TONY LEACH: Reunion (Thumb Records TR006)

A phone call from Tony Leach (first time this century; in fact the first time for over 30 years) came as quite a surprise, but things became clearer during our conversation. When we had previously been in contact, Tony was one of the leading lights of Headwaiter, a combo from the Guildford area in Surrey, where we both lived at that time. My main local musical interest was in a quartet known as House, three of whose members (singer/ songwriter Tony Backhurst, keyboard player Sev Lewkowicz and bass player Tim Wheatley) became friendly after my regular support of their Monday night residency at The Kings Head in Quarry Street. In 1978, House, Headwaiter and a couple of other local acts assembled an album to demonstrate the talent which existed around Guildford, and my relative prominence at the time as an interviewer on BBC Radio One led to an invitation to write a sleeve note for the LP, which was titled ‘Who Invited Them?’, and was the first ever release on Thumb Records, a label launched by Tony Leach. My main interest in Headwaiter as a group came from the fact that it was formed by bass player Doug Ferguson after he left Camel, a well-respected prog rock group of the mid-1970s. Another of the acts on ‘Who Invited Them?’ was led by Jackie Lynton, arguably the nearest thing to a celebrity among Guildford area musos at the time, and when Tony Leach left Headwaiter to join Lynton’s band, where he remained for six years, Headwaiter fell apart
After moving away from the area in the 1980s, my contact with Guildford was limited, but when Road Goes On Forever Records became my label in the 1990s, the memory of how enjoyable and talented House had been led me to suggest that they should make the album which they probably should have made 20 years earlier, which they did, and it remains available – although in all honesty, it was far from a big seller.
Of the three members of House, Sev Lewkowicz was the most active, and we re-met more recently when he was part of Dennis Locorriere’s all-star Hits And History Band. Before that, Sev had spent several years (and made several albums) with Australian punk Duffo and also toured with Any Trouble, among many other musical activities, during which he learned a lot about production and engineering, becoming a studio whiz. So was the obvious choice to oversee Tony Leach’s ‘Reunion’ album, as well as engineering and mixing it, at a studio in Tony’s French country house in the Dordogne.
Among the other musicians who played on the album were Rag Mama Rag, the country blues-based duo of Ashley (various stringed instruments) and Deborah (harmonica and percussion) Dow, with a guest appearance on the track ‘Seedy Sam’ by another noted Guildford picker, guitarist Dick Middleton, who has worked with Gene Vincent, Johnny Halliday and Mungo Jerry, and played on several tracks on ‘Who Invited Them?’. Other contributions are by Arthur Bainbridge, Tony’s very talented and photogenic golden retriever who is pictured on the CD sleeve and who worked with Sev on the percussion samples and loops (at least, that was what Sev told me), and last, but almost certainly not least, backing vocalist and the inspiration behind several songs, Lesley Broughton.
All the songs here were written by Tony Leach, and the overall philosophy which drives the album appears to be nostalgia of the type which many of us experience in middle age. Following ‘Carousel’, a brief instrumental, ‘Keep On Dancing’ is a wistful memoir of youth and early romance, while ‘My Old Man’ is a regretful song about his father, expressing views that many of us share about spending too little time with a parent, whose death proves that they weren’t immortal after all. ‘Times In My Life’ (presumably about Lesley) expresses a reasonable philosophy, that if you keep positive despite the slings and arrows etc., you can eventually achieve the life you desire, which Tony obviously has. ‘Tiny One’ celebrates a child’s birth, and ‘One Of Each’, which bears a considerable sonic resemblance to John Lennon’s ‘Starting Over’, seems to be about having a child of each sex. ‘Seedy Sam’ (already mentioned) is heavy duty rockabilly (courtesy of Dick Middleton) and much less polite sounding than the majority of the album, while ‘Grandad’s Here’ is a well-observed song about attempts to bond with a grandchild, and like many of these songs, possesses a universal feeling with which many others may be able to identify.
Most of the tracks mentioned (apart from ‘Seedy Sam’) are keyboard dominated, as both Leach and Lewkowicz are keyboard players, but ‘Ain’t Seen Your Face’, a memory of a long past love affair, features delightful acoustic guitar from Ashley Dow. ‘Heading For The Moon’, with its cinema organ sound, is another love song. ‘Missing You’ may be about the end of a relationship with spouse or partner, and it’s quite a short song, but with an overlong, in my opinion, instrumental outro. The penultimate track here, ‘Thrown It All Away’, may just be the album’s best composition, and possibly also the oldest – it was also on ‘Who Invited Them?’ performed by Headwaiter, and according to Tony, was singled out at that time as special, which, for me, it remains, while the gentle closer, ‘Like A Breeze’, contains nice sentiments.
Tony seems to be speaking to and for a greying generation of which he is a part, which also reminds me that the handwritten lyrics in the booklet may be too small for those of us (myself included) whose eyesight is starting to fail to be able to read comfortably. The elderly need champions like Tony Leach to tell the world what we feel and how we think, and our own human condition is important to us. Although some may say the songs here betray Tony’s age and the era in which he grew up, my conclusion is that this album is a minor masterpiece for a generation born before rock’n’roll’s arrival, and who have lived with its ups and downs for their entire lives. Well done, Tony !

John Tobler, Washington, Tyne & Wear, April, 2010