More Album Information

"TWO SIDES OF A PENNY - Wow my very first pop album. The single 'Everything I Am' got into the UK Top Ten. Another unreleased song 'Waiting' which I co-wrote with Tony Murray is included in my 2015 solo album 'Rewind 50'."

"CURRENCY - Nigel Olsson and I took on shared responsibility for lead vocals on this album. The direction of the band was getting progressively heavier after a diet of listening to Vanilla Fudge and Deep Purple had influenced our writing... interesting (or so we thought)! The fans - mainly teenage girls - unfortunately, had different ideas!"

"100 TON CHICKEN - Chicken Shack was basically a covers band at this point. I learned a lot from these guys about blues and how simple little things make it work. Stan, Andy and Dave were extremely good at what they did."

"ACCEPT - Fleetwood Mac were experimenting, trying to get away from the rigid blues format. Stan and I shared a flat and began writing some material. Mike Vernon produced it but blues fans were not very impressed. In hindsight the album should have been called 'Accept Failure', apart from the single, 'Maudie', that made it into the Top 20."

"STREET CORNER TALKING - Still a favourite of mine. We had done a co-headlining U.S. tour with The Faces in January/February 1971 and they had utterly blown us away! After returning back to the UK , Kim sacked the other band members and we put our heads together and came up with some cracking material and gave a couple of covers a new lick of paint. Kim hired Andy Silvester and Dave Bidwell (previously from Chicken Shack) and with Dave Walker, charismatic front man, the line-up was complete. We played all the songs around Europe for a couple of months then recorded it 'almost' live at Olympic Studios in Barnes, London."

"HELLBOUND TRAIN - By this time, we were on the tour-album-tour-album treadmill. We moved into Trident Studios in London and virtually wrote and recorded it as we went along, as most bands did back then (think of the money we all wasted...) I remember David Bowie and Mick Ronson always seemed to be hanging around the reception area with full make-up and hair-do's going on. I didn't actually know who they were until much later." 

"LION'S SHARE - Holed up in Trident Studios again! Funny the things you remember - I recall the producer Neil Slaven complaining that the engineer Roy Thomas Baker (later to be Queen's producer) has distorted the drums. Sounded OK to my ears! I wrote two songs on this album that I'm very proud of, 'The Saddest Feeling' and 'I Can't Find You'!" 

"JACK THE TOAD - Not a favourite of mine. Recorded at Pye Studios. We seemed to have ended up with the same rhythm section that was fired in 1971. How did that happen?!?"

"WIRE FIRE - This one was recorded back again at Olympic Studios Barnes. We decided to carry on as a four-piece with a bass player/vocalist. The U.S. tour we did to support the album was the best I can remember. The camaraderie between band and crew was very special."  

"SKIN'N'BONE - Recorded at Island Studios in 1975 and released in 1976. Our manager Harrry Simmonds (Kim's brother) decided he would produce this one. Kim and I were still turning out some cool stuff like 'Get On Up And Do It' and 'Part Time Lady'. In particular I liked the cover of Thurston Harris' 'She's The One'. This was to be my last album with Savoy Brown before I left to join U.F.O. in late 1976."

"Danny Kirwan - I wound up playing the keyboards/piano on his first solo album after his split with Fleetwood Mac. First time I met him was when I was on U.S. tour with Savoy Brown and Fleetwood Mac was our support act. He was a bit of a character but I always admired him musically. So when he was on his own we even had plans to form a band together which never happened but I helped him out on this record."

"MSG - Recorded at Air Studios, London in 1981. During recording, Paul McCartney was working in the studio next door to us with George Martin and he popped in to say 'Hi' a few times. Contrary to popular myth, he didn't actually play on any songs that were recorded. However, he did play with us in the studio as a joke to wind up Chris Glen who was always late for the recording sessions.

Chrysalis signed me as a writer on the album and asked me to come up with a hit single. I wrote 'Never Trust A Stranger' which sounded like a hit but really didn't become one."

"ONE NIGHT AT BUDOKAN - Tokyo 1981: Michael and Cozy were so popular in Japan at this time, it was almost like a pop star vibe. Hundreds of screaming girls surrounded us up to the point that we couldn't leave our hotel rooms. Cozy was quite ill during the show. He had picked up a stomach virus on the flight over from London but you would never have guessed it from the performance - what a professional - he was the best!"

"VICES - 1983, Manor Mobile and Park Gate Studios with producer Mike Glossop. And we recorded the drums in a hotel ballroom - wow - so loud! I think Mick made a great job of this record, the powers that be at the record company were dancing around their offices to 'Women In Chains' - a good song but again - sad to say - not a hit. So somebody decided that I was a surplus to requirements and I got fired. After that, just thinking that I had left Terry Reid in the lurch to join Waysted I definitely had some regrets."

"CHOCOLATE BOX - My outstanding memory of this recording was that producer Mike Varney was keen on keeping the costs to a minimum and the studio time was precious. The night before recording was to begin he called drummer Simon Wright and told him that his intention was to record all 13 drum tracks in one session. Simon's response was that the quality of drumming at the end of the day might not be up to the par... Of course, Mike was not to be dissuaded and so we started out at 10am and went for it. I played with him until the very end until we both were laughing hysterically from delirium at 11:30pm that night and had to be sedated with quite a lot of alcohol!"