From Disc
and Music Echo magazine, October 17, 1970.
By David Hughes
YOU might have been tempted to think over
the last few weeks, that as Christie's Yellow
River had dropped out of the charts and San
Bernadino has only just been released, the merry
trio of lads were spending their time at home in deep armchairs
waiting for things to happen.
"You must be joking," croaked a somewhat
weak Jeff Christie, "I've never felt so exhausted in
all my life. We've just had to cancel everything for nearly
a week to try and recover, and I'm still whacked even after
four days at home!
"Yellow River
has been a worldwide hit from Argentina to Sweden
and consequently we've been dashing round the world
virtually non-stop for the past three months.
"I really never thought it would be as
big a hit as this. If we'd just had a hit in England, we'd
have done a few TVs and probably exhausted all the places
we could play live. But this .. well, the only thing that
makes me realise it's all happened is my state of health."
And the turmoil must have hit new drummer Paul
Fenton even harder than Jeff and Vic Elmes.
"Paul joined us five weeks ago and he's
been working non-stop ever since. Before that I don't think
he'd travelled much at all he'd been in a resident
band mostly. It's really knocked him out, but I think given
a bit more time he'll be alright."
Another problem Jeff is finding with the current
whirlwind schedule is that he's had little time to get down
to writing.
"That has been difficult. In fact, it's
been almost impossible even to find time to rehearse. We've
just been working through numbers on planes and in dressing
rooms. I have managed to get a few ideas together in the
last few days, although there's still an awful lot of songs
I've stockpiled over the years waiting to record."
But the greatest conflict is between the numbers
they put to record and the numbers they play on stage.
"We're still undecided just how we should
approach our stage performances. To start with, you could
say we were playing country-ish stuff. But now we're getting
heavier.
"The real problem is, some people only
come to see you do Yellow River,
while others come to find out exactly what you're capable
of. And there is still an awful lot of snobbery about the
pop scene.
"Critics seem to like knocking us and
our records - they can't accept them at face value."
Jeff remains modest about the group's stage
success.
"I wouldn't say we've knocked everyone
cold and had standing ovations but we've been accepted
and I think we've gone down moderately well."