Chart entered : 20 January 1979
Chart peak : 14
Number of hits : 13
Here we enter 1979 , my favourite year personally and probably musically, though that doesn't mean I'd endorse everyone that broke through that year.
Judas Priest certainly had a long apprenticeship. A West Bromwich singer named Al Atkins formed a rock band of that name ( based on a Bob Dylan song title ) at the tail end of 1969 and they toured for 6 months before splitting in mid-1970. By that time local heroes Black Sabbath had broken big and Al was keen to pursue that musical direction. So too were a band called Freight featuring guitarist Kenneth "K.K." Downing ( born 1951 ) , bassist Ian Hill ( born 1951 ) and a drummer called John Ellis. They joined forces and decided that Al's old outfit had the better band name. The band built up a following in Birmingham but couldn't find a label interested in offering them a contract. In May 1973 Atkins, a married father, gave into financial pressure and quit the band for an ordinary job ( though he would later return to the music business ).
He was replaced by Rob Halford ( born 1951 ) a cinema manager and closet gay whose penchant for macho leather wear would come to define the band and much of metal's subsequent look . It perhaps also served to deflect attention from his unfortunate resemblance to The Goodies ' Tim Brooke-Taylor. Rob also had a remarkable vocal range which aided the band's search for a distinctive sound. He was brought into the band by Ian who was dating his sister. He in turn brought with him a new drummer John Hinch though he wouldn't last long. It's long been thought that Judas Priest were the primary inspiration for Spinal Tap and certainly the exploding drummer idea would appear to stem from their difficulties in finding a permanent occupant for the stool.
Not long after Rob joined they finally got themselves a deal with the Gull label. They suggested the sound needed beefing up with another musician so they acquired another guitarist Glenn Tipton ( born 1947 ), a veteran of several local bands. Their first single "Rocka Rolla" came out in August 1974. a tribute to a fearsome rock chick - "Bar room fighter, ten pint a nighter" - it's a likeable slice of melodic metal with wry lyrics which could have been a hit with a stronger chorus. It became the title track for their debut album. It was an unsatisfactory experience. Producer Rodger Bain had helmed the first three Black Sabbath albums but it's generally agreed that he did a poor job with the album's sound, failing to eliminate studio hiss. Some of the songs were turgid blues rockers left over from the Atkins era and didn't really reflect where the band wanted to go. The album flopped badly leaving the band on the breadline.
Hinch was found to be inadequate and he was replaced by Alan Moore. The band survived on touring and finding side jobs and appeared on Old Grey Whistle Test. In the autumn of 1975 they went to Rockfield Studios to record their second album "Sad Wings of Destiny " with their own choice of producers Jeffrey Calvert and Max West. It still included some Atkins-era songs that Bain had vetoed for the first album but otherwise it posits them as an important bridging act between Led Zeppelin and Metallica. The choice for single in March 1976 was the typically dark "The Ripper" which like Screaming Lord Sutch's song in the early sixties failed to get much airplay ( it should be noted that Peter Sutcliffe had only killed two women at this point and the police hadn't yet linked the killings ). It's got some good riffs but the song itself is pretty tuneless. The album scraped to 48 in the charts despite a better critical reception and the continuing dire financial situation prompted Moore to quit.
The rest of the band decided to quit Gull for CBS which meant losing all rights to the material they had previously recorded because they were in breach of their contract. They got to work on their notably heavier third album "Sin After Sin" with a young session drummer Simon Phillips who rejected the invitation to join them permanently. Roger Glover produced the album and persuaded them to include their cover of Joan Baez's "Diamonds and Rust" to get some radio play. It was duly released as a single a few weeks after the album in April 1977. It wasn't a hit but did help the album get to number 23 in the charts and go gold.
Glover also suggested their new drummer Les Binks who had worked with him on his Butterfly Ball project. Les was born in Portadown, Northern Ireland in 1948. He first came to attention working with Eric Burdon in 1974 then joined Ray Fenwick's group Fancy that summer. They'd just scored a couple of his in the U.S. but were unable to replicate that success during Les's time with them. His first single with them "She's Riding The Rock Machine" has some very witty lyrics but an all too generic hard rock sound. Their next was a sludgy cover of Stevie Wonder's "I Was Made To Love Him" further hampered by a poor production from Mike Hurst where singer Annie Kavanagh sounds she's like recording in a different room. Their final single "Music Maker" was released under the name "Ray Fenwick & Fancy" and I haven't heard it.
Anxious to build on their success the band recorded their next album "Stained Class" in the autumn of 1977. It's dark and heavy going and CBS insisted there should be a lighter track for radio so at the last minute they recorded a cover of Spooky Tooth's "Better By You, Better Than Me"; ironically it was this very track that was to get them into legal trouble a dozen years later. At the time it was more significant for alerting the band to the talents of producer James Guthrie and he was engaged to produce their next album. With no singles the LP got to 27 in the UK but it was their first album to make a small impact in the States.
Not entirely unanimously the band decided to respond to the challenge of punk on their next album "Killing Machine" , by removing the last traces of prog, particularly the fantasy-themed lyrics, from their music and write shorter punchier songs for mainstream radio. The first single "Before The Dawn" in October 1978 is a mournful semi-acoustic number with keyboards that predicates some of the soft metal ballads of the early nineties but is a bit too dreary and unfocused to cut through . It was a strange choice for a single.
"Take On The World" was then selected for a follow up. It's very obviously influenced by Queen's We Will Rock You , an attempt to write a shout along anthem for stadiums whether the crowd was there for rock or football. It also glances back to glam, the dry minimalist sound harking back to The Glitter Band and the accompanying leather look recalling Alvin Stardust and Suzi Quatro. The rest of the band take a bit of a back seat to Rob's impressive holler and Les's drums; it's hard to pick out a bass line at all. It divided me and my best mate at the time. He loved it; I thought it was crude and obvious. The Human League must have liked it for they were known to perform it during their tour the following year.
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