Shindig! #167 – COB

CLIVE PALMER founded The Incredible String Band, then left before it achieved huge success and acclaim. Palmer’s wanderlust and pursuit of his own muse took him down many roads, including the unique CLIVE’S ORIGINAL BAND, one of “progressive folk’s most progressive bands”.

Following many years of research, GRAHAME HOOD finally tells the full story

COB only did a handful of gigs before Spirit Of Love was released in November. Clive was now mainly playing guitar, having sold his banjo to Ralph and having to borrow it back for one track. “I was skint!” It had a great cover painting, showing John playing the dulcitar. The music on the album was very varied, ‘Wade In The Water’ being sung a capella with Ralph banging a drum “to keep them in time”, ‘Evening Air’ features the dulcitar, John bending the notes sitar-style and also playing recorder. Most critics reckoned the standout tracks to be ‘Scranky Black Famer’, a traditional Scottish song sung in a pretty good accent by Clive over a chanted “Aum-ba Oo-da”, and ‘When He Came Home’. It starts off in three-part harmony. The exile’s return: “And nothing was quite the same as he dreamt that it would be.” Guest cellist Ursula Smith plays an achingly mournful part and at the end John starts a riff on Indian hand-organ which Ursula picks up on, with Mick adding percussion as it speeds off into the distance. ‘Sweet Slavery’ was another outstanding track. All the tracks were co-credited though Mick wrote most of the lyrics.

Melody Maker made it folk album of the month. “COB is unlike anything on the folk scene.” It didn’t sell though. However, gigs started coming in and they even acquired a roadie, Roger Blackmore, whose VW campervan became the COB-mobile. CBS also issued a six-track maxi-single/EP, designed to be played as 33 1/3 rpm. Entitled A Folk Sampler, it featured a track apiece by Anne Briggs, COB and Therapy on each side. COB’s tracks being ‘Sweet Slavery’ and ‘Music Of The Ages’.

 John points out that, though he did a lot for them, Lustig was never their actual manager, having much bigger fish to fry (Pentangle and Ralph McTell for two). COB were signed with Chrysalis and got enough gigs to live off, often supporting Ralph. From the beginning of ’72 they travelled all over Britain, supporting everyone from Argent to Country Joe in concert, as well as folk club and college gigs. A gig in Chatham was recorded by the club organiser and has since been bootlegged. It marks the transition between the first album and what was to come, Clive now playing a clarinet he had bought for seven pounds in a junk shop after getting into Klezmer music and John acquiring a harmonium, another junk shop find. In May they played a notorious festival at Bardney near Lincoln. The folk acts were intended to be part of a “festival within a festival”, playing from 10am to 1pm each day, “in a tent if wet”. “The place was decimated by a hurricane the night before,” Clive recalled of the typical disaster festival. The tent blew away and they weren’t put on until the Sunday morning and only had to do three songs. “You couldn’t see the audience. They were sheltering under plastic sheets.”

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