on the back of a lovely guitar break, but wasn’t quite memorable enough to crack the same American niche that gave Asia such a huge career.

Ted Turner graces ‘The King Will Come’ and takes us back to the band’s pinnacle years, complete with some lovely wah-wah squalls.

The band builds a Latino groove on ‘Clousseau’, on a stop-start instrumental, while ‘In The Skin’ is bathed in a funky electro arrangement, a case of Ash manfully trying keeping up with the times.

The bonus DVD clips feature 3 snapshots of a changing band, from the ’71 Old Grey Whistle Test and the ’77 Criteria Studio sessions in Miami , to a 1980 Guildford Civic Hall gig; a reminder that right up to 1980 and beyond, the band were still pushing the stylistic envelope.

In sum, At The BBC 1970-1988 is a must for completists as well as those fans still catching up on the mark two band onwards. ****

Review by Pete Feenstra

GRTR! Greats (March 2025)

Featured Artist: JOSH TAERK

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Power Plays w/c 24 March 2025

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DOCTOR BLACK Drag Me Down (indie)
COHEED AND CAMBRIA Goodbye Sunshine (Virgin Music Group)
LEONI JANE KENNEDY Closer (indie)
SMALL TOWN POLITICS Red Lights (indie)

Featured Albums w/c 24 March 2025

09:00-12:00 The Best of 2003 – 2024 (Melodic Rock)
12:00-13:00 The Best of 2003 – 2024 (Melodic Hard Rock)
14:00-16:00 The Best of 2003 – 2024 (Singer Songwriter)

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