Sensationalism
GLASGOW’S CHARISMATIC superhero Alex Harvey would have been 81 on February 4. Only now, though, some 35 years after his passing to a heart attack aged 46, do we have a box that corrals his fourdecade career. On paper such tardiness smacks of oversight, but the truth is probably more prosaic: until now, nobody had the tenacity, sleuthing skills and clearancerights nous to unravel and curate the many storied threads of Harvey’s singular odyssey. Frustratingly, the late ’60s sides his shortlived psychedelic outfit Giant Moth recorded for Decca remain out of reach, but Last Of The Teenage Idols disinters a wealth of rare and previously-deleted Alex. Its many treasures include everything he did with SAHB, two rollicking live albums by early Hamburg-scene incumbents Alex Harvey And His Soul Band, 1964’s The Blues, the stripped-down standards record Alex made with younger brother Les, and tracks from 1969’s Hair Rave Up (when Gerome Ragni and James Rado’s iconoclastic stagemusical hit London, Alex was in the house band). There’s even a chunk of the great man’s ill starred but fascinating foray into documentary, Alex Harvey Presents The Loch Ness Monster. But the previously unreleased material by ’70s titans The Sensational Alex Harvey Band is the main draw – it doesn’t disappoint. The original tracklisting of SAHB’s 1975 concert document Live is now augmented by four more songs from the same Hammersmith Odeon gig. Sgt Fury is particularly ace. The key SAHB rarity to emerge here, however, is No Complaints Department. Driven by Hugh McKenna’s typically inspired piano, it’s a song that was excised from 1977’s Rock Drill at the eleventh hour – and which Alex Harvey Jr cited as the nexus of his father’s grief when this writer interviewed him for MOJO in 2000. With Alex’s heart-raw vocal addressing both his kid brother Les’s electrocution on-stage while playing with Stone The Crows, and the plane-crash death of his manager and best friend, Bill Fehilly, it’s a poignant listen which goes some way towards explaining Alex’s – and thus SAHB’s – 1978 meltdown. The set’s 64-page hardcover book, with its new essay by Scots writer Tim Barr, addresses many of the happier moments, too. David Bowie visiting Alex and his wife Trudy in hospital when their son was born. Alex kissing the bare bums of the dancers who enhanced SAHB’s take on Irving Berlin’s Cheek To Cheek at their Christmas 1975 Glasgow Apollo shows. The book also has loads of previously unpublished pictures of the ever-knowing, ever-photogenic Alex, my favourite being the one in which he stands slightly apart from his Giant Moth bandmates, one of whom is wearing a monk’s robe.
The mother lode for Harvey fans: a 14-disc box-set comprising 217 tracks. By James McNair.