The Last Glam In Town – CD Review by John Burland

IT was Easter 1974 and I was watching Top of the Pops on the TV at home. The song that was being performed was Angel Face by The Glitter Band. Suddenly I spotted a familiar face on the stage. It was my old friend Harvey Ellison who had been in the same class as me at Prince Henry’s Grammar School. I know he had gone on to pursue a career in music as locally he had formed his own band Ellison’s Hog Line which had performed at the Stoney Lea in Ilkley and St George’s Hall in Bradford.

In the early 70s, Harvey joined up with John Rossall in Germany performing in The Boston Showband which morphed into The Glitter Band. Angel Face was a number four hit for the band followed by five further top ten hits in the next couple of years. John was the founder of the band and worked closely with Mike Leander who created that amazing Glitter Band sound with the pounding double drum beat and the droning guitars. In fact, it was Mike Leander who played all the instruments on the band’s records apart from the trombone backing of John Rossall and Harvey’s alto or bass saxophones.

John’s new album which has just been released takes the listener back to the glam rock days of the mid-70s. Again there is the double drumbeat, saxophones and the droning star guitar along with the vocals from John, ably backed by Robert Lloyd from The Nightingales, John Robb from The Membranes and Bob Bradbury from Hello.

The album opens with the rocker Fear of a Glam Planet followed by Never Say Forever Again. Track 3, Get Go Girl is the song that is being released as a single. There are seven further tracks on the album, all high quality and include three of my favourites, Have I The Right which I remember as a hit for The Honeycombs but which has been given an even faster up-tempo treatment on this album, Equalizer co-written by the recently deceased Alan Merrill and featuring his great guitar playing and Blackpool Rocks, a tribute by John to his hometown. The album finishes with a kickback to the 70s with a rereleased version of Let’s Get Together Again which peaked at number 8 in the charts back in October 1974 for The Glitter Band.

A great album taking me back 45 years to the glam rock era and I am sure others who grew up in the 60s and 70s will feel the same. My only regret, and John’s as well, is that our good friend Harvey Ellison who passed away 3½ years ago was not around to add his great saxophone playing to the album. If you want a bit of 70s nostalgia for Christmas, this definitely is the album for you.