RS: Another highlight on the new album featuring Scotty, “Let’s Get It On” was reminiscent of the spirit of some of your work with George Harrison. Is that a valid comparison?

AL: I wouldn’t have actually thought of that myself. George didn’t do much boogie-woogie stuff. He was more of a chord man and a melodic man. When you get that anthology album, there’s “The Bluest Blues” on there, which is one of George’s best guitar solos ever. He plays this slide guitar solo, which just sends shivers down your spine. And he’s great for that. He’s just got the feel and the touch and the sensitivity. And he keeps me in line too, ‘cause if I start to overplay, and then George comes in and he plays in such sweet, pure tones. And he brings me back down again to being melodic. That’s one of my favorite tracks of all time, “The Bluest Blues”.

RS: Can you remember the first time you met George?

AL: I met him through Mylon LeFevre. Mylon came over to record my first solo album in ‘72, which was On The Road To Freedom. Mylon came over, in fact Mylon came on a Ten Years After tour. We used to hang out together and write songs after the gigs and things and became kind of rock and roll buddies on the road. Then he came over to England and we wrote some more. And then I built my first studio, Space Studios, in England and Mylon said, ‘I’m going to go out and get us a band now!’, ‘cause the studio was finished. He said, ‘where do all the musicians hang out?’ And I said, ‘at the Speakeasy in London I think.’ And Mylon went off. (laughter) And he came back about four hours later with George Harrison, Stevie Winwood, Jim Capaldi, Ronnie Wood...(laughter) He said, ‘man, I’ve got us a band!’ (laughter)

RS: Not a bad start!

AL: No, it was pretty good, yeah. Mylon was good at that. He was hustling everbody. He said, ‘man, I just love your music.’ He hustled George into... George had this song...Mylon said, ‘any of your songs we could do George, on this album?’ And George said, ‘there’s a lot of good songs on the albums, why don’t you do one of those?’ Mylon said, ‘George, you do them so good, I would never try and follow you. We need a song you haven’t recorded yet.’ (laughter) So George said, ‘there’s this song called “So Sad”, which I’ve been working on and I think it could be a hit actually.’ Mylon said, ‘I’ll take it!’ (laughter) It was all down to Mylon actually. He kind of got me in touch with George originally. Having a guy from Atlanta, Georgia in the Oxfordshire countryside was quite a trip. You take him round anywhere and as soon as he started talking, people just fell in love with his accent.

RS: You recorded a remake of the Lennon-composed Beatles song “I Want You” (She’s So Heavy)

AL: That’s right.

RS: And George played on it. How cool is that?

AL: That was very cool. Yeah. He played slide on that. And he told me, I didn’t realize it, he played that with his fingers when he started on the original Beatles version by bending the notes, which sounds like a slide guitar. That was great yeah. That one and “Yer Blues” I think are two of the Beatles tracks which really rock.

RS: “Yer Blues” almost sounds like it could be a Ten Years After song.

AL: Yeah, it’s kind of more my style. That’s the kind of Beatles that I like. Strange enough, when The Beatles came out I wasn’t a big fan, I’ll tell you why. ‘Cause I was going around doing Eddie Cochran and Chuck Berry songs in the early ‘60s and then when The Beatles came out people said, ‘oh, I like that “Roll Over Beethoven, that Beatles song you did.’ (laughter) I just said, ‘that’s not a Beatles song!’ I suppose to my mind in the early days, The Beatles were considered a bit of a hype-y pop band, suits and haircuts and everything else. I was more into the blues and being a musician.

RS: The Beatles turned me on to Chuck Berry who was a few years before my time.

AL: That’s right. First time I went to America...I told you my father brought me up on Muddy Waters and Big Bill Broonzy, so when I first went to America I assumed that everybody in America would be aware of Muddy Waters and Big Bill Broonzy and I was amazed to find they weren’t. It was like their own musical heritage. They were into Jefferson Airplane and Woody Guthrie but the blues seemed to get left behind somewhere. So in fact, The Beatles did do a big favor, and The Rolling Stones for that matter of bringing awareness back to those guys.

RS: Especially in the early days. It was great hearing George singing “Roll Over Beethoven”

AL: (laughter) He had his own little version of that, didn’t he?

RS: It’s the 35th anniversary this summer of Woodstock.

AL: Is it? f

RS: 35 years ago, the Summer of ‘69 was a huge turning point for you and Ten Years After. The band released Shhh!, which next to Cricklewood Green is my favorite TYA album. In 1969 TYA played Woodstock. How’s your memory of the ‘69 Woodstock festival?

