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ALLAN HOLDSWORTH
with Jack Bruce, Jon Hiseman
Sherwood Forest Demos 1979 [no label, 1CD]
Unknown venue. Very good soundboard.
Thanks to jswetch for sharing the tracks at Dime.
jswetch noted:
The story goes that this comes from the time that AH had left the Bruford band and was planning his next move. He went into a studio with Jack Bruce and Jon Hiseman with the intention of seeing if they might develop something as a trio. They recorded these tunes, sent them out to various labels, and apparently got no positive reaction. Allan was quoted as saying “we all had different problems at the same time”, so between that and label indifference, this never got off the ground.
As for the material, White Line and Where is One would make it into the IOU project repertoire and on to their first recording. Jack did his Bird Alone with his Billy Cobham, Clem Clempson, David Sancious band. Tightrope was on his Monkjack album in the mid ’90s. AH had been in Hiseman’s Tempest in the early ’70s, and he and Jack guested on each others albums in the ’80s. Of course, Hiseman was the drummer on Jack’s first few post-Cream albums. Curiously enough, this was around the same time that Jack did the shows he did with John McLaughlin, Billy Cobham, and Stu Goldberg. Given that he’d done his first few albums with Robin Trower at that same basic time, it’s interesting to see how widely Jack cast his musical net.
You’ll find these Sherwood demos on both youtube and soundcloud, but this recording is better than what you’ll hear in either of those places.It seems to have come from a cassette somewhere along the chain, but this version is as good a representation of the music from this project as I’ve heard. This, along with the Tony Williams Wildlife Stockholm sessions that also involve AH and Jack, is an interesting glimpse into “what might have been” projects. They give insights into what the artist were thinking and hoping to do, but also how the “suits” at the record companies responded to what the artists offered up.
Thanks to the trader who made this available to me.
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Picture by Michael Putland, posted at nytimes.com - Thanks!
Lineage:
Studio recording on unknown equipment > CD-R trade > EAC disc extraction > TLH Wav to flac formatting
Click on the highlighted tracks to download the MP3s (320 kbps). As far as we can ascertain, these tracks have never been officially released on CD.
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Track 01. White Lines 5:33
Track 02. Bird Alone 9:10
Track 03. Where is One 5:54
Track 04. Tightrope 6:29
28 mins
Lineup:
Allan Holdsworth - guitar
Jack Bruce - bass, vocals
Jon Hiseman - drums
Click here to order Allan Holdsworth releases.