240 Hello Roy Wood ( solo and Wizzard ) *- Ball Park Incident

(* this  one  was Wizzard )

Chart  entered  :  9  December  1972

Chart  peak : 6

Number  of  hits : 12  ( 7  with  Wizzard , 5  solo )

I  don't  know  the  exact  date of  my  pop  epiphany. It  was  around  the  middle  of  December   1972  at  the  Junior  1  Christmas  party  at  St  Mary's  RC  Primary , Littleborough. The  party  was also  a  send-off  for  our  departing  class  teacher  Mrs  Smith. My  memories  of  her  are  scanty - dark-haired , middle-aged ( perhaps  only  seemingly  so )  and  justifiably  concerned  about  my atrocious  handwriting - but  by  bringing  in  some  contemporary  music  for  the  party  she deserves the  credit  for  introducing  me  to  pop. It  was  there  I  heard  the  song  that  everyone  in  class had been   talking  about  for  the  past  week  or  two  - Crazy  Horses  by  The  Osmonds - and  I thought it  was  fantastic. Tuning  in  to  Top  Of  The  Pops   to  hear  it  again  revealed  other  treats  and introduced  me  to  the  concept  of  the  charts. Soon  afterwards  the  record  I  thought  surpassed Crazy  Horses  for  excitement  - Block  Buster  by  The  Sweet - soared  to  number  one  and  the deal  was  sealed.

But  neither  of  those  are  the  record  we're  discussing. We  need  to  go  back  to  the   Birmingham story. Even  before  10538  Overture   hit  the  charts  Roy  had  decided  to quit  ELO. A  lot  of  hot air  has  been  expended  on  this  event  mainly  by  fiftysomethings  who  still  regard  Roy  as  the great  lost  genius  of  pop   and  view  ELO's  subsequent  success  as  the  triumph  of  perspiration over  inspiration. As  one  put  it  to  me  "It  should  have  been  Jeff  Lynne  that  left  not  Roy" but that's  wrongheaded; Roy  quit  to  get  away  from  manager  Don  Arden  not  Jeff  and  the  two  are still  on  good  terms. The  new  band  was  christened  Wizzard.

Bill  Hunt  and  Hugh  McDowell  decided  to  go  with  him  and  with  Bev  Bevan  staying  put Rick  Price  came  back  to  work  with  Roy  bringing  the  two  drummers  from  his  band  Mongrel, Charlie  Grima  and  Keith  Smart. Two  saxophone  players  Mike  Burney  and  Nick  Pentelow were  added.

The  new  band  were  christened  Wizzard. This  presented  me  with  another  tricky  decision  as viewing  Roy's  solo  singles  and  Wizzard's  as  completely  separate  would  disqualify  both  of  them. In  this  case  I  don't  think   Wizzard  really  qualify  as  an  independent  band; apart  from  a  couple  of  instrumentals  on  their  first  LP  Roy  was  the  sole  composer of  all  their  songs  and  the  fact  that  their  singles  came  out  simultaneously  with  "solo"  releases  suggests  they  were  more  of  a  cover  for  Roy  to  separate  his  commercial  and  experimental  material.

The  band  had  to  gel  pretty  quickly  as  they  were  booked  to  appear  at  the  London  Rock  and    Roll  Show  at  Wembley  in  August.  Nothing  from  their  set  made  it  on  to  the  concert  film  ( which  does  briefly  capture  a  certain  Malcolm  McLaren  selling  his  clothes from  a  pitch  outside )  which  may  indicate  they  hadn't  quite  got  it  together  yet. After  going  on  to  the  Reading  Festival  this  was  their  debut  single.

This  is  the  first  record  featured  here  which  I  remember  in  situ.  I   liked  it   ( though  I  liked  pretty  much  everything  at  this  point  apart  from  Billy  Paul's  Me  And  Mrs  Jones   which  I  didn't  get  at  all  )  but  haven't  got  it  and,  as  it  isn't  played  on  the  radio, hearing  it  again  mainlines  me  straight  back  to  rushing  out  into  the  windswept  yard  at  St  Mary's  ( still  there  but  now  only  used  as  the  church  car  park )  to  turn  on  my  transistor  especially  on  Tuesday  lunchtimes  when  the  new  chart  came  out.

With  this   song  Roy  went  back  to  the  sound  of  the  latter-day  Move  singles  , traditional  rock  and  roll  filtered  through  a  Phil  Spector-aping  wall  of  sound  production. The  twin  drums  and  saxes  give  the  melodramatic  song  a  real  heavy  swing. Roy's  girl  has  been  shot  by  the  police  and  his  brother  is  somehow  involved  although  Roy  chooses  to  repeat  the  earlier  verses  rather  than  resolve  the  story  so  we  never  find  out  what  exactly  has  transpired. He  barks  it  out  at  full  pelt  and  if  Wizzard  had  been  a  bit  more  popular  in  the  USA  you  could  confidently  suggest  that  it  influenced  a  young  songwriter  in  New  Jersey  whose  first  album  was  released  shortly  afterwards  with  the  word  "Park"  in  the  title. For  me  this  is  good  as  it  got  for  Wizzard ; afterwards  the  fact  that  my  mum  liked  them  made  them  a  bit  suspect   but  I'll  always  give  this  one  a  listen.