Ten Years After – Alvin Lee & Company

I picked up a nice original US copy on the cheap at a local shop the other day. While everyone will have their own opinion, mine is that this album fits in nicely with the ballsy bluesy stuff TYA had been doing from the outset. So whether or not its a set of outtakes -- if you like early TYA stuff this is worth picking up. In my view anything from the self titled first LP to this one is worthwhile. If you're one of those folks who feels 'A Space in Time' is TYA's best album (yep Space in Time was 1971 while this one came out in '72 likely for marketing reasons) then you likely won't agree but if you like the band, or are considering which albums to buy, the rough warts and all Ten Years After records deliver the goods -- and this is one of them.

Only a supremely devoted fan would desire this album released by Deram Records to capitalize on the success Columbia Records was now having with the band. The album is composed of singles, outtakes and half fleshed out numbers, with the compact disc version offering even more of this entirely forgettable material.

If one felt that most Ten Years After albums were inconsistent, and this one certainly is, then wash your hands of it before you even dive in. Of course there were many back in the day who let out a collective Woooo! on seeing the rather lengthy fifteen minute version of the song “Boogie On,” not realizing it wasn’t the real thing, just the band warming up in the studio, where it all got captured on tape and finally made its way onto vinyl; though offering absolutely nothing of note. Matter of fact, Alvin Lee said ”It’s all old material that was recorded a long time ago, it was inferior material from the Stonedhenge album that didn't make the cut. Because we’d left Deram after Watt they put it out themselves. We didn't like it, so we tried to do everything we could to stop the process. We didn't like the title, we didn't like the songs, we didn’t like the instrumentation. However, unfortunately, it was in the contract we had signed when we were pretty green so they could do it.”

As to the album’s title Ten Years After Alvin Lee and Company, this rather cumbersome to say the least, and was part of a legal battle, where Deram was no longer permitted to simply use the band name Ten Years After, so it seems they tossed everything into the bath at once, allowing the record title to be contractually legal, yet the album in stores was filed under both Ten Years After and Alvin Lee.

Review by Jenell Kesler

A "collection of outtakes" is misleading... This record is solid. REALLY solid. A strong recommendation for fans of 70's bluesy, jammy, rock stuff and a must have for fans of Alvin Lee/Ten Years After. A solid 4+/5.