Ten Years After Ten Years After (CD, Deram Records, 1967) *** Ten Years After Undead (Vinyl, Deram Records, 1968) **** Ten Years After Stonedhenge (CD, Deram Records, 1969) *** Ten Years After Ssssh. (CD, Deram Records, 1969) ***** Ten Years After Live at the Fillmore East (CD, Chrysalis Records, 2001) *****
Ten Years After Watt (CD, Chrysalis Records, 1970) *** Ten Years After Alvin Lee and Company (CD, Deram Records, 1972) ***
Ten Years After Rock'n'Roll Music to the World (CD, Chrysalis Records, 1972) ****
Ten Years After Recorded Live (Vinyl and CD, Chrysalis Records, 1973) *****
Ten Years After Positive Vibrations (Vinyl, CBS Records, 1974) **
Ten Years After About Time (Vinyl, Chrysalis Records, 1989) ***
Ten Years After Transmissions 1967 - 1969 (2CD, Audiovaults, 2020) ***
Genre: Blues rock
They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; Part 6
Active compensatory factors: As a band, Ten Years After go back a ways. Alvin Lee (born Graham Barnes) and Leo Lyons performed in bands from 1960 onwards, and were eventually joined by Ric Lee on drums and then Chick Churchill on keyboards before recording their debut album in 1967. Although the cover implies some psychedelia, this was also the era of blues rock excess (Cream) and axe heros - Alvin Lee fitted right in!
Ten Years After has songs by Alvin and covers of blues songs by titans like Willie Dixon and Howlin' Wolf. It's a tentative start, but the foundations are there.
Their second release is Undead - a live album recorded at Klooks Kleek, Railway Hotel, a small jazz club in London and it's a big jump forward. The set kicks off with a brilliant jazzy/ swinging combo - I May Be Wrong But I Won't Be Wrong Always and the frenetic Woodchopper's Ball. Alvin Lee's blistering guitar runs are amazing, and the rest of the band exhibit distinctive personalities as well.
Side two shows other strings to their bow - slow blues, rock'n'roll and Ric Lee is one incredible drummer - so in sync with the other three musicians, but I can live without the drum solo (Shantung Cabbage). The side culminates with I'm Going Home - a year before they'd take Woodstock by storm (and helicopter).
Stonedhenge is their third album, second studio one and the studio is used well at this point. Thanks to The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper, bands were now leaning towards experimentation in sound. The four band members take the opportunity on Stonedhenge to try things out. Yes, to predictably mixed results but they get points for trying new things. Ten Years After were never just I'm Going Home.
Terrible cover and album title, it must be said. They weren't able to use a photo of Stonehenge so they went with a painting and it's a shocker. The title gives the impression of a bunch of stoners and although I'm sure they indulged, they weren't stoners.
Hear Me Calling is on this album; it became a monster in Slade's hands on Slade Alive (they saw the potential). The bonus tracks on these CD versions are, for once, interesting in fleshing out the picture with singles' versions and extended jams.
Ssssh is possibly where TYA's studio albums sound more like their live work - i.e. more natural and more blues rock in the main. Undead is a live album so it's a good point of comparison. Ssssh also helped that it was their current album when Woodstock happened. This (and Cricklewood Green) are albums that I never tire of hearing.
Woodstock 1969 built on the success of Ssssh and then some. The whole set by Ten Years After took a while to be released- Alvin Lee passed away (2013) before seeing its release.
Their performance of I'm Going Home in the Woodstock documentary has become an iconic moment in music, but it was the only song filmed from their set - their last number.
The rest of the performance is top level - Spoonful is a better version than on their debut, Good Morning Little Schoolgirl has not one, but two false starts! Then Alvin with some blisteringly fast solos cranks on the power for a third, successful, attempt. The Hobbit, an 18 minute I Can't Keep From Crying Sometimes and a 15 minute, unbelievably frenetic Help Me lead up to that final number...and the rest is history.
After Woodstock the band presented Cricklewood Green - a coherent set of bluesy/jazzy songs that feature all their trademarks - Alvin's super speedy guitar runs, Leo's melodic bass, Ric's signature drum style and Chick's lovely keyboard embellishments, even a piano solo on Me and My Baby.
