Goldmine's obituary on Simon House.

I want to bring to your attention a very good and touching obituary about Simon House published in the last hours on the Web.

It was written by journalist Dave Thompson for Goldmine and it is available here: 

https://www.goldminemag.com/obituaries-news/simon-house-born-august-29-1948-died-may-25-2025

Thompson writes: "Depending upon which side of the rock spectrum you stand, Simon House's name usually invokes one of two memories — the majesty with which he has graced some of the greatest Hawkwind albums, or the haunting violin which dominated his time with David Bowie.

But House's own career reaches way beyond either of those two highs. As a prodigiously gifted teen, he was a member of High Tide, one of the most creative, if sadly unsung, bands to emerge from the post-psychedelic Sixties."

Hawkwind, May 1974. Left to right: keyboard player Simon House, guitarist Dave Brock, keyboard player Del Dettmar, bassist Lemmy, drummer Simon King and saxophonist Nik Turner. 

Photo by Michael Putland/Getty Images

"He was thus present at the birth of Hawkwind — staged on House’s twenty-first birthday, Group X’s All Saints Church Hall show saw them opening for High Tide (The two bands would also share the same management company, Clearwater Productions)."

After summarising House's long, glorious musical career, Thompson concludes the piece by quoting the words of Brian Perera, whose Cleopatra Records released several of House’s later recordings:

"It’s with heavy hearts that we say goodbye to our dear friend and brilliant collaborator. Simon wasn’t just a musician — he was a sonic architect who helped shape the sound of a generation.

He shared the stage with legends: David Bowie, Lemmy-era Hawkwind, and Nik Turner, always leaving his unmistakable mark. From the art-rock brilliance of Bowie’s “Boys Keep Swinging” era to the boundary-pushing tours with Nik and Cleopatra in the ’90s, Simon’s electrifying violin and cosmic keyboard work lifted every track, every show, every moment.

His vision brought depth, texture, and soul — he simply made everything better.

We miss you deeply, Simon.

Rest easy, my friend. Your sound lives on."

no©2025LucaChinoFerrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first).

Violinist Simon House passed away yesterday at 76.

Bad news for all of us!

Great violin and keyboard player Simon House, a true giant of the underground, old collaborator of the Third Ear Band (1971-1974), passed away yesterday at 76 (the bad news HERE and HERE or HERE).

A founder with guitarist Tony Hill and bass player Peter Pavli of the seminal band High Tide at the end of Sixties, he was a permanent member of the Hawkwind, between 1974 and 1978, playing with David Bowie on his albums "Stage" (1978) and "Lodger" (1979). 

Apart two solo albums (1994 and 2000), one with Rod Goodway (2002), and two with Spiral Realms (2004 and 2005), he worked with a lot of musicians including  Robert Calvert, Japan, David Sylvian, Thomas Dolby, Mike Olfield, Judy Dyble, Nik Turner, Adrian Shaw, Nektar, Spirits Burning, Magic Muscle...

Through Glen Sweeney, I met him two times in London, where he lived, and he seemed to me a shy and reserved person, interested only in playing music and refractory to any self-indulgence and protagonism typical of the rock environment. 

We later did an interview by phone, but he was very tight-lipped and not very willing to recall the past.... You can read it here:

https://ghettoraga.blogspot.com/2010/01/brief-phone-conversation-with-simon.html

 

Other files in this Archive related to Simon House:

https://ghettoraga.blogspot.com/2012/03/italians-like-weird-stuff-old-interview.html

https://ghettoraga.blogspot.com/2020/09/extraordinarly-amazing-teb-tv.html

https://ghettoraga.blogspot.com/2024/11/four-rare-1972-photos-of-simon-house-on.html

https://ghettoraga.blogspot.com/2019/10/peter-pavli-interviewed-on-its.html

 

   Simon House performing live with DanMingo at DAYUM Club, London, December 2005.

 no©2025LucaChinoFerrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)

Another interesting article on the late great Paul Buckmaster.

Here below you can read another old article about Paul and his brilliant career. Written by by Paul Huddleston, it was published in  "Leicester Mercury" on November 4th, 1975.

A very clever person, Paul talks of his experiences as arranger. There's also a little quotation of the Third Ear Band, as "experimental" band...

no©2023 LucaChinoFerrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)

Roy Hollingworth's prediction about the great Paul Buckmaster.

