Tony (TS) McPhee 1944-2023

I've just heard the sad news of the death of Tony (TS) McPhee.   

Probably best known for his work with the Groundhogs, McPhee was yet another UK blues musician who emerged in the years of the British Blues Boom. 

I first became aware of him via the Immediate label blues compilation "Blues Anytime" (1968) and immediately (no pun intended) found his guitar style very appealing. It was a little more sinewy and rootsy than the style Clapton had pioneered. He became sought after as a session player and, in a stroke of luck when John Mayall's Bluesbreakers were unavailable, as a backing musician for US blues artists such as John Lee Hooker and Champion Jack Dupree on their UK tours.

John Lee Hooker's "Groundhog Blues" was where McPhee got his band's name from, and they went on to build up a strong fan base with their blues-based rock, until psychedelia came along with new avenues to investigate, but not before the band became Hooker's support of choice for his UK shows.

Here's Hooker and the Groundhogs from 1964. That's McPhee to Hooker's left with the Gibson SG.

Although it's pretty much true to say that McPhee was a bluesman first and foremost, he was more than open to experimenting with the sound of his guitar and also exploring other styles of music. He was an inveterate tinkerer with both his guitar and his stage rig, introducing various electronic effects as soon as they came on the market.

This all came to a head in 1971, after some experimentation with the Hogs on various releases, with the "Split" album, inspired by a drug-induced panic attack that McPhee had the year before.

It's a remarkable album with four thematically linked pieces making up Side One and four more blues orientated standalone pieces on Side Two.

The four part "Split" isn't some sort of concept piece - at least, not in sound - as each section can be heard individually, with none of the impact lost. Indeed, live, sections were dropped from the set list, and I'm not sure if "Split Part Three" was ever played live. McPhee morphs and warps his guitar as much as the effects of the time allowed and the lyrics all describe feelings of dread and despair, with an existential questioning of the writer's significance.  As pretentious as that might sound, it's powerful and direct stuff with guitar, bass and drums powering behind the bleak vocals.

I can't find any live video clips of the "Split" Side One songs, but the link below takes you to what is probably the best illustration available of how far McPhee and the Hogs had traveled from playing straight blues. It's very much in the style of "Split".

Here's a different video of the band in their heyday, although it's inferior to the one above.

McPhee is on record as saying that he wished he had the means available to further augment his guitar sound on "Split" and he got this wish granted in a way much, much later with "Split Up" in 2015...

"In 1971 when 'Split' was originally released, there were {a few} guitar pedals, mainly wah-wah, overdrive & chorus (with a bit of phasing or 'flanging'). I had an Arbiter and a sound early octave pedal but I was keen to find 'new' sounds, like ring modulation. Some of the 70's bands have re-done their most popular albums but I never thought I could improve on Split, with Martin Birch engineering at De Lane Lea studios, it had it all!
When Andrew Liles (regarded by some to be the funniest man) told me he'd like to re-do Split I thought he was having a laugh, but he has done what I would have IF I'd had the modern pedals.
Andrew has done me a great service by bringing my recordings into the 21st Century."

Cursed with poor health in his later years, after suffering a series of strokes, McPhee quit the Hogs in 2015 and died at home yesterday (6 June) from complications after a fall last year. 

McPhee and the Hogs have been part of my musical world for a very long time and this tribute by Karl Hyde from Underworld, with whom McPhee had recently been collaborating, seems as good as any.

[He was] "one of the greatest unsung guitarists that this country has ever produced, and also one of its most distinct vocalists”.

In 1971, the Groundhogs were on the road supporting the Rolling Stones. The Leeds gig was recorded by the Stones' mobile studio and Glyn Johns captured the whole evening on tape. Mick Jagger gave McPhee a copy of the Hogs' set - half an hour of exciting, driving rock - and this can be yours if you answer the simple question below. 

RIP TS.