Wishbone

Raw to the Bone is the 13th album by rock band Wishbone Ash. Like its predecessor, Twin Barrels Burning, it is one of the band's heaviest records, capitalising on the popular new wave of British heavy metal that Wishbone Ash had helped influence. It is the only Wishbone Ash album to feature Mervyn Spence on bass and vocals. It is also the last album with guitarist/vocalist Laurie Wisefield, who ended his eleven-year stint with Wishbone Ash after the release of this album.

Live Dates 2 is the second live album by rock band Wishbone Ash. It remains a sought-after collector's item. The album was recorded on the 1980 tour in support of the album Just Testing. It peaked at No. 40 in the UK Albums Chart. The first 25,000 copies of this album were a double album, with six extra bonus tracks. Subsequent copies of the album contained only tracks 1 to 6. The album was also released as two single LPs with the titles Live Dates 2 and Live Dates 2, Additional Tapes.

The progressive aspirations were put aside for Wishbone Four, the group's most solid-rocking album, though the folk-based element is still there, more solid than ever. "Ballad of the Beacon" is a genuinely beautiful song, and might have come from any number of electric folk-rock bands – the fact that it came from Wishbone Ash indicates just how serious they were in wanting to explore some of these sounds. Their most mature and successful album.

If Wishbone Ash can be considered a group who dabbled in the main strains of early-'70s British rock without ever settling on one (were they a prog rock outfit like Yes, a space rock unit like Pink Floyd, a heavy metal ensemble like Led Zeppelin, or just a boogie band like Ten Years After?), the confusion compounded by their relative facelessness and the generic nature of their compositions, Argus, their third album, was the one on which they looked like they finally were going to forge their own unique amalgamation of all those styles into a sound of their own…

Wishbone Ash are a British rock band who achieved success in the early and mid-1970s. Their popular albums included Wishbone Ash (1970), Pilgrimage (1971), Argus (1972), Wishbone Four (1973), There's the Rub (1974), and New England (1976). Wishbone Ash are noted for their extensive use of the harmony twin lead guitar format which had been attracting electric blues bands since Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page had played together in the Yardbirds in 1966. Their contributions helped Andy Powell and Ted Turner to be voted "Two of the Ten Most Important Guitarists in Rock History" (Traffic magazine 1989), and to appear in the "Top 20 Guitarists of All Time" (Rolling Stone). Melody Maker (1972) described Powell and Turner as "the most interesting two guitar team since the days when Beck and Page graced The Yardbirds". They have been cited as an influence by Iron Maiden founder and bassist Steve Harris, as well as Thin Lizzy and other dual guitar bands.

While it's certainly too much for the average Wishbone Ash fan, "Distillation" is an excellent four-disc, 56-track box set that features the best of the band's heavy boogie from the '70s. None of the group's essential tracks are missing, and it contains 4 previously unreleased cuts, 11 very rare tracks from the vaults and 12 live versions (CD 4) plus band biography and track by track comments by Andy Powell and Martin Turner.

This Wishbone Ash Rockpalast show from 1976 captures the band at their prime, offering a blistering live performance. The live at Rockpalast show presented here was recorded at Sporthalle, Cologne, Germany on 1st December 1976 when the band still included the core original line-up of Andy Powell on guitar and vocals, Martin Turner on bass and vocals, Steve Upton on drums and Laurie Wisefield on guitar and vocals. It captures the band at their prime, offering a blistering live performance for over an hour and a half. They look young, lean and hungry and generate an onstage charismatic cool that as well as weirdly predating their punk/new wave detractors also displays the theatrical playfulness of a band who instinctively know they're on form.

No Smoke Without Fire is the ninth studio album by rock band Wishbone Ash. It is the first album since 1972's Argus to be produced by Derek Lawrence. It is also the heaviest Wishbone Ash album in years, featuring rockers like the hit single "You See Red" and the multi-part progressive rock epic "The Way of the World." Many fans considered this to be a true return to form after their flirting with an "American" sound on their previous trio of albums.