Roger Chapman : vocals

Charlie Whitney : guitar, bass, amplified acoustic guitars

Rob Townsend : drums, percussion

John Weider : bass, violin, amplified acoustic guitars

Poli Palmer : vibes, piano, electric piano, percussion, drums, flute

Family

Originally released in 1970 this re-issue contains three extra live versions of tracks from the same album, a perfect example of how much of a live band Family really was. In fact the first tracks on the original album also were live recordings, recorded live at Fairfield Hall in London. As is the case with a lot of vocalists you either love or hate the voice of Roger Chapman which is mainly due to the heavy use of his vibrato. But if you can set Roger’s voice apart for one minute and listen to the ingenious compositions first and then add his distinctive voice to the whole you will be pleased to know that Family is indeed a very interesting band ! Especially the experimental nature of John Palmer’s interventions lift these songs to great heights. Needless to say that recorded in 1970 Family’s music at times sounds a little muddy in places as this was the kind of music studio’s were only able to reproduce at around that time. Hence the fact that some of the guitarsolo’s are not so distinctive whilst also a lot of distortion is used.

As said before tracks 1 to 4 are live recordings so it’s kind of normal that the balance between the instruments and Chapman’s vocals is not perfect. Listen to the bluesy ‘Willow tree’ where the vocals sound much further away than the piano and violin. Yet it also strikes me that the audience is competely concentrated and quiet during the songs even when these contain very silent passages, something the current visitors of concerts might learn a lesson or two from ! Due to the inclusion of the violin Family’s music sometimes contains some of the magic which we could find with Curved Air although a track like ‘Normans’ also holds a little bit of String Driven Thing whilst Palmer’s flute is reminiscent of Genesis at that time. However the piano in combination with Charlie Whitney’s guitar constantly injects a decent amount of blues into the band’s compositions. Above all Family is the kind of band which really is the perfect example of the typical underground band which uses every concert to fully improvise whenever they feel like it. Just compare the studio and live version of ‘Part of the load’ and you know exactly what I mean. It’s the kind of music which was big in university circles at that time and the kind of stuff which sounded even better when you enjoyed a decent joint in the meantime !

The first pressing of this re-issue is a little confusing as instead of “Anyway” it says “A song for me” on the spine which of course is another album by the same outfit and another Mystic release in it’s own right. My original vinyl copy of “Anyway” was tucked away in a special plastic outersleeve. It would have been nice to have the same idea in miniature size but then again it would most certainly cost an arm and a leg and in the end it’s the music that counts.