It is my 53rd year to heaven as Dylan Thomas wrote, he didn’t make it any further but I will born along on the wings of a good tune.
Wishbone Ash were possibly the first non-Beatles band name I ever knew. Tony our neighbour gave me a Wishbone Ash badge, I collected badges, when I was about 6. He and my dad told me that it was him on the left hand side of it* he did look a lot like whichever Ash it was** and with their help I learned the band’s name.
Argus, released like all that is good and true in this world in 1972, was my musical entry point. I remember my dad playing it a lot on the cassette player in his little orange van when I was out and about with him. There was, still is actually, something romantic and fantastical in the gently driving sweep of the album. Kings, swords and warriors blowin’ free, it was all grist to my Narnia and Borrobil infused imagination.
Even now after the steady accretion of decades worth of hard-won defensive cynicism and righteous anger across this ‘checkerboard of nights and days’ I am still able to lose myself in the misty melodic valleys and gentle certainties of Argus. That’s a good thing to realise, as I sit beside my dad in his orange van in 1979, as I sit here avoiding the news in 2025, as I sit and listen.
Defining Wishbone Ash is not the easiest thing, the closest I can get is gently-rocking-folk-prog-boogie. If anything ‘prog’ deserves a capital P in that line, Argus has a Hipgnosis cover^ and a number of the songs are multi-part. Which is not the whole story of course, Wishbone Ash Ted Turner and Andy Powell are rightly acknowledged as the progenitors of the twin-guitar harmony sound appropriated by Thin Lizzy and Iron Maiden; stand up and be counted Argus engineer Martin Birch.
Opener ‘Time Was’ feels essentially like two mismatched songs bolted together the first quiet and folksy, if a bit insipid, the second a kick ass Southern rock adjacent guitar quickening. The soloing later in the track is just jaw droppingly good. ‘Sometime World’ pulls the same trick, but to a less guitar heavy affect, the melodies are rather gorgeous in the second part.
I thought I had a girl
And all because I seen her
Stone-cold classic ‘Blowin’ Free’ closes the first side of Argus. From the first note anyone with ears can tell just how incredible this cut is. It is an absolute guitar fest too, Powell and Turner soloing all over everything in sight, but to great affect and without compromising a demi-quasi-crotchet of the song’s melody and purpose. It fits the 1537 definition of perfection^^ effortlessly.
Argus may even get better on the flip as the ‘walking’ guitar intro to ‘The King Will Come’ strides across the misty plains. Martin Turner is excellent throughout but his bass really rumbles hard here. I can’t be very objective here, I have listened to this track over and over again over the years at damaging volumes savouring every honeyed note and key change. The bit where it fades down around the 4:27 mark before inevitably rising to reclaim its throne again … maaaaaan!
‘Leaf And Stream’ is a more folksy beauty, with a harmonic surface that glistens and sparkles like water. It’s all very Lothlorien and disarms me in quite an alarming way.
I bloody love ‘Warrior’. Given my predilections^* I own a fair number of songs with this title and occasionally I pitch them into battle against one another, this one with its guitar bite and slightly silly lyrics can always hold its own. The segue from ‘Warrior’ into ‘Throw Down Your Sword’ is just great and there is something rather grandiose about the way this track just fades up and out into the guitar sun, a perfect ending as the warrior pledges to ‘cast away the fury of the battle/ And turn my weary eyes for home’.
I have so enjoyed playing Argus this week both for its shot of nostalgia and for its present superbiness. Its not that I unholstered my twin air guitars again, its that I haven’t put them away for days. I unreservedly recommend this LP to any guitar nuts out there.
Argus is a classier act than that though, it tweaks my ding dongs because of the sheer class of its song writing and playing. The beauty of the melody lines here really do encourage all the fantastical escapism one could ever want, which is a handy trait for an LP right now.
Don’t sit here reading this, buy a copy now, then spread the word.
My copy of Argus is a 1972 first pressing bought in Sterling a few years ago to replace a slightly scratched newer copy and I have to say, all hi-fi nonsense aside, the pressing and sound is absolutely superb. Hats off to Martin Birch and producer Derek Lawrence did a hell of a job here. I somehow managed to get my hands on a special limited edition scribbled-on inner sleeve version (thanks Hazel, wherever you are) … but the vinyl is immaculate.
1268 Down.
PS: a slightly rougher version. All the better to savour that awesome guitar attack.
*sadly I don’t still have it, but it was the cover of their 1977 Front Page News LP, but just with the band name. Other band badges donated by parents friends quickly included Stranglers No More Heroes, Police and, while not musical, the very countercultural Fat Freddy’s Cat.
**possibly Steve Upton.
^ I was triply-chuffed just now to find that the Argus cover pic was taken somewhere I’d been, that the costume was borrowed from the shoot of Ken Russell’s The Devils and that it was the inspiration for Darth Vader’s look 5 years later, possibly.
^^a song from which you could neither add or take anything away from to make it any better.
^*my musical ones, not those other ones I deal with on my specialist adults-only blog 1539.
