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Now then...

I've just won an auction on ebay for the 1972 LP ALAN HAWKSHAW PLAYS THE PHILICORDA. Obviously I have no idea exactly what it will sound like, but I imagine that the Philicorda in question is an organ. I noticed that the LP also features Brian Bennett and Dave Richmond, so I thought it a safe bet. As I don't have a picture of a Philicorda, other than the one on the album sleeve, I am posting a picture of one of Alan's more recent organs to mark this auspicious occasion!

As with the pics of myself and Brian, it was taken about 18 months ago. I believe it was the same organ used by Alan at Bruce's Shadowmania a few years back and more recently at the KPM All-Stars gig in Islington. (Which, by a strange coincidence, is where I was born!)

Now I'd better log onto paypal and pay for this record!!! Happy Easter.

Try this:



Or any of these:

http://tinyurl.com/mz3kej2

PS: And this:

Thanks Jim.

If that IS the instrument in question on the LP cover, then Alan's had two keyboards. Of course, it may not even be Alan's hands at all in the pic!

Can there REALLY have been a bass player calld DANNY Richmond? Or is this a mistake? Surely it's our Dave...

Ta Phil. Yeah, sounds good. I shall look forward to putting it on the old turntable. I note that the record on the link picture cost £1.50. Mine cost a bit more but I'm sure it's worth every penny!!!

BTW, with vinyl making a comeback, maybe some of these 'lounge-core' classics will get reissued...???

I actually used to have a Philicorda!

It was exactly the same as the one in JimN's photo. What I really liked about it (as a non-keyboard player!) was that the first octave and a half could be switched to one-note chord operation.

Bought mine off a friend of mine in 1976 (actually I think it originally belonged to his mother) for £95. Years later he told me he'd felt really guilty about that, as he'd only paid £45 for it!

I remember it having a really nice reverb, in fact I used to plug my other instruments and amplifiers into it just because of that.

It was a decent piece of kit back then.

Whilst I don’t recall us ever having the pre-requisite ‘avacado’ bathroom suite, back in the 1970s we definitely had a four-piece bathroom suite which was a similarly trendy deep purple colour. The taps were gold-plated and I remember the plug on the bath was raised by turning the round overflow wheel, that was punctuated around the outside with small circular holes. The wallpaper was glossy – waterproof, I suppose – and seemed to be a myriad of dark green and golden patterns. What I loved about that bathroom the most was that the bath itself was reached by stepping through a large tiled arch. If all of this is making you misty-eyed for the 1970s, then there’s a reason for it – I’ve just been listening to my latest acquisition; ‘Alan Hawkshaw plays the Philicorda’. I would argue that this kind of album is just as much the soundtrack of the early 1970s as Led Zeppelin, Sweet, Mud, Slade, Mott the Hoople or T. Rex – by virtue of the fact that this style of music was virtually everywhere at the time; in films, on the TV, in restaurants, supermarkets and, of course, in hotel lounges, etc, etc, etc… Nowadays it would be unfairly labelled as ‘easy listening’, but it’s more than that and it takes me back to rainy Sunday afternoons watching UFO and The Persuaders! on a black and white telly in mum and dad’s bedroom!

I suspect that the LP in question may have been commissioned by Philips as a kind of promotion tool for the Philicorda – Alan almost says as much in his sleeves notes which read a bit like a sales pitch. The instrument itself seems to be something between an organ and a synthesiser, but not quite either. It never quite attains the heavy-duty power of the Hammond, but its wind instrument sounds are good and there’s even a fairly decent accordion sound on ‘Girl Talk’. Needless to say, Big Al gives his usual virtuoso performance and I like to think that he entertained his mates on more than one occasion in his own lounge after dinner on this instrument.

Elsewhere, the playing is tasteful and perfect – Brian has got his ‘big’ tom tom sound here and there and the outro to ‘The Odd Couple’ leaves you in no doubt that you are listening to THE Brian Bennett from the Shadows! Mostly the album consists of ‘standards’, but there’s a nice jaunty piece from Alan called ‘Mariella’ on side one, which closes with the above pretty strident version of ‘Spinning Wheel’. So, yeah, a good purchase.

As I get older I find that I reflect a lot more on the past and in particular the ‘70s, which now seem so long ago and yet vivid in my recollection. And this album somehow helps to bring it all back. Mind you, I bet that the current owners of our old house have long since stripped out that deep purple bathroom suite! Which is a bit of a shame.

P.S. I think the model Alan is using for this record is the 1972, two-manual GM761

I think Danny Richmond belongs to the same parallel universe as Bruce Welsh, Brian Bennet, Liquorice Locking and Cliff Richards...

Iain_P wrote:I think Danny Richmond belongs to the same parallel universe as Bruce Welsh, Brian Bennet, Liquorice Locking and Cliff Richards...

I suspect that he does!! (Great player though!!!!)