Showing posts with label british folk rock. Show all posts
Showing posts with label british folk rock. Show all posts

Sunday, May 22, 2016

Iconic STRAWBS Revisit the USA

Strawbs have sold more records in the USA and Canada than anywhere.  In the USA the band had seven consecutive albums in the Billboard Top 200.  Their album, Hero & Heroine, was listed last year by Rolling Stone magazine as “one of the 50 greatest prog rock albums of all time". 

And, founding member Dave Cousins has been described by All Music Guide as: “the most talented Dylan influenced songwriter to come out of England”. He previously released, in December of 2014,  his long awaited, and critically acclaimed, autobiography  Exorcising Ghosts: Strawbs and Other Lives (out via Omnibus Pr & Schirmer Trade Books).   It was listed by influential critic Richie Unterberger in his “Top 10 of 2014 rock books”.


Strawbs are often mentioned in the same breath as progressive rock bands like Yes, King Crimson, and The Moody Blues. It is well known that keyboardist Rick Wakeman left Strawbs for Yes. Rick was followed by Blue Weaver; who left Strawbs to join the Bee Gees, John Hawken; from the original
Renaissance, Don Airey; now with Deep Purple, Adam Wakeman, and Oliver Wakeman, who, like their dad, left Strawbs to join Yes!

The Strawbs emerged out of the British Folk Movement of the mid-1960s, starting their musical life as the Strawberry Hill Boys, playing bluegrass. They moved into the mainstream in 1967 by making the first Strawbs album, All