The lost Third Ear Band's 1970 John Peel Session found!

Last June, the excellent YouTube channel FoundTapesLost (https://www.youtube.com/@FoundTapesFound) released this rare find, which had been hidden away in the folds of time and destined for oblivion. It is the third live session that TEB played on John Peel's famous radio programme Top Gear.

When I had the opportunity to collaborate with Esoteric on the compilation of "Elements 1970-1971", the 3CDs box that collected “all” the recordings related to the band's second album, this radio session was unavailable because, I was assured, it had been deleted. Indeed, judging by the comments on the YouTube video, it's an off-air recording contained on a reel and “cleaned up” for the occasion:

“Third Ear Band's lost 3rd Peel Session from 1970. Recorded 8th June 1970. This off-air recording comes from a recently unearthed reel to reel tape of the broadcast on 20 June 1970.

Digitised by Tim on the Peel Group

Recorded at The Playhouse Theatre, Northumberland Avenue, London

Produced by John Walters

00:00 Downbone Raga

04:08 Feel Your Head

11:06 Hyde Park Raga

Glen Sweeney: Drums

Richard Coff: Violin

Paul Minns: Oboe

Ursula Smith: Cello & Violin”

 

In 2012 I did some research for this Archive to find out which Third Ear Band radio sessions were still in the BBC vaults. I asked archive manager Simon Gurney, who said that "the man in charge of the Transcription Discs here had checked and can confirm that none exist with the Third Ear Band. You can safely say you have exhausted your search in this regard".

From a historiographical point of view, the band here is in a state of grace, shortly before the "Sun Wheel Ceremony" at the Royal Festival Hall (24 June) and the recording of "Abelard & Heloise" soundtrack (2 and 3 July). The quartet has been playing together for months and has recently recorded its second album that will be published in those days, despite the fact at the beginning of July Ursula Smith and Richard Coff will leave the group to try their luck in a short-lived duo.

Anyone with sensitivity and a minimum of listening experience will have no doubt in establishing that we are dealing with an exceptional document in terms of quality of execution, intensity (the authenticity, the truth of the performance), repertoire (two previously unreleased tracks, which for us TEB fans are legendary!).

But...

"Downbone Raga", which sees Minns' opening oboe part reprise the theme of traditional "Oh Susannah" (!) almost verbatim, is an unusual short instrumental, with a predominantly country style (because of Coff's violin).

Even more unusual is the following track, “Feel Your Head”, a ballad in the style of pop psychedelic Donovan (“Season of the Witch”...?) with acoustic guitar and flute...! Who is singing, actually? Al Stewart, Donovan...? The voice cannot be Glen's or Ursula's. Paul wouldn't have sung even at his own wedding... Coff? Almost certainly, he's the only suspect!

But who wrote the lyrics? Why did Glen never mention it in our many conversations?

Honestly, if it weren't for the beautiful following track, one of the most played ragas in those months ("Hyde Park Raga"), this radio performance would be rather frustrating.

In my opinion, it's fortunate that the band's management, which would soon record the "lost third album" and the "Macbeth" soundtrack, did not embrace the country or psychedelic pop impulses of the two rarities. What if one of the reasons for Smith and Coff's split was precisely their disagreement over the musical direction to take?

All in all, an intriguing find, but controversial to say the least.

 

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

Stripping the Peel: strange revisionism of an underground icon...?!

JP in '60's ("The Word" Magazine Nov. 2015)

I realize it's difficult to accept when one decreases a cult figure of the underground culture as the late John Peel, but now I think it can be a necessary act.
On this "John Peel Wiki" at http://peel.wikia.com/wiki/Third_Ear_Band I've read, along with a valid reconstruction of the band presence at the JP's radio programmes, these unexpected judgments on the Third Ear Band:

"(...) But the band was beginning to lose impetus amidst a wave of personnel changes and eventually split in 1974. Revived versions of the band in the late 1970s and 1980s did not attract Peel's interest.
Later, indeed, he seemed to regard them as one of the less enduring acts of their time; their first Top Gear session was soon after John Walters had become Peel's producer and to judge by their conversation in "Peeling Back The Years" one can infer that Walters was not entirely convinced by them, although he was less critical than Peel: 

JW: Well, frankly, if we are talking about intolerable music, what about the other sorts of new music that I remember having to record and we had to listen to at that time? The Third Ear Band, for instance.
JP: Well, yes. I mean…
JW: It wasn’t really intolerable; it was hypnotic. JP: Yes, difficult to defend really in a way, except that I played jew’s harp on one track on their debut LP, but that isn’t the reason why they got on the programme. It was just that they again, I suppose, were the sort of band that turned up interminably at benefits and so forth, and when I went down to the various clubs, whether Pink Floyd or Arthur Brown or Hendrix and people were playing, the Third Ear Band would always be on the bill in some capacity, along with another band that we never did actually record, Exploding Galaxies or something…".

John Walters

OK, just licit opinions, but I remember when Glen used to talk about Peel he was always grateful with him and his extraordinary importance in the underground, so it sounds quite strange to me that Peel claimed to have introduced the TEB so many times on his radio programmes just because they were always around...

If you listen to the few BBC radio recordings still available it's a fact their music was totally out of their time, sometimes maybe too naive, but absolutely great and imaginative, creative and unique. For myself very enduring...
So why a so great underground icon could repudiate his choises?

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