AL: It’s pretty....I’ve pieced it back together! (laughter) It was a very special event but at the time nobody really was sure about that. The first realization of it being anything other than another date on the list was when we were told we couldn’t drive into the festival site ‘cause the roads were all blocked and it had been declared a national disaster on the radio and we had to take a helicopter in. And to me, I thought ‘well, this is going to be interesting.’ (laughter) And it certainly was. Flying over the audience, a very strong smell of marijuana wafting through the roter-blades, was a good way to start the day! And had it been running to plan, which is wasn’t, we’d have probably just flown in and played and gone again and been none the wiser but as it happened we got there and had to wait a long time and then the rain came down just as we were about to play. So, nobody could go on stage ‘cause there were electric sparks jumping around and they wouldn’t let anyone play so I said, ‘C’mon, let’s play! If we get struck by lightning, think how many records we’ll sell.’ At that age, who cared? (laughter) We couldn’t play so I went out into the audience. I went out for a walk around the whole site. Went round the lake and I kind of joined in with the audience as it were. Nobody knew I was anybody in particular. I looked like just another freak. They were inviting me to have food with them and smoke drugs with them and everything. Anything that was going, was shared. It was a great vibe. So I got into the actual other side of it. ‘Cause backstage, although it was supposed to be three days of peace and love, there was quite a bit of jostling and managers there saying, ‘I want my band on next’, all this stuff. And in fact, when I came back, (laughter) from my trek, Country Joe had set up his gear and had rushed on stage before me, so that they didn’t have to go after Ten Years After, which was kind of funny. So it was even a longer delay. I actually went out into the audience to get some cigarettes. Backstage had run out of cigarettes. So I thought, ‘I’ll go and blag some.’ I walked around there for two hours, came back with about sixteen joints but no cigarettes. In fact, they had to drop cigarettes in by helicopter. The only thing to smoke was grass. (laughter) It was funny, dropping food, blankets and cigarettes.

RS: Ten Years After played Woodstock on that final Sunday with Hendrix, The Band and CSNY on the bill too...

AL: I didn’t say that, and I’m not sure what day we played. What day it was, I couldn’t tell you. It’s in a book somewhere. (laughter)

RS: Did you get to see Hendrix play there?

AL: No, he didn’t play till like six in the morning. So had it been the same day, it would have been twelve hours later. I got to see Country Joe...who else did I get to see? I can’t remember. There was a lot of purple haze there. Difficult to see through the purple haze. But I do remember my walk out. I don’t remember much about playing but I obviously had a good time. (laughter)

RS: It’s interesting to note that the same summer of ‘69, before Woodstock, TYA became one of the first rock bands to ever play the Newport Jazz Festival.

AL: Yeah, that’s right. I think were the first band to play rock music at the jazz festival. I met Miles Davis there. He was a weirdo. I liked him.

RS: That confirms my belief that Ten Years After were one of the first bands to combine jazz influences.

AL: I think so...the Undead album was very jazzy all the way through actually and that was the first live album of Ten Years After. And when I’d recorded that I thought, ‘well what on earth can we do now?’ ‘cause that’s what the band does, that’s what it’s good at. That says it all. So that’s why I decided to go into the kind of experimental mode of Cricklewood Green. Well, Stonehenge I think was the next one which was quiet psychedelic and experimental and possibly drug influenced. (laughter) It was all cool then, wasn’t it?... wait...I’ve been given a piece of paper here. We played Woodstock on Sunday, the 17th of August.

RS: Newport and Woodstock, how would you compare the two?

AL: There were tons of festivals around that year. I remember I did the Texas Pop Festival, the Atlanta Peace Festival...and to be honest, I thought they were actually better than Woodstock as far as an organized gig went. I mean Woodstock...having played Woodstock and moved on...the helicopter flight and the fact that it was the largest number of people was kind of cool but to be honest, you don’t notice, you don’t count the people when you’re there. Any crowd over fifty thousand is big. If it’s a hundred thousand, two hundred, three hundred...you don’t really see that much difference. It’s just that the sea of heads goes back a bit further. You know what I mean? When you’re on stage, you tend to relate to the people who you can see around you. At least the faces. And the rest is like a mass that goes off in the distance. So, it wasn’t that different. It was very unorganized. It didn’t feel that big. And when we went on to play, we carried on playing the same kind of underground gigs for a year. It wasn’t until the movie came out that it made all the difference. And the movie was the kind of hype and that’s what caught people’s attention and band crossed over to the other lot. (laughter) Woodstock/Newport I was keen to be kind of the rebel. There’s enough jazz there already. It’s funny, I’ve always found this about jazz festivals...if you go on late in the evening, when they’ve been listening to jazz all day. Boy, are the ready for some blues and rock ‘n’ roll. ‘Cause sometimes the jazz gets a bit too much. Jazz is good, jazz is interesting but often, it doesn’t have that flow. The flow of a good blues, so I think that audiences have been listening to jazz for three or four hours are wide open for some blues and rock. So, that’s what I did. Still works today.

