Wishbone Ash
Pilgrimage

THE REVIEW

The Wishbone Ash (a name that could be devastatingly translated into Italian as "Cenere di forcella di pollo") is an English quartet dedicated to a composed and melodic blues rock, softened and varied, at least in the early years of their career, by substantial folk and progressive elements. Their acknowledged strength is the careful and evocative arrangement for dual lead guitar across their repertoire, while the undeniable weakness has always been the lack of a solid and charismatic lead singer.

Perhaps aware of this, the band assembled only a paltry three lyrics for the seven tracks included in this second album, two of which are purely instrumental, while the other two are resolved with three-voice jazz style vocal harmonies, without any lyrics. Those were times (we are in 1971) when even such things were permissible... the album, in fact, managed to decently climb the UK charts, paving the way for the third and bestselling album "Argus," with content very similar to this and of quality, in my opinion, not much higher.

Wishbone Ash is therefore a band whose music naturally and logically revolves around what the guitars are doing first of all: the determination and organization with which the pair of soloists, namely Andy Powell and Ted Turner, arranged their respective parts had no equals in the rock domain. The composite sound they created was something different and superior to the simple sum of the two instruments, enabling them to write their own, unique page in the great book of rock, gaining respect from much of the music industry.

Of the only three tracks with lyrics, two are nothing more than rock'n'roll, one of them even live. But they are splendid! Naturally, for guitaristic merits... The one recorded in studio is titled "Jail Bait," an untranslatable Anglo-Saxon slang referring to underage girls already well developed sexually; given the spicy subject, there is a substantial number of songs with this same title (works of experts like Eric Clapton, Aerosmith, Motorhead, Ted Nugent...), still different from each other. "Pilgrimage" is sung by the guitarist Powell, but relies mostly on the solos' exchanges, on the spectacular intersections of notes and the tantalizing harmony obbligatos of the twin guitars, further enlivened by the classic, unmissable stop&go of the rhythm section.

The second rock'n'roll, as mentioned drawn directly from a concert, is placed at the end of the album and lasts over ten minutes, expanded as it is by the classic superstructures of a typical Encore, a goosebump reserved as an encore to conclude the show. It therefore includes endless solos, audience call and response, volume reduction to pianissimo just whispered, preluding successive, blinding explosions of sound, and so on: clearly the group's desire to forever capture, on a mostly studio album, a particularly exuberant and well-played performance.

The last of the sung tracks "Valediction" is a three-voice folk ballad, rather lamenting but with the usual guitars in great form, both sketching the main melody of the refrain and (particularly Turner's) "speaking" in the long solo, succeeding in an emotional phrase that makes sense, accompanied by the creative bass of Martin Turner (not related to guitarist Ted).

Very folk is the first part of "The Pilgrim", the album's most ambitious track: delightful electroacoustic counterpoints at fingertips until the irruption, in the coda, of a robust electric groove in seven-four, where the whole group gives it all for long minutes, decisively entering a progressive environment, with the classic garnish of rhythm and atmosphere changes. The guitars always maintain great interest and quality of sound, constantly in the foreground except for a brief vocal inlay, which sees the three singers (the two Turners and Powell) this time in unison, dealing with a swinging melody, in the manner of a jazz brass section.

Same thing for the opening track "Vas Dis", this time a cover, precisely of a jazz standard by the organist Jack McDuff. The work of the three voices in unison, on the long theme that characterizes the piece, is this time predominant and surpasses, on this occasion, the hegemonic guitars (but not Martin's bass, which roams agilely far and wide).

The last two tracks, short and filler instrumentals, are filled with delightful electroacoustic arpeggios, terribly... British (perfectly suited, for instance, for outings towards Stonehenge or similar places), with their suggestive and delicate sound arabesques, accredited to guitarist Ted Turner, in my taste the most interesting musician of the four. He was the head of the folk and progressive component of the Wishbone Ash sound, achieved with a simple and charming style, to which people like Mike Oldfield, the Camel, and even Genesis certainly lent an ear more than interested at the time.

Wishbone Ash is still active, both in discography and, above all, in concerts. The lineup has seen the succession, over the past forty years, of a host of guitarists, bassists, and drummers around the only constant point, the blonde (once... for a long time now displaying the classic full bald) and rock star Andy Powell, logically having risen over the years to a dominant position within the group, which he firmly held in the realm of melodic rock, more or less hard depending on the periods and collaborators chosen, but always with the unmistakable hallmark of the brand: the twin guitars.