"Melody Maker" columnist Roy Hollingworth had already figured it out, and in December 1970 he wrote a brief prediction of the success that the brilliant musician, composer, arranger, and producer PAUL BUCKMASTER would herald. 

By that point in his career, Paul had already worked with Third Ear Band live and in the studio, David Bowie, Elton John and Leonard Cohen, but within a few months he would be a major contributor both to the composition and realization of the TEB's "Macbeth" soundtrack, but also to that misunderstood masterpiece that is Miles Davis' "On the Corner," also released in 1972... Later, History attested that Hollingsworth's prediction was correct and today it continues to be a great regret for many friends and fans to have lost a personality of this stature. The pretext of this little archival find allows us once again to remember and celebrate him as we should.

no©2022 LucaChinoFerrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)

New interview with music arranger and producer Paul Buckmaster on the Net.

A new interview by Michelle Lanz with Paul Buckmaster  is available at 89.3KPCC radio Web station (http://www.scpr.org/programs/the-frame/2016/05/16/48900/inside-the-rock-star-s-studio-with-music-arranger/?slide=5).

No words about the TEB, but some interesting things on David Bowie, Elton John and Miles Davis...

Meanwhile Paul has recently changed his personal Web site with new photos and stuff at  http://www.buckmastersound.com/

                                                                   A young Buckmaster playing cello.
 no©2016 Luca Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)        

Interview with Paul Buckmaster about his art of arranger.

This interview with Paul Buckmaster edited by George Cole was published on the The Guardian Web page on September 30th, 2010. Even if there are no references about Buckmaster's work with the Third Ear Band, it's an interesting excursus about the art of arrangement...

Life's a beach ... Brian Wilson in his studio. Photograph: Rb/Redferns

Elton John, the Beach Boys and the fine art of pop alchemy.

"They are music's unsung heroes, yet their work can turn a great song into a classic, intensify the emotional impact of a heartrending lyric or make a stirring vocal performance even more memorable. Arrangers are often said to have "sweetened" the music by adding strings, horns and other musical elements, but such a description doesn't do justice to how much an arranger's work can transform a piece of music. Think of how the swirling strings and plucked violins on ABC's The Look of Love heighten the song's poignancy, or the drama of the brass interjections on Love's Maybe the People Would Be the Times or Between Clark and Hilldale, and you can hear the impact an inspired arrangement has on a song.

Even so, it's easy to be unaware of what an arranger actually does. A good person to answer that question is Paul Buckmaster who, over four decades, has arranged songs for the likes of Elton John, David Bowie, Miles Davis, the Bee Gees, Guns N' Roses and the Rolling Stones.

So what is the art of a good arrangement? "Being able to enhance the emotive quality and bring out the intent of the lyric and the artist's performance," says Buckmaster. "Adding orchestral passages and textures should give added depth and dimensionality, physically, psychologically and aurally speaking. I feel I've succeeded when the goose-bump thrill factor kicks in."

A good arranger needs lots of skills, Buckmaster says, including a thorough working knowledge of harmony and counterpoint, the ability to sense what is right and proportional in the context of the song being arranged, knowledge of composition, and the art of orchestrating. Buckmaster's work as an arranger has been mainly influenced by classical composers: "However, one cannot deny the influence of arrangers like George Martin, Nelson Riddle and Gil Evans – I particularly love Claus Ogerman's way of writing," he says.

There is no set template for how an arranger works. "Sometimes I work with the artist, sometimes with the producer; sometimes both. Often, I'm sent the basic track or demo and am left alone in relative freedom to make my own choices," says Buckmaster. "On the first three Elton John albums, Elton gave [the late producer] Gus Dudgeon and me total freedom; the only part which was never arranged was Elton's piano. One exception was Sixty Years On, where I decided to transcribe Elton's original demo piano part for the harp intro, changing the last three bars. Gus and I sat in his office and went through each song, and worked out the type of orchestration which would suit each track. We effectively designed each song as an individual piece, giving it its own character."

An example is on Your Song, where Buckmaster and Dudgeon decided to not bring in the rhythm section until the third verse. "The delayed entry of the rhythm section makes it more dramatic, and serves to lift the piece into a more propulsive mood. One general rule is to hold back as much as possible, to give the listener the chance to let the song grow and unfold, introducing new sonic elements, such as new instruments or sectional groupings. If you use everything from the beginning, you have nowhere to go."

