Dinosaurdays - Ten Years After

A few weeks ago, we featured an Alvin Lee and Ten Years Later album that's just recently been released on CD. We subsequently got numerous requests to feature more of Alvin Lee and the classic TYA. If you look elsewhere in these pages, in fact barely more than a month ago, you'll find a whole spiel on this legendary UK blues/rock outfit. Our featured album saw the band almost at their peak, capitalizing on their new-found fame at the Woodstock concert. The album was also their most successful, reaching number four on the UK charts. The classic TYA line-up of Alvin Lee on guitar and vocals, Ric Lee on drums, Leo Lyons on bass and Chick Churchill on drums recorded a total of ten or so albums before Alvin Lee dissolved the band, electing to embark on a solo career. It was also around about this time that he also formed Ten Years Later, with Tom Compton on drums and Mick Hawksworth on bass, although this band didn't last too long. After the demise of Ten Years Later in 1980, Lee put together the first of a series of Alvin Lee bands which he worked with throughout the eighties. The original TYA reformed for a once-off studio album, "About Time", in 1988. A live "Live 1990" album was also released a few years later, but nothing further was forthcoming from the band. Apparently, the original Ten Years After, Lee included, are together again and touring. It would be great if they recorded some new material together.

TEN YEARS AFTER
Ten Years After - Think about the time, taken off " Watt ", in 1970. Contemporaries of Fleetwood Mac, Savoy Brown and Chicken Shack, TYA were formed in 1966 out of the ashes of The Jaybirds, who backed The Ivy League for a short while. They were formed by vocalist/guitarist Alvin Lee, a man of incredible skill and speed on the guitar.They signed to the Deram Record label and released their first album in 1967. In 1969, they became the first and only rock band to play at the Newport Jazz Festival, but it was their appearance at Woodstock that transformed them into overnight stars. This album, " Watt ", was their final album for Deram, and they moved over to Chrysalis Records. The band split in the mid seventies, with Lee recording and gigging under his own name. 1988 saw them reform and they released a very good album, " About Time ". Quite a few of Lee's solo albums have recently been released on CD.

(If you have more info on this band, please e-mail us)

Biography by William Ruhlmann
Ten Years After is a British blues-rock quartet consisting of Alvin Lee (born December 19, 1944), guitar and vocals; Chick Churchill (born January 2, 1949), keyboards; Leo Lyons (born November 30, 1944) bass; and Ric Lee (born October 20, 1945), drums. The group was formed in 1967 and signed to Decca in England. Their first album was not a success, but their second, the live Undead (1968) containing "I'm Going Home," a six-minute blues workout by the fleet-fingered Alvin, hit the charts on both sides of the Atlantic. Stonedhenge (1969) hit the U.K. Top Ten in early 1969. Ten Years After's U.S. breakthrough came as a result of their appearance at Woodstock, at which they played a nine-minute version of "I'm Going Home." Their next album, Ssssh, reached the U.S. Top 20, and Cricklewood Green, containing the hit single "Love Like a Man," reached number four. Watt completed the group's Decca contract, after which they signed with Columbia and moved in a more mainstream pop direction, typified by the gold-selling 1971 album A Space in Time and its Top 40 single "I'd Love to Change the World." Subsequent efforts in that direction were less successful, however, and Ten Years After split up after the release of Positive Vibrations in 1974. They reunited in 1988 for concerts in Europe and recorded their first new album in 15 years, About Time, in 1989 before disbanding once again. In 2001, Ric Lee was preparing the back catalog for rerelease when he discoverd the Live at the Fillmore East 1970 tapes. He approached Alvin about getting back together to promote the lost album, but Alvin Lee declined. The rest of the band was up for it, though, and together with guitarist Joe Gooch, Ten Years After started touring again. In addition to touring the world, this new incarnation recorded their first new material in about a decade and a half and released Now in 2004 and added the live double CD set Roadworks in 2005.

Chick Churchill
Alvin Lee
Ric Lee
Leo Lyons
Joe Gooch

Eric Clapton
Jimi Hendrix
Derek & the Dominos
Savoy Brown
Chicken Shack
Fleetwood Mac
Cream
Canned Heat
Jeff Beck
Beck, Bogert & Appice
Paul Butterfield
The Sons of Champlin
Blodwyn Pig
Foghat
Leaf Hound
Jeremy Spencer
Jimmy Page
Led Zeppelin
Jeff Healey
Blind Faith