LINDA HOYLE - Black Crow

(PS)

Hoyle initially came to limited public recognition in 1970 as the lead singer of prog/jazz band Affinity, with the eponymous LP released on the Phillips Vertigo label. It had its high points (I Am and So Are You, Three Sisters) and low points (the flimsily suggestive Mr Joy and the not-nearly-as-good-as-Jimi’s version of All Along the Watchtower) but deserved much more attention than it received.

Her full-throated delivery drew comparisons with Grace Slick, but she could also mix it up with a more delicate softer sound, as demonstrated on the excellent Night Flight, also from that LP.

A few bills paid from advertising Shredded Wheat (and a subsequent Parkinson appearance) and she was recording her maiden solo LP in 1971, Pieces of Me with most of jazz rock afficionados Nucleus as her backing band. Also on the Vertigo label, but ridiculously only given a pressing run of 300 copies, it pretty much sank without trace and so original copies of the LP now change hands for well over £1,000. Highlights for me on this LP are the bombastic title track (despite Chris Spedding’s wild, presumably first take solo) and Black Crow. 

Melodically, Hoyle doesn’t actually have to do much in the song at all: most of her delivery is directly on middle C, occasionally veering a few semitones either way and then back again. The band pretty much carry all of the melodic interest underneath her, including chromatic runs up and down the octave which keep the driving feel of the song – aided by John Marshall’s urgent snare, ushering them along. 

 

Where her delivery is so effective though, is in its rhythm: the dark, scabrous lines about the underbelly of city life are delivered like machine gun fire and it complements the unsettling feel of the environment we’re presented with. It almost feels like we’re in the back of a yellow cab, darting through New York as it used to be before it cleaned up and got a suit and tie, glimpsing low lifes on every street corner through a half-open window. But it also seems like the song’s character belongs there and revels in the dirt and the madness – that’s why we ‘hurry on down to the centre of town’ with her to witness it all.  

 

After all, who doesn’t need their fix of grime and sleaze every now and then? 

(JS)

A refugee from the critically acclaimed but commercially ‘not quite’ Affinity. Linda’s earlier life is featured in this lovely clip showing the Bohemian posh casing fame and fortunes

Linda retired her psychedelic jazz folk voice until she was persuaded by Ronnie Scott to record with Karl Jenkins (the man who broke the original Soft Machine and introduced guitars.) Jenkins and Hoyle assembled an interesting presentation with a different direction for every track. Prominent on each were Jenkins distinctive keyboards and saxophone and Hoyle’s vocals, over processed and buried to an extent in the mix. Hoyle has a strong Jazz/Blues voice, which whilst limited in range, has the strength to rise above the over layered orchestrations of Jenkins and his session chums. More alto than Sandy Denny, more growly than Maddy Prior. This song is bedded on a fast tempo rising and descending scale with some decanted fills and vocal overdubs. On this song an interesting counter vocal is buried into obscurity in the mix. Its pleasant enough to hear but is an excellent example of the necessity for a good producer to suppress the keyboard virtuoso and clean up the vocal presentation. In this instance Linda’s showcase became Karl’s instead and Art Therapy’s gain was music’s loss when she left the music business for a new life in Canada. 

Her collaborator Karl Jenkins is showcased in this clip.

Enough said.

(MS)

This Linda Hoyle track is in keeping with the material she cut with her previous band whose output has been considerably fleshed-out over the last few years charting their student evolution from modern jazzers and beat-pop copyists to the summit of Zombies-stye psychedelia (the magical band Ice no less) and thence to the biggish time with the frankly less successful Brian Auger and the Trinity-type outfit, Affinity where Linda did the Julie Driscoll bit. A very strong vocalist with a touch of Norma Winstone in her ballad style, in around 1969 she over strained her vocal cords and the band took up an instrumental residence at manager Ronnie Scott’s club. At the end of a Brian Auger arrangement of “A Day in the Life”, Ronnie took to the stage in his droll way and instructed the punters

“We’d like to remind you that we are open until three in the morning and you are invited to eat and drink until then and we very much hope that you do ...for christ’s sake”. 

I’d like to think regulars Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers and John le Mesurier were there to catch that one.

Yes Affinity had Ronnie’s patronage but the fringes of the British jazz movement only equated to the fringes of destitution and by the mid-70’s many a Brit-jazzer had swapped Frith Street for the Mount Pleasant Sorting office. By the time Hoyle quit it was clear she didn’t know where to go next. The album “Pieces of Me” is like an elaborate promo album to tout her versatility for the next move. It brings in American style singer-songwriter material with a strong Laura Nyro influence throughout and self-penned versions of the same such as the gorgeous Carole King style Paper Tulips, sitting amongst Bessie Smith/Nina Simone standards and a clutch of progressive jazz-rock-pop hydrids.

 

Black Crow is in the latter category, not so much a song as a riff that could have been carved from a Nucleus jam, most of whom provide the back-up here. Black Crow stands out as a short funky ride into the dark 1970’s with energetic backing from John Marshall’s drums driving it on.

Note -if you hear any jazz on a British rock album in this period you’ll find it is supplied by players from a small National house band. John Marshall is a case in point, a ubiquitous side-man appearing on most of the classic jazz-rock albums of the period, Michael Gibbs, Mike Westbrook, Neil Ardley, Jack Bruce, Graham Collier et al. Many of them supplemented their jazz roots with these gigs so when the rock dried up so did the jazz. Though it should be noted Marshall kept going into the 70’s Soft Machine with Karl Jenkins who acted as music director for much of this album. Ultimately it would be the latter who escaped the 70’s slump carving out a sustained career in music, writing choral chants for crappy TV adverts flogging banks. Ronnie ploughed on until a fateful appointment with the dentist brought things to a tragic end.