Wednesday 2nd April

Never heard of him?  I am not surprised.  He was an original member of Barclay James Harvest and played on their first ten or so albums.  He also wrote quite a few of their songs, the more orchestral, the elegiac Moonwater for example which was simply classical music, and a few gorgeous songs like Harbour and Jonathan.  He played keyboards and was one of the first users of the mellotron, a fore-runner of synthesizers which played short pieces of taped music; incredibly difficult to play, but allowing the band to sound “orchestral” with a conventional line-up.

In the early eighties Wooly left the band, disappointed at the, as he saw it, more commercial direction they were moving towards.  The band was already splitting anyway, with John Lees and Les Holroyd hardly communicating and sharing equal songwriting in their remaining few albums.  Wooly released two albums which bombed, although I bought them, and felt they were quite good, especially the frst one Maestoso.  But then Wooly gave up; he did write some music for a couple of soundtracks but turned his hand to farming.

When the Barclays eventually split he was persuaded by John Lees to re-join John’s half of the old band.  They made an album ‘Revival’ and played at a few festivals then seemed to go quiet.  Wooly retreated to the studio where he released a handful of albums made up of snippets and poorly recorded songs which sold simply to the ever-diminishing fans of the old band.  Wooly had mental problems and suffered frequent bouts of depression, eventually he took his life a couple of years ago.   Maybe he felt that his music never really accomplished what he had envisaged, maybe he regretted ever being in the band, or maybe he just couldn’t cope with trying to make music in today’s aggressive climate.  Whatever, he made some great records and I will continue to listen with fondness to one of the quieter rock musicians ever.