Hut rockin’ tonite
This month’s lost artefact: out-of-time prog made with half of Brian Jones’s Mellotron.
“We were furious, but what can you do?” ROBERT WEBB
England
Garden Shed ARISTA, 1977
THE PARTIAL destruction of a classic Mark II Mellotron that once belonged to Brian Jones isn’t a typical claim to fame in music circles, but over the decades, keyboardist Robert Webb’s so-called ‘Half-A-Tron’ has become a novel hook in the legend around the quartet called England. Yet the real story is the only album released during their lifetime – a prosaically titled but dazzlingly rendered prog listening experience which was markedly out of kilter with its times.
England’s troubled saga began with Sussexbased drummer Mark Ibbotson, who formed England in the early ’70s, churning through different incarnations until he met Webb and guitarist Jamie Moses. Even in his teens, Webb could play lead parts equally well with either hand, Rick Wakeman-style, and while working as an organ salesman at the Croydon branch of Western Music, he added jazz licks (thanks to lessons from the shop manager) to his classical and rock “colour ideas”, as Webb puts it.
Conflating his instrumental vision with the recorded music business proved harder to sustain. After playing with prog band Angel, that group’s guitarist Jamie Moses persuaded him to join Madrigal, who became Merlin, a glam-pop tilt at the big time overseen by prolific hitmaker Roger Greenaway. After one minor chart hit (Let Me Put My Spell On You), Greenaway lost interest. Webb and Moses’ next venture was a new prog band, Royce, but lead singer Nigel Benjamin was “stolen” by Mott as a replacement for Ian Hunter. “We were furious, but what can you do?” says Webb. “But then Jamie met Mark [Ibbotson], who was an extraordinary figure. He owned a big house in the country, an E-Type Jag and loads of equipment, including a Mellotron, though we never knew how he accumulated everything.”
Another unpredictable character was England’s new manager, “a merchant banker who wanted to get into the music business,” says Webb. A 26-minute showcase, Imperial Hotel, was demoed, but Moses soon bailed (“Jamie was fed up with having no money”). His replacement, Franc Holland, and new bassist Martin Henderson made four, but then Ibbotson also quit. Still, Arista were keen to sign England, and paid an advance which allowed the band to tour. Webb had refused to give Ibbotson’s Mellotron back –
“We’d come too far for this guy to jeopardise our whole situation” – and given the bulk and weight of the Mark II double keyboard, he decided to sacrilegiously saw it in half, preserving the one keyboard and associated machinery that he deemed essential.
Armed also with mini-Moog, grand piano and Hammond organ, Webb’s ‘colour ideas’ saturated Garden Shed,a dynamic zig-zagging landscape pitched perfectly between the early Genesis, Yes and Caravan models of prog, with Webb’s high-pitched vocals reminiscent of Yes frontman Jon Anderson. One track, All Alone, recalled a harmony-heavy Queen ballad (“Merlin got compared a lot to Queen,” says Webb), while Yellow (written by new drummer Jode Leigh) struck a more blissful, pastoral tone. But the twin poles of Garden Shed were the exuberant 12 minutes of Three Piece Suite and 16-minute finale Poisoned Youth, where Webb extracted the most from his bastardised Half-a-Tron.
Peak prog, then. Annie Nightingale raved over lead single Paraffinalea: “England is destined for great things,” she predicted. Melody Maker liked the single too, but its review of Garden Shed started with “Yes in Toyland.” Webb was initially hurt, “but others said, ‘it acknowledges you’re as good as Yes, but with a different, more childlike slant’. Alan Freeman played [opening track] Midnight Madness on Radio 1, but nothing came of any of it.”
The album’s true death knell, though, was delivered by punk. At gob and anarchy’s commercial zenith in 1977, without a fanbase or live reputation, England were always going to struggle. “Prog was old hat,” says Webb. “Musically, I had no problem with punk, but the media adopted it as a new trend, to the detriment of bands like England who continued to make interesting, deeper music.”
Feeling battered by circumstance, Webb split the band, sold equipment to pay off debts, including the Half-a-Tron, and immersed himself in session work. Yet, towards the end of the ’80s, Webb heard about Garden Shed being bootlegged in Japan, and declared, “Someone loved us after all!” Official reissues followed in 1997 and 2005, with artwork as originally intended. “I think there are 17 versions of Garden Shed out there, legal and illegal,” says Webb. “It has its own life now.”
Webb and bassist Henderson even fronted a version of England for two shows at prog festivals in Japan and Mexico in 2006. Guitarist Holland joined a one-off UK show in 2019, with Leigh (unable to drum due to ill-health) adding vocals to a rendition of Poisoned Youth. Despite the pitfalls, Webb is philosophical about England’s fate. “I feel privileged,” he says. “Any interest in Garden Shed has purely been from the ground up, because people have actually listened to the music. That’s enough for me.”