OLLIE HALSALL

Lovers Leaping THINK LIKE A KEY

A welcome plethora of releases from underrated early 70s greats.

Patto proved too progressive for their own good when it came to reaping the rewards enjoyed by tamer contemporaries on the vibrant early-70s’ UK gig circuit. Although singer Mike Patto humorously flaunted the necessary rock god strut and Ollie Halsall’s quicksilver guitar extrapolations sent packed crowds crazy, their albums failed to sell, leading to the band’s split in 1973.

ONE OF PROGRESSIVE ROCK’S IDIOSYNCRATIC FORGOTTEN TREASURES.

All Patto’s recordings appear on long overdue box set Give It All Away. Having morphed out of R&B stalwarts Timebox, they released 1970’s self-titled debut through Vertigo. Their complex yet contagious sound crystallised on San Antone and The Man, Halsall out-shredding John McLaughlin on Money Bag’s stunning free jazz flight and daredevil 14-minute outtake Hanging Rope. However, it failed to connect with the wider public, as did 1971’s Hold Your Fire, despite Halsall hitting his blistering peak on Air Raid Shelter and Patto himself asserting his larger-than-life personality and lyrical eloquence on You, You Point Your Finger.

Producer Muff Winwood permitted them to loosen up on 1972’s self-descriptive Roll ’Em, Smoke ’Em, Put Another Line Out. Stoned humour imbued Cap’n P & The Attos, while Halsall pummelled piano on Turn Turtle and sounded totally wired on LoudGreenSong’s rollicking boogie. Striving for success, Patto tried commercial songs for fourth album Monkey’s Bum, but Halsall quit mid-recording, ultimately splitting the band and consigning the album to the vaults until it was finally unearthed in 2017.

The guitarist’s brilliance is showcased on a separate release, the live album And That’s Jazz, recorded in 1971 on Germany’s Beat Club and France’s Pop Deux, as well as at a scorching 1973 set from London’s Torrington pub. Halsall rejoined Patto in Boxer, before the singer died of cancer in 1979, after which Halsall laid down the previously unreleased demos collected on Lovers Leaping. The latter found him swapping guitar pyrotechnics for singing lightweight pop-rock that evokes Shakin’ Stevens or Gilbert O’Sullivan, his six-string dizzbombs only rearing on Airplane Food. Halsall himself died of a drug-induced heart attack in 1992.

Today, Patto are a cult footnote in the annals of early 70s rock. But these earlier recordings are testament to them as one of progressive rock’s idiosyncratic forgotten treasures.