Another of Status Quo’s founder members, bassist Alan Lancaster, has died. He played with the band through their early heyday, from 1967-1985 and again in 2013-14.
This song is from 1972 from around the time the band had hit on the recipe of driving rock which would ensure more sustained success and fan loyalty than they had previously achieved. Lancaster’s bass was a major part of that.
Status Quo: Paper Plane
Alan Charles Lancaster: 7/2/1949 – 26/9/2021. So it goes.
Though it seems I didn’t, I thought I had mentioned in Friday on my Mind 29 that I actually bought Status Quo’s first hit Pictures of Matchstick Men, though they were The Status Quo then.
This follow-up – remarkably similar to that first hit and which appeared on the ludicrously titled first LP, Picturesque Matchstickable Messages from the Status Quo – has a title that is all too appropriate, but has a bass line reminiscent of Hendrix.
The Status Quo: Black Veils of Melancholy
Richard John (Rick) Parfitt: 12/10/1948 – 24/12/2016. So it goes.
I leave here for five minutes (well, two days, but I had good reasons; the 24th is my birthday and yesterday was Christmas) and two more rock stars have departed this world.
I had barely begun to think about what song I would mark Rick Parfitt‘s passing with when the news came of George Michael‘s death.
Parfitt was more my era but, unlike some, Status Quo had staying power: as did George Michael.
For this was how they announced themselves to the world in 1968. As apparently fully paid up members of the flower power tendency – complete with (short) styled hair, kaftan type jackets and phasing. And not a three chord boogie in sight – or sound.
They might have had more success initially if the follow-up single hadn’t been almost a carbon copy of Matchstick Men and so cheerily titled, Black Veils Of Melancholy. However that might have led to them breaking up and disappearing.
Another hit did come with the still psychedelia tinged Ice In The Sun later the same year (and a minor one with the more ballad-like Are You Growing Tired Of My Love? a few months on.)
It wasn’t till they covered (fruitlessly) the Everly Brothers hit The Price Of Love that they hit on the style they become known and loved/reviled for. Down The Dustpipe (1970) continued to show their inclinations but it was Paper Plane (1971) and Caroline (1973) that cemented them.
