Reviews

Artist:Wizzard
Album: The Single's Collection
Label: 7Ts
Tracks: 12+10
Website: https://www.cherryred.co.uk/

Here's the first complete collection of all the singles released during the "golden age of glam" and beyond by the "Big Band to end Big Bands" that Roy Wood formed when he left ELO in 1972 in the capable hands of Jeff Lynne. Wizzard was an ostensibly even more unwieldy ensemble than ELO - some might say chaotic. It was in its early stage an eight-piece, with cello, keyboard, three brass players and two drummers all contributing to the grand mix. The band's musical mission was a joyous celebration of rock'n'roll (a contrast to the classical pretensions of ELO), to provide a kind of modern-day equivalent to the Phil Spector wall-of-sound production, emulating it in deliberate and knowing homage and at the same time affectionately (and very effectively) pastiching (rather than parodying) the late-50s/early-60s rock'n'roll style. The intelligence and wit which Roy and his band displayed set Wizzard apart from other R'n'R revivalists of the glam era such as Showaddywaddy, although the trademark Wizzard enthusiasm could sometimes seem to mildly border on overkill. Even so, I loved it!

So as you'd expect, this compilation does what it says on the tin, gathering together all of the band's singles - as Wizzard, Roy Wood's Wizzard and finally the ill-fated and short-lived (barely a year) successor, the more jazz-funk-rock-oriented Roy Wood's Wizzo Band. All the hits are here, of course, providing instant nostalgia for those of us old enough to remember those awkward years. The A-sides are revealed as the clever pastiches they were - although it could be said that some measure of identity crisis crept in on the later sides (after Rock'n'Roll Winter, say). But who could forget the magnificent splendour of See My Baby Jive and its almost-twin Angel Fingers, or for that matter their most insidiously memorable (festive) hit, I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday, which threw in everything but the kitchen sink to cheerfully manipulate our emotions and fit snugly into the hoar-frosty genre of Xmas hits - in terms of genial zeitgeist it almost out-sleighed Slade (whose Merry Christmas Everybody kept Wizzard off the coveted Number One spot in December 1973!). Just for that moment, one suspects more than a hint of self-parody perhaps; but everyone was clearly having a great time.

But don't forget, this compilation scores by including all the B-sides of the singles too - and there are some priceless adventures contained in their grooves. Each of them tended to be allocated to a different band member, so a healthy variety of musical styles could be explored therein. Ball Park Incident's B-side The Carlsberg Special, composed by keyboard player Bill Price, veered wildly between classical harpsichord to honking sax riffs and electric sitar; cellist Hugh McDowell penned See My Baby Jive's B-side Bend Over Beethoven, a jazz-rock workout that owed more than a little to Zappa's Hot Rats (as did later B-side Rob Roy's Nightmare, incongruously wedded to the Xmas single); bassist Rick Price penned Angel Fingers' B-side You Got The Jump On Me, a neat slab of grinding Led-Zepp pastiche with sod-it-let's-boogie-woogie runoff. And so on…

Needless to say, all tracks benefit from a fresh clarity in the remastering, and documentation is up to Cherry Red's usual high standard.

David Kidman

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