In 1969, Buckmaster's manager Tony Hall introduced him to David Bowie at Gus Dudgeon's office. "Gus and Tony thought I should be the arranger for the forthcoming recording session for Space Oddity," Buckmaster says. "Writing the chart for rhythm section and strings was fun – I was still new to this and tried out some unusual effects." The session took place at Trident Studios in London using an eight-track recorder: "It went smoothly," recalls Buckmaster, "we did the basic track first, with David on jumbo guitar [large body acoustic], together with the rest of the rhythm section and Rick Wakeman's Mellotron, then David's vocal and Stylophone [a pocket-sized, stylus-operated electronic keyboard], and finally, strings and flutes."

Some song arrangements add so much to the finished product that it raises the issue: where does arranging end and composition begin? And in light of the fact that some session singers and musicians have successfully claimed a share of song-writing royalties for their contribution to the music, shouldn't arrangers also occasionally receive a royalty for their efforts? "It's a very good question, and it opens many cans of worms," says Buckmaster, "In my view, arrangers should be paid their one-time creative fee, but I feel they should also be entitled to some kind of percentage at the back end, especially if the record goes gold. The contribution made by the arranger to the success or memorability of a recording, is in many cases, undeniable."

Buckmaster cites the french horn glissando in the introduction to Marvin Gaye's I Heard It Through the Grapevine. "Without the low-register, rhythmic violin/viola answer-phrases, and the rising string counter-lines during the turn-around, would the record be as interesting?" he asks. "There's no doubt that the song is strong in its own right, and I absolutely do not intend any slur on it. But try to imagine the cut without those elements. Jeremy Lubbock's swooping string-phrases on Michael Jackson's Billie Jean is another – the examples are endless."

Five great arrangements

Massive Attack: Unfinished Sympathy
Arranger: Wil Malone

Massive Attack created a song that featured samples, scratching, a strong groove and a superb vocal by Shara Nelson. Wil Malone, renowned for his string arrangements (he did the arrangement for the Verve's Bittersweet Symphony), was given the rhythm track and complete freedom to write an arrangement for it. It took Malone two days to compose the arrangement, which was recorded with a 40-piece string orchestra at Abbey Road Studios. "What you are trying to do is tailor the arrangement to the band or artist. The challenge is to provide an interesting arrangement that doesn't swamp the tune," says Malone. He certainly succeeded. Listen to how the cellos add tension to the song's intro or the way the violins enhance the emotional intensity of Nelson's soulful vocals. Unfinished Sympathy is a song that moves both your feet and your heart.

Glen Campbell: Wichita Lineman
Arranger: Al de Lory

Composer Jimmy Webb got the inspiration for this song when driving in a remote area of Oklahoma and spotting the solitary figure of a lineman working at the top of a telegraph pole. The result was a mournful country ballad full of yearning. Al de Lory's arrangement uses sweeping violins to evoke a vast empty space and the loneliness of the lineman. A finishing touch was to bring Webb's Gulbransen electronic organ into the studio to create the sound effect of a telephone signal travelling along a telegraph wire.

The Temptations: Papa Was A Rolling Stone
Arranger: Paul Riser

This epic track, written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong, is unusual in having no harmonic progression – it sticks rigidly to the B-flat minor chord. The track is dominated by a never-ending bass riff and non-stop hi-hat beat, and on top of this, arranger Paul Riser laid violins, cellos, harp and reverberating trumpet. The result is a 12-minute classic, which earned Riser a Grammy award.

The Beatles: A Day in the Life
Arranger: George Martin

For what was to be the final track on Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the Beatles wanted to include a symphony orchestra, and Paul McCartney wanted a 24-bar gap filled with a spiralling descent of sound, recalls producer/arranger George Martin in his book, Summer of Love. Martin used a half symphony orchestra, instructing each member to start by playing the lowest note on their instrument and end by playing their loudest and highest note. The rest is history.

The Beach Boys: God Only Knows
Arranger: Brian Wilson

On a song whose beauty can make grown men cry, Brian Wilson used an array of instruments including violin, viola, cello, flute, clarinet and accordion to produce one of the greatest love songs of all time". 

(original Web page at https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/sep/30/arranging-brian-wilson-paul-buckmaster) 

Read the exclusive interview by Ghettoraga in 2013 at:
http://ghettoraga.blogspot.it/2013/01/the-first-cellist-to-go-electric.html 

no©2016 Luca Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)    

Tracked down the shots of the "Atomic Sunrise" festival: what about that with the Third Ear Band playing?

