Issue #160 – Shirley Kent / The Ghost

In issue #160 (buy here) Brum music expert SHAUN HAND tracked town Shirley Kent to talk with her about her days a a folk singer and in the psych/prog band THE GHOST.

In this extract the music historian discovers how the folky went rock

In late 1969, Shirley [Kent] went along to hear The Holy Ghost rehearse at The Arts Lab in Aston. “While we were there, Gordon [Henderson, her then partner] suggested I joined the band,” she explained. Everyone was a little taken aback. This was a long-haired underground band with a provocative name. For all her eclectic tastes, Shirley was from another, far more demure musical world. However, she loved the sound of the band and got up and sang two songs with them… “[We] instinctively

harmonised… The rest is history.” She was in. So too was her fiancé, whom the band insisted become their manager.

Musically, teaming up with Shirley made sense for The Ghost – who dropped the “Holy” at their new manager’s suggestion. One of the dominant influences on Birmingham’s increasingly heavy guitar bands had been American West Coast rock. The folk scene Shirley had worked on had also been evolving. By alternating male and female vocals in a Jefferson Airplane/Fairport Convention style (as well as Shirley, both Eastment and keyboardist Terry Guy were excellent singers), The Ghost could both fit in and stand out.

At 55 years’ distance, the chronology is sketchy, but everything happened quickly. Through Henderson, The Ghost soon got gigs and a deal with President Records offshoot Gemini. Just months later, they found themselves in Hollick & Taylor Studios in Handsworth, recording their debut album in a 10-hour session broken only by a tea break in a nearby café. The resulting 11-track LP, When You’re Dead – One Second, was released in mid-70.

Its artwork is very much of its time, superimposing a photo of the band over a tombstone. The blood-drip font also leans into the contemporary vogue for merging horror and nature worship. “The spin then was ‘new Pagan’,” Shirley explained in Summer Is Icumen In.

When You’re Dead… won’t win any artwork awards, but there’s a reason collectors fork out up to £900 for an original: its music is a superb document of a group that knew how to write and play and handle ambitious arrangements. From the frantic Farfisa of ‘When You’re Dead’ (also issued as the band’s debut 45), through Shirley’s jazzy ‘Time Is My Enemy’ to the incredible, ever-shifting ‘Indian Maid’, it’s raw and exciting but also remarkably coherent for a brand-new band striving to blend rock, jazz and folk.

Both album and single got strong reviews but, like many of the era’s best records, failed to chart. An Evening Mail article from the time praises the band’s “new aggressive sound – so versatile and original”. In true knee-rubbing style, it also describes Shirley as “indeed an asset. She sounds rather like Judy Collins and looks good, too!”

Buy issue #160 here to read the full article