Wizzard - The Singles Collection

After getting his start as a member of bands like The Falcons, Gerry Levene and The Avengers and Mike Sheridan and the Nightriders, Roy Wood helped form The Move, becoming the band’s chief songwriter.  They became quite successful in the UK with nine Top Twenty singles, but never really made their mark in the US.  As the band started winding down, Wood, along with other members Jeff Lynne and Bev Bevan, started working on another project that would end up becoming ELO.  Following that band’s 1972 debut release, Wood left and formed Wizzard, taking keyboard player Bill Hunt and cellist Hugh McDowell with him.  Rounding out the group were three members of the Birmingham band Mongrel (bassist Rick Price and drummers Keith Smart and Charlie Grima) and sax players Mike Burney and Nick Pentelow (from the band Pendulum).  Over their five years as a band, they released two albums and recorded a third that wasn’t released until 2000, because at the time the label deemed it insufficiently commercial.  During this time, they also released eleven singles with only two of those twenty-two tracks showing up on the albums.  The Singles Collection is a great new two CD release containing all these single tracks and shows just how fun and diverse they were.  They made their debut with the single “Ball Park Incident”, a super infectious track that hit number six in the UK and is a strange meshing of “Stagger Lee” flavored boogie woogie and glam, with “The Carlsberg Special (Piano’s Demolished Phone 021 373 4472)” on the flip, an interesting instrumental that pulls together a diverse array of elements including glam, classical, orchestral and funk and including flute and harpsichord among the instrumentation.  For their next two singles they tapped into a huge Phil Spector-like wall of sound production with “See My Baby Jive” and “Angel Fingers (A Teen Ballad)”, which has a strong fifties sound full of horns, doo wop, motorcycles and Beach Boys flavored backing harmonies credited to The Bleach Boys and Suedettes (both of these tracks hit number one in the UK).  While it for some reason never made its mark in the US, their next single, “I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday”, is a joyous tune that will put a smile on your face, and even though it fell short of the top of the chart, hitting number four, it became one of Britain’s all time favorite Christmas songs.  ‘Rock N’ Roll Winter (Loony’s Tune) “Sorry, The Word `Spring’ Wouldn’t Fit”’ and “This Is The Story of My Love (Baby)” once again mine the sixties Phil Spector/Beach Boys territory to great effect, although the latter only hit thirty-four in the UK and was the beginning of the end of their chart success.  The next two singles, the Bill Haley big band rock styled “Are You Ready To Rock” and “Rattlesnake Roll”, which throws in a bit of rockabilly, both harken back to fifties rock.  Their last three singles once again found them shifting in direction, but unfortunately these are also their weakest singles, starting with “Indiana Rainbow” (released as Roy Wood’s Wizzard), more of a jazz-rock tune that comes across a bit generic.  “The Stroll” (this time under the name Roy Wood’s Wizzo Band), is a catchy funk rocker with some jazz and boogie woogie, that did show a glimmer of hope, but then the final song “Dancin’ At The Rainbow’s End”, is a poppier tune that comes across a bit cheesy.  Interestingly, quite frequently the tracks that were on the flipside of these singles showed a greater sense of diversity and experimentation.  Some of the more notable of these are “You Got The Jump On Me”, a Zeppelin influenced rocker from the heavy drums, guitar work and vocals, that does a complete 180 at the end turning into piano driven ragtime, “Dream Of Unwin”, a gorgeous, largely instrumental, track with a dreamy folk / psychedelic sound and “Nixture”, an easygoing, horn driven jazz instrumental reminiscent at times of early Chicago.  The collection is rounded out by a great CD booklet with the story behind each single along with pictures of the covers.  

(7T's)