RS: In 1988 you recorded a track called “No Limit” for the Guitar Speak label headed up by Miles Copeland.

AL: Oh, that’s right, yeah. It was my first trip into kind of electric drums and computerized rhythm sections. That was the forerunner of what was going to be an instrumental album. It just never came together because I ended up in the studio working with computers and to be honest after about three months of that I kind of disappeared up my own rear end! (laughter) It was fun but to me, it’s not like playing live with a rhythm section. It’s kind of interesting. I did similar stuff with the synth player from The Art Of Noise, J J. Jeczalik. That was around the same time, doing lots of instrumentals. It’s sitting around in the vaults of Space Studios actually, I just never got around to finishing it.

RS: Does the new Alvin Lee Anthology feature Ten Years After stuff?

AL: No, no it’s all my own personal stuff away from Ten Years After.

RS: Any other huge guitar or jazz influences?

AL: I could mention George Benson, Barney Kessel, Wes Montgomery and of course, Django Reinhardt ‘cause I originally learned to play rhythm, Django Reinhardt style. That was when I was thirteen years old. ‘Cause that’s what I love. I even used to think of my original band, the Jaybirds, which was the forerunner of Ten Years After. And we used to do like swing, Count Basie swing stuff and stuff like that for a three piece band. And that was very intricate but it actually works but alot of it is that vamping guitar which George Benson does so well, and Charlie Christian. It’s a little art to itself and it kind of disappeared after 1958. Vamping disappeared. Alot of guitarists today, and there’s some great, young guitarists around but they don’t put the time in on the chords and the rhythm. And I think rhythm is very, very important. I mean I enjoy playing rhythm guitar, or like chop rhythms, as much as playing lead guitar. That’s where it all comes from and you’ve got to hear that before you can hear what notes you want to put in. Once you’ve got the dynamics of those rhythms, then your solo work just takes off in a world of it’s own. And I think the rhythm is very important. I see alot of guitarists today, they play Eddie Van Halen lick and then I say play the chord of F! (laughter) and they sometimes struggle. Alot of motivation these days is to become a rock star, which I’ve always found a bit sad because...I was looking at some adverts in one of the guitar mags and it said, ‘well, you’ve got the looks and you’ve got the right guitar and the right clothes and now you need the right sound’, which is totally wrong, I mean you need the sound first. (laughter) That’s the way to go. I think the motivation to be a musician is much wiser because it lasts much longer. I’ve been a professional musician now for, must be thirty five years now. And rock stars might last two or three or four years and if you’re a serious musician you can make a career of it. And it’s more rewarding. Actually the stuff I’m going on to play now to me, this thing with Scotty, the African drums...it’s much more rewarding musically. I’m actually getting control of what I’m doing these days. I’m actually really enjoying what I’m doing and enjoying trying these projects and I have to make it a special project to keep me interested. Obviously after how many albums...I don’t know, twenty five albums? You get a bit jaded. I’m not going to go into the studio and record another straight rock and roll album. It’s got to have an angle for me. It’s got to have an interest. It’s got to be a project which has interest. And that’s what Scotty and D.J. did for me. ‘Cause they took me right back to my roots and made what was originally exciting to me to listen to, exciting to me to play. And it’s a kind of a full circle. And I feel very honored and I thank Scotty and D.J. for doing that.

Photo by Pete Pritchard

RS: Too bad you didn’t film the In Tennessee sessions.

AL: Not officially, no. Maybe a home movie of it, which is great fun. But nothing official.

RS: Any archival CD DVD releases planned?

AL: Alot of the old stuff comes out, but to be honest I find that it’s fine for the fans and collectors but alot of it is not that good. Alot of it is taken from old video tapes. They remaster it on DVD and to my mind, I don’t know...I don’t think it’s really worth it myself, some of those old things. Some of ‘em are good, some of ‘em are not. It seems to me there’s no quality control on it. People get hold on...old TV shows I did in the ‘70s suddenly start turning up on DVD. They’ve got no contracts to release that stuff on DVD. (laughter) It gets done anyway. They do it and say, ‘okay, well sue us.’ And there’s no quality at all. No matter how bad it is, they’ll put it out. So I’m not that keen. The DVD market to me is...everybody’s cashing in on a wave at the moment and there’s alot of crap coming out. I could have recorded the Albert Hall live for DVD, but to be honest, when I do a gig to me, what’s special about a gig is the notes I play, the songs I do, the feels I have...they’re there for the moment and they’re gone and that’s special y’know? And once I’m aware that something’s being taped or recorded, it’s a whole different ball game. You’re playing something that you’re going to have to listen back to again and again. And so you play more safe and you play with a different attitude. I don’t like that to get between me and the audience. I like to play to the audience. So I chose not to do that at the Albert Hall. It’s kind of a shame we didn’t get that gig on, ‘cause it was really good, but I’m kind of a purist when it comes to gigs. I just want the gig for the gig’s sake. I don’t want the audience to have to sit there watching these guys with cameras squabbling around, the little guy following him holding the cable. That, to me is a bit of an insult to the audience. Also, when I play, as I say, I want to play live and it’s there for the moment. And I hate these bootlegs. You go and do a show and you think, ‘that was great’ and then a bootleg of it turns up and it’s not meant to listen to. It’s a show, an experience that you actually are at. It’s the audio of it only. It doesn’t usually work as well.

