Alex+harvey

Combining the Sensational Alex Harvey Band's third and fourth albums, The Impossible Dream and Tomorrow Belongs To Me, offers perhaps the archetypal vision of Alex Harvey, as his long-nurtured alter-ego, the comic book hero Vambo, finally burst out of imagination to take on a life of his own on stages across the world. Yet what would become the group's most successful albums also stand as their patchiest.

Whoever thought that the surface obsession of glam rock never met the loopy idealism of the hippie movement – at least in the musical realm – has obviously never heard the appropriately titled The Impossible Dream. Recorded, again, appropriately, as the Age of Aquarius was in full transition to the age of the Spiders From Mars and, later, the me decade, The Impossible Dream manages to capture that cultural DMZ in an operatic blast of pub rock-based pomp without circumstance. Harvey is the bacchanalian ringleader, marshalling the Sensational Alex Harvey Band's considerable, flexible resources to the task at hand and providing a damn good listen in the process.

Anyone familiar with the work of the Sensational Alex Harvey Band knows the group had an intriguing penchant for performing odd cover versions from all different areas of popular music. This 1976 album allowed the group to give full vent to this obsession: three of the tracks are band originals, but the rest are a series of covers that hit everything from Irving Berlin to the Osmonds to Alice Cooper. The resulting album has a thrown-together feel that keeps if from cohering properly, but still manages to be a worthwhile listen thanks to a combination of spirited performances and interesting arrangements.

Although the Sensational Alex Harvey Band showed off plenty of sonic firepower on studio outings like Next and Tomorrow Belongs to Me, they were always at their most ferocious in the concert arena. As a result, Live is an especially rousing and engaging addition to the group's catalog. Since the set list is almost entirely composed of time-tested favorites, it also one of their most consistent albums. The album's contents are taken from a single night's performance at the Hammersmith Odeon, and this gives it a sonic coherence that other live albums rarely capture. A totally committed performance from the band seals the album's appeal with its thrilling combination of heavy metal bombast and tight arrangements that carefully deploy keyboard shadings to flesh out the guitar-heavy sound.

Harvey's merger with Tear Gas, a faltering rock band, was the smartest move of his career. With a heady mix of theatrics and driving rock, SAHB quickly made a name for themselves across England, releasing this album along the way. Harvey struts and yowls and gets raunchy (prefiguring the SAHB version of "Delilah") while Zal Cleminson rips up the territory with some astounding guitar work. A great debut and a hell of a rock album.

The sixth album for the Sensational Alex Harvey Band, released following a year-plus hiatus that nevertheless saw the release of two new LPs: the water-treading Live, and the odds 'n' oldies collection Penthouse Tapes. Both portrayed the band in a light that had only a little in common with the group's true strengths – both, attended by major chart success and exposure, left the band uncertain quite how - or even if - they should proceed. SAHB Stories suffers accordingly.
At its greatest, it shines alongside the very best of the band's past. The closing "Dogs of War," though bombastically overwrought, nevertheless ranks alongside John Cale's similarly fear-lashed "Mercenaries" as one of the greatest-ever examinations of the soldier of fortune, while the twisted history of "Boston Tea Party" - quite likely the only U.K. hit to mention George Washington's wooden teeth - is set to a pounding tomahawk guitar riff…

Two discs of 1972-1977 BBC performances by the Sensational Alex Harvey Band with excellent sound are collected on this set, though it's not quite as lengthy as you might assume, adding up to about an hour and a half in all (with only about half an hour on the second disc). There aren't great surprises in store for those familiar with Harvey's BBC work during this, his commercial peak. As was also true of his records, his reputation as a truly sensational live visual performer isn't quite mirrored by this audio-only document. Too, the only song that doesn't appear on his studio releases of this time is a 1972 cover of "Dance to the Music," which might be energetic but certainly wouldn't give Sly & the Family Stone cause to worry.

Ray Russell and Alex Harvey formed Rock Workshop in the early 70's, and it became an expansive band of thirteen musicians, most of which were of the U.K.'s leading young jazz musicians, who created an innovative and technically innovative form of experimental rhythm and blues. Ray Russell recalls that he was playing with Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames and then appeared in the 'Hair' musical together with Alex Harvey's brother Les. It was from this meeting, and Alex Harvey's involvement on backing vocals in the musical, the idea of Rock Workshop was born. The collective's first album was issued in 1970 to great critical acclaim…