Their post Woodstock live set from 1970 is showcased on the Live at the Fillmore East double album. Thanks to Eddie Kramer's engineering/recording skills, the sound is superb on a set embellished with a couple of 'new thing(s)' from Cricklewood Green and the usual classic songs.
Watt is their fifth studio album and the band are in a bit of a holding pattern at this time. Maybe all the touring was zapping Alvin's creative juices because the songs are okay but not particularly noteworthy in a consistent way. Gonna Run is the best on offer - with some brilliant TYA ensemble playing.
Generally, Watt is quite a mellow sounding album in comparison to the previous two studio albums. It also has a tacked on live version of Sweet Little Sixteen which is beyond weird. That seems an act of desperation and serves only to contrast with the preceding mellowness. What were they thinking?
Every album cover to this point has had the band in distorted forms of one kind or another. Interesting. Maybe they needed some clarity? A Space in Time provided that sharpness. Although they don't look particularly chipper, the cover has them in sharp focus amid grass (not that kind - real grass).
Along with Cricklewood Green, this is one of my favourite Ten Years After studio albums. It gets off to a great rocky start with One of These Days and then tries something new - acoustic guitar to spectacular effect on a number of songs, including I'd Love to Change the World which became a hit song! Go figure!
The shorter, more melodic and pop oriented sound made this their biggest selling album at the time. It's certainly stood the test of time, although some of the lyrics on that hit song are a tad cringey in 2025.
Although it's cunningly disguised, Alvin Lee and Company is an odds and sods compilation album. My teenage self was certainly fooled - thinking it was a new studio album. I've positioned it here in sequence because it collects material from the Deram years (they'd moved to Chrysalis).
It includes a couple of non-album singles (Rock Your Mama, Portable People), the B side to Portable People (The Sounds), a live track (Standing at the Crossroads), some single versions of their earlier songs (Spider in My Web, Hear Me Calling, I'm Going Home) and two album outtakes (Hold Me Tight, Boogie On).
The highlights are the patented TYA jazzy approach to Crossroads and the two singles. So, it's a spotty collection but at least Deram gave some value for money and didn't just package up a collection of quasi 'hits'.
Rock'n'Roll Music to the World, their seventh studio album, is well named as the accent is on boogie and rock music - my jam! This one, with Cho Cho Mama and the title track (and its nod to Give Peace a Chance), became along with A Space in Time and Cricklewood Green my go-to TYA albums (and Recorded Live).
Recorded Live is THE ONE for me. By 1973 they play as one unit, so it's a double album of splendiferous Ten Years After prime sounds with definitive versions abounding. Yes, even The Hobbit (note - Ric Lee's drum solo vehicle is left off my CD version - the 2013 version has it plus 7 other tracks so I'll need to find a copy at some point).
Their final album together in the seventies is Positive Vibrations from 1974. Sadly, it's a lack lustre album - you can kind of tell their hearts are not in it. Sometime during or just after it they broke up - a sad end with not too many positive vibrations on display.
Highlight would be You're Driving Me Crazy - surely their shortest ever real song - at 2.23 minutes.
After a lot of water had flowed under the bridge (including quite a few Alvin Lee 'solo' albums and a Chick Churchill solo effort) the band reconvened in 1989 and produced a new album - About Time. Given that date, Chick plays some synths on the album which immediately dates it. It's a definite improvement on Positive Vibrations with the band sounding like a unit again. Highlights are Outside My Window which hints at a direction TYA could have explored more, and the rocker that ends the album - Waiting For the Judgment Day. They must have enjoyed the process because they stayed together until 2003. Although didn't record any other studio albums during that time. Alvin Lee was replaced in 2003 with another guitarist/singer*.
Transmissions 1967 - 1969 is a compilation that collects BBC broadcast recordings and FM broadcasts during those years. The sound quality is variable but pretty good overall, even the three tracks from Danish TV. Like other BBC collections, these two discs form a kind of alternative history of those formative years which is intriguing.
Where do they all belong? Ric Lee continues on in TYA but without Chick or Leo (Alvin passed away in 2013).
*I'm not looking for the TYA albums without Alvin Lee (aside from Now - which gets good reviews), so that's a pretty comprehensive TYA collection. A band like no other.
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