Popularity in the rock music industry is capricious and many fine guitar players don't get the esteem they are due. Their star may rise briefly but all too soon it falls again and they are thrown into relative obscurity. One such player to have suffered this fate is Andy Powell of Wishbone Ash.
In the late sixties Wishbone Ash pioneered the twin lead guitar sound, unleashing on the world thousands of double six string groups from Thin Lizzy to the likes of Thunder and Def Leppard. Before this time guitarists played different roles. One would be a lead player and the other would stick to rhythm parts. That was the pattern used in the Shadows and Dire Straits.
Andy Powell is an articulate and lyrical guitar player rooted in RnB. He brought a finely-honed technical expertise to the group whilst his sidekick Ted Turner brought a more experimental feel. The fusion of the two styles worked well especially with Martin Turner on bass adding what amounted to a third lead instrument in certain passages. They were signed to MCA under the management of Miles Copeland who later managed The Police. MCA were persuaded to offer the contract after a comment from Ritchie Blackmore of Deep Purple who had jammed with Powell at a sound check.
This being the era of progressive rock, the labels were actively encouraging experimentation and Ash thrived in the context of the Progressive movement. As was so often the case in those days the band finally focused their sound with their third album Argus. The group were reading a lot of mystical and religious stuff and the album reflects this, but its whimsy is undergirded with strong rhythms and a multitude of musical colours. Above all this are found two soaring guitars, confident and assured, delicate then explosive, an object lesson in pure style. That should read STYLE! No one has ever bettered Wishbone Ash for style when it comes to twin lead guitars bands. And the joy of it all for listeners who like electric guitars is that there is so much guitar playing. Some critics dismiss it as over-indulgence. Well, let them go and enjoy themselves with synthesisers whilst we enjoy the real thing!
Andy Powell has established himself over the years as Mr Wishbone Ash. He is the sole survivor, but strangely the band always sounds the same, which must indicate his enormous influence on all that it does. Argus was a huge hit album and briefly in the seventies the band were a top drawer act, breaking house records all across America. But they made mistakes. The follow up album was weak - not in songs but in engineering and production - and then Ted Turner left. Replaced by Laurie Wisefield the band started back in the right direction with There's The Rub but blew it with their next album that forsook their English sound for an American one. By the time they had really got back into the groove with the magnificent New England, punk was stealing the show in rock music and was the total antithesis of Wishbone Ash. From that time the band's popularity has dwindled. They are now what Andy Powell calls 'a cottage industry'. They have a hard core following of fans, but continuing bad management and lack of publicity has failed to keep the millions of vital American fans with them.
I would highly recommend the following albums that span thirty years of the group's existence:
· Argus
· New England
· Illuminations