RS: So Arnie says you’re planning to come back to the East Coast?

AL: Oh yeah, I intend to move all over the States, when I get there.

RS: Who’s in your band right now?

AL: Well, I’ve got this band I work with, which is Richard Newman on drums, which Tony Newman’s son. He’s a drummer in Nashville now but originally was with Sounds Incorporated in England. And of course Pete Pritchard on the bass, who was on the Scotty album. But I was going to play with The Blasters when I came to L.A. but that was just for these three club dates, just a little kind of adventure rather than a tour. I like The Blasters, they’re a good band.

RS: Yeah, I can’t wait to speak with Scotty about the album.

AL: It’d be nice to tie in Scotty’s comments with mine about the album. Because I’m really proud of this album. To me, it’s a rhythm section thing and I just love it as it is. It’s natural, it’s pure it’s kind of minimalism and that’s what I wanted to do.

RS: And it couldn’t have come at a better time, with the 50th Anniversary of rock and roll.

AL: (laughter) I hadn’t even thought about that! It just took me that long to get it together! (laughter) It’s full circle for me, ‘cause I’m back to my roots and kiss the ground I started on. And as I say, I really loved every minute of it.

RS: Scotty is one of the unsung heroes of rock and roll.

AL: Absolutely. Personally I think the Elvis Presley fans base should give him a million quid for every guitar solo he ever recorded. I think those guitar solos were as important as the songs. More important, some of them. Everybody’s done “Rip It Up” and everybody’s done “Shake, Rattle & Roll” but nobody’d done solos like that in them except Scotty. And if he never does anything else, that’s good enough for me! (laughter)

RS: I guess the main thing is to keep it varied because you’ve done so many great things over the years.

AL: It’s a matter of getting yourself motivated and excited. If somebody says, ‘let’s go make an album. I’ve got a few songs’, I think ‘no, not really’ (laughter) but if somebody says, let’s go to Peru and put a band together, I’ll go ‘Now, you’re talking!’ It’s kind of getting yourself motivated. Getting to put my flamenco guitar down and go and do some real work!

RS: The flamenco thing still sounds interesting.

AL: There’s alot of that happening here actually. It’s strange enough that flamenco players can’t play...I mean, I saw a flamenco band try and play blues the other night and it was pitiful! It’s weird, they can’t do it. It’s strange, isn’t it? They’ve got all that passion and all that feeling in their fingers for flamenco but when they put their acoustic guitars down and picked up the electrics (laughter) they played this dreadful blues. Sounded like a pop band.

RS: Actually I just wrote liner notes for a new DVD that’s coming out from The Moody Blues.

AL: Oh, yeah. I remember, I used to do lots of gigs with The Moodies, around the ‘70s, yeah...

RS: ‘Cause you guys were on the same label, Deram.

AL: That’s right Deram, yeah.

RS: I was always interested in how Ten Years After got signed to Deram.

AL: It was just our very first record deal. I think it was actually Decca we were talking to. Decca had London Records, Deram Records...just kind of names within the Decca label. It was the first major record company that offered us a contract. It was very early days in those days. Those days, your first record deal, they said, ‘you want to sign a record contract?’ we said, ‘Yes!’ They said, ‘wait a minute, we haven’t told you what the deal is yet’, we said, ‘it doesn’t matter!’ (laughter) ‘It’ doesn’t matter, we just wanna get our record out.’ I think we were getting about six percent of the take on the earliest thing, but it got a bit better later on. The Stones and John Mayall were on London Records, weren’t they? In America. But then again, so was Engelbert Humperdinck, Tom Jones and...Mantovani! (laughter)

RS: And also David Bowie was on Deram in the early days.

AL: That’s right, yeah.

RS: And also Cat Stevens...

AL: It’s funny, at Decca...and Deram Records...they kept having Mantovani months and things like that. And all the guys that worked at the record company, they were all in an older age bracket. We were like these young, rebellious, upstarts coming in making strange records and they didn’t know quite what to make of us...till they started to move a few units, then they liked it. (laughter)