Give my compliments...

...to Mr Harvey

By the time Alex Harvey -  once the winner of a "Scotland's Tommy Steele" contest - hooked up with members of the young hard rock band Tear Gas in 1972, he'd already had an 18 year musical career. This included fronting his own soul band, recording an acoustic blues album, holding down a four year gig in London's West End with the "Hair" pit band and forming various bands and releasing sporadic singles and albums in various styles. However, although he'd just about made a living during this time, he'd achieved almost no commercial or critical success. 

Alex in the Soul Band days

All this was about to change - with the exception of Alex himself...

Certainly, things changed for Alex but Alex himself didn't change very much, if at all, bless him. 

All it took for him to finally capitalise on his existing talents was the catalyst of a highly proficient band with a willingness to play a wide variety of material (including many bizarre covers) and a commitment to entertain. It was almost as if he'd been waiting all along for the right band. He still sang uptempo numbers in an often demented manner, played the lounge singer on the slower ones and delivered it all with no effort to disguise his thick Glasgow accent. Moreover, material that he'd played - original or otherwise - with previous backing bands suited the ex-Tear Gas guys just fine and became greatly improved by their involvement. 

The Sensational Alex Harvey Band - or SAHB as they're usually known - comprised Alex on vocals and occasional guitar, Zal Cleminson on lead, Chris Glen on bass, and cousins Hugh and Eddie McKenna on keyboards and drums respectively. Visually, things were "interesting" - Alex usually wore his trademark black and white hooped t shirt, with either a pirate tailcoat or a biker jacket, Zal went white face dressed in green and yellow lycra, Chris wore brothel creepers and blue lycra with a huge codpiece, Hugh often sported a kimono and Eddie sometimes wore a bow tie with his shorts held up with braces,. Why they were sometimes called "glam" is a total mystery. They weren't remotely "pretty" and they came across as a motley bunch. 

SAHB

Their live shows were often sheer pantomime, with choreographed moves, props and lots of banter between Alex and the audience. This was also a band that could drop in a surprise cover like "Dance to the Music", "School's Out", "Cheek to Cheek" or "Jumpin' Jack Flash", as well as take liberties with their own repertoire as the situation demanded.

To take one SAHB set staple - the old Leiber & Stoller song "Framed" - this could vary from show to show. The protagonist could be Marlon Brando (as the Godfather), Hitler or Jesus - and, yes, they were all framed. One stand out clip has the band performing the number with Alex stuffing stockings in his cheeks and "doing a Brando" to the bemusement of a stoned Oslo audience.

Framed in Oslo

 Notching up seven studio albums in eight years (with Alex taking a two year break during this period), the band's recording career was quite brief and neither the band nor Alex did very much of note after that. However, their back catalogue is well worth investigating and a good place to start is their first two releases, which reveal how serendipitous their union was.

The debut album, "Framed", showed what happens when a musical dam bursts - in this case, a flood of pent up creativity from Alex. Six out of the nine tracks are either covers or Harvey originals that he'd previously recorded, but they'd never sounded as professional or energised as this. The title track, along with "I Just Want to make Love to You" and "Big Louie" were from his early Soul Band days, whilst the other three - "Hammer Song", "Midnight Moses" and "Hole in Her Stocking" - were from later unsuccessful 1960s album releases. They all sounded fresh, and boasted a blossoming theatricality that would be a hallmark of SAHB performances. The remaining tracks were equally good, featuring a carnally tempted saint, Scottish witchcraft, and Glasgow gang culture - indicative of the wide variety of lyrical subject matter to come in later albums. 

The "difficult" second album, "Next...", is slightly more polished than "Framed", and comes with the track that really made people sit up and take notice of the band - "Faith Healer". The track still sounds powerful today, with its ominous pulsing synth lines and Alex in full sexual/evangelical mood. There were a couple of  covers. Jacques Brel's "Next", which received a cabaret treatment, and "Giddy Up a Ding Dong" which played to Alex' 1950s roots, as it was also once recorded by Tommy Steele. The album also introduced the character of Vambo - a sort of Glasgow streets super antihero who would also crop up on the following album as part of the SAHB mythology. 

Nice moves!

 Although very popular in the UK and Europe, the band never really cracked the States, although they were very big in Cleveland, Ohio. The split, when it came, was acrimonious and, as stated above, no one emerged with any great popularity, although Alex' new band did release a new album - "The Mafia Stole My Guitar", which had a few good tracks.

Alex died in 1982, aged 46, and out of all the rock deaths I've known, his was the most upsetting of all. He was one of life's rebels, although there was always a sense of personal responsibilty behind his advocacy for societal change. As he once put it: "When you get your freedom, don't piss in the water supply" .

There'll never be another.

 SAHB's first two albums were reissued as a "two-fer" and that's what's offered here, with a neat bonus in the form of an epub bio of the band.

Just answer the question that'll eventually land in the comments below and these two slabs of prime SAHB will be yours.

I still miss the guy...