The festival was shot by an unknown underground director and the (33 hours! of) footages was missed for around 20 years, until a guy called Adrian  Everett tracked down them and tried to edit. 

All the long story was reported by The Indipendent on January 25th, 2013 (http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/atomic-sunrise-a-rare-glimpse-of-david-bowie-genesis-and-hawkwind-on-the-brink-of-stardom-8466113.html). 

Here's an excerpt of the article written by Tim Cumming:

"Atomic Sunrise: a rare glimpse of David Bowie, Genesis and Hawkwind on the brink of stardom
It’s the missing film that captures David Bowie’s transition from acoustic to electric star; the emergence of Genesis and Hawkwind; and the musical birth of the Seventies with the rise of glam, prog and heavy rock.
The Atomic Sunrise festival, held at the Roundhouse between 9 and 15 March 1970, was the direct consequence of the murderous events at Altamont the previous December. The Grateful Dead not only pulled out of that gig: they also withdrew from a scheduled appearance at the Roundhouse the following March, which left a week free to mount what was billed as “Seven Nights of Celebration” in a “Living Theatre Environment”.

Three bands were scheduled to play each night, many of them regulars at the Roundhouse’s Sunday Implosion gigs, with The Living Theatre – officially the oldest experimental company in the world – moving among the crowd like the counter- cultural equivalent of a flash mob, but with social/political consciousness-raising rather than marketing as the intent. They were the resident artistes at Atomic Sunrise, on a bill that included many names welded firmly to that time: Graham Bond (whose presence deterred the billed but absent Black Sabbath), Brian Auger, Third Ear Band, Fat Mattress, Gypsy. But none of these are what gives the film to be premiered at the Roundhouse on 11 March its cachet. That lies with the unique, thrilling footage of Bowie, Genesis, and Hawkwind at formative stages of their careers. There is nothing else like it on film. 

(...) The film’s director-producer, Adrian Everett, first heard of the footage in the late 1970s. Who actually placed the cameras in those communal, countercultural early days is not on record, but the stock was being held against a film-processing bill of several thousand pounds. Everett tracked it for years, until, in 1990, he was told it was to be destroyed unless the bill was paid. He put down the money hours before the film was to be trashed, and with the film and the rights secured, his next task was to see exactly what it contained. He spent the next three days watching 33 hours of rushes.

“It was adding the sound and seeing the film come to life that made me realise how important it is,” he remembers. “Until then I just thought it might be interesting, but now I knew it was amazing. That’s why I felt I had to get it out there.”
A deal with a record store owner provided a small budget to begin a first cut, and a chance encounter put him in touch with the original sound man at the gig, who helped him put music to the silent film footage.

“I developed a method of playing and replaying the footage – spotting the start of a song and then looking for clues such as an opening word of the lyric or an instrument.” He was working after-hours in a friend’s cutting room, but progress stalled when Everett’s backer pulled out during the early 1990s recession. Aside from a few assembled performances, the rushes remained just that, sequestered in boxes for the next 20 years, largely unedited and virtually unseen.
Efforts to secure a broadcast slot on the BBC or on Sky came to nothing, and in the meantime, the original participants were heading for that great gig in the sky. Mick Ronson was the first to go, in 1993. In 2010, when Everett heard of the passing of original Genesis drummer John Mayhew, he determined to get a cut of the film into circulation. “Not only so that people could see it at last,” he says, “but as a sort of tribute to those who had gone, some of them unrewarded and almost unknown.”
Taking time out from editing an hour-long first cut of a film that has travelled with him for more than 30 years, Everett admits that it’s “nerve-wracking wondering if people will be pleased with the result”.

“But I can only do the best I can with the resources I have,” he says. “The music and images are amazing, and my plan is to do a book and DVD of the final edit. There are so many strands to this story. It’s a great story to tell.”

‘Atomic Sunrise’ is screened at the Roundhouse, London NW1 (0844 482 8008; roundhouse.org.uk) 11 & 12 March".

If it's clear the projected film does not include footages with the Third Ear Band in, it seems quite possible the live set the band played it's included on the 33 hours shot.
It would be important having some infos by Mr Everett and for this we've sent an email at sunrisefest@yahoo.com... 

no©2013 Luca Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)