Customer Reviews

Undead

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(10)
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When Alvin Lee & Ten Years After were first invited to play in America by legendary rock promoter Bill Graham in 1968, they wanted to release an album to coincide with the tour. Their 2nd studio effort (Stonedhenge) was not yet complete, so it was decided to release a live album. The result was one of the best live recordings of the period, and it arguably remains as one of the best "Live Rock & Blues" albums ever! As indicated in my Visual History book on Ten Years After - when Alvin Lee first heard this album he thought "Well that's it, that is probably the best I'll ever play and there are going to be problems recording in the future because that encompasses just about everything the band can do". Fortunately things turned out much better for Ten Years After but, listening to UNDEAD, it quickly becomes evident that Alvin's initial concerns were not unfounded. This album absolutely "SMOKES" from the onset and the musicianship is remarkable throughout.

Ten Years After were quite different from the other "2nd British Invasion" blues bands of the late 60's because they effortlessly fused jazz and blues, and that characteristic is exemplified in this album. "Woodchoppers Ball" and "I May Be Wrong, But I Won't Be Wrong Always" are absolutely stunning and every bit as impressive today as when they were originally recorded. A few critics later got some sort of perverse pleasure from claiming that Alvin Lee's guitar playing was "all haste and no taste", but none of that is remotely evident on UNDEAD. His highly accomplished and precise technique on the aforementioned two songs dances above, around, and under any solos recorded by the other so-called "guitar gods" of the time. The four new tracks, comprised of material originally excluded due to vinyl record time limits, have made the remastered CD even better. "Spoonful" and "Crossroads" were, of course, played by almost all of the British blues bands and Alvin obligingly introduces "Spoonful" as a "Clapton - Howlin' Wolf number". But it's a treat to now hear TYA's own version of these tunes with Alvin's inimitable guitar work.

In the wonderful booklet that accompanies the CD, drummer Ric Lee describes the added "I Can't Keep From Crying Sometimes" as being, "a bit rough around the edges". Although it's not quite the polished version found on future TYA releases, it is very much a "diamond in the rough" being an early and quite interesting 14 minute version of the song. The closer, "I'm Going Home", is only half the length of that famous Woodstock version that would emerge more than a year later - yet it is every bit as energetic, and perhaps even more so!

I strongly recommended the other TYA re-releases ("Ten Years After", "Stonedhenge", "Live At The Fillmore East 1970" & "Cricklewood Green"). They all have bonus tracks and great new descriptive booklets authored by Ric Lee, with the original artwork plus several additional rare photos. But if you have not yet heard any of them, I suggest you start with UNDEAD ...It truly Rocks !!

Herb Staehr

When I first purchased this album a few monthes ago, I was a bit hesitant. But once I put it in my player I knew I had made a wise purchase. The lyrics are a little below par, but the musical virtuosity is hard to top. Listen to the great bass solos on "I may not always be right" and "at the woodchopper's ball." When you can hear Alvin Lee in the back screaming out "yeah!" you know these guys came to play and are no frills blues rockers. The absolute speed of guitarist Alvin Lee is incredible. He is sorely underrated in the group of 1960's blues guitarists. Song after song he churns out blues lick after blues lick at a pace which has to be heard to believe. The ending song-"I'm going home" is a bit subdued when compared to the essential 12 min version from Woodstock a year later. Reagardless, this album is one which you should buy if you love blues and want to hear some speedy guitar. The performances are great and will leave you wanting more from this seminal British blues band.

Ten Years After appeared in 1966, the same year that cream and jimi hendrix made their british debuts, marking a new era in british rock. These bands took american blues and added volume, jazz experimentalism, and their own unique twist to create a high point in rock development. Ten Years After featured the incredible guitar work of Alvin Lee, a player who merged jazz dexterity with rock and blues grittiness, but never achieved the same notoriety as his compatriots hendrix, clapton, jeff beck, or jimmy page. He himself always seemed to downplay his own ability, forever trying to outrun the image of him in sonic oblivion at woodstock. This album, though, captured the band in its live glory. It runs from scorching blues to seminal jazz fusion ("woodchoppers' ball"), all driven by lee's guitar. It is raw, loud, and unpolished, but incredibly good at capturing this band at their peak. Worth having, if only to capture a unique moment in rock history.

If you only intend to get one album of Alvin Lee's guitar work - THIS IS THE ONE! I first heard this as a kid rummaging through my big brother's record collection and was totally FLOORED. My dad, also a musician (it runs in the family), felt that this version of "Woodchopper's Ball" is some of the best guitar playing that he'd ever heard. I've enjoyed "SHHH", "Cricklewood Green", and "Watt", but this is the one that sums up what Ten Years After was all about. I can't recommend it highly enough.

I saw Ten Years After live in a small club called "The Bank" in Torrance, CA, circa 1968, at which time their live act consisted of what is captured here on Undead. I was totally blown away and immediately went out to get the LP. TYA was in a blues/jazz mode at this stage, and although they went on to be a mega superstar act in the later years of their career (I saw them live 4 times thereafter), their style changed somewhat as they began selling more records (mass popularity in the music biz usually requires a less esoteric style for the masses).
Undead captures the band at their purest apogee of intensity and finesse, when jazz and the blues more than rock 'n roll characterized their musicianship. Undead is especially noteworthy for some great bass soloing by Leo Lyons and some jazzy Hammond soloing by keyboardist Chick Churchill. Their later stuff concentrated on Alvin almost exclusively as the band's soloist, as demonstrated by TYA's recent Live At The Fillmore East CD, which although excellent, features Alvin's guitar pyrotechnics exclusively and which relegates Leo and Chick into the background.
Alvin at the time of the late sixties and early seventies was revered as one of the great guitar gods, right up there with Clapton, Page, Beck, and Hendrix. Many contemporary music critics tend to denigrate his style nowadays, characterizing him as all speed and no style. Undead (and Live At The Fillmore East) prove them all wrong, from my estimation, as only a cursory listein to "I May Be Wrong But I Won't Be Wrong Always" or "Woodchopper's Ball" off of Undead will otherwise prove. Absolute jaw-dropping work that his contemporaties in Guitar Olympus would not have been able to duplicate, dare they even have tried.
My only regret with Undead is that they brought out this version with the bonus tracks after I had already purchased the original CD, the latter of which contained only the same tracks as the LP. Is this some sort of insidious packaging conspiracy on the part of the recording industry, or what?
Bottom-line: this is one of the greatest live rock recordings of all time, bar none.

Most people have only heard "I'd love to change the world" by Ten years after, and when you say "blues" in the same sentence as "ten years after" most people get a quizical look on their face, the simple truth is that they were a blues band that evolved into a blues/Rock band.
This live album Perfectly demonstrates this point.
My personal favorites on this recording are "goin home", "woodchoppers ball", and "I may be wrong, but I wont be wrong always".
Alvin lee's guitar playing is some of the fastest you will ever hear, especially on "goin home" and woodchopper's ball".
the rhythm section deserves a medal for keeping up with Lee.
they are all skilled musicians and deliver some great drum and bass solos.
all together this is an album that all blues lovers and guitar players should own, and if you've only heard "I'd love to change the world",you owe it to yourself to hear the best of their stuff.

I think these guys must have bionic joints, because they can play so fast for so long. This is a recording made "one summer night in 1968 at the famous Klooks Kleek club" and boy I wish I could have been there! The first time I heard these guys was from a documentary about the Isle of Wight festival and I thought "Wow!" then I saw them play "I'm Going Home" on the Woodstock film and I thought "That was one of the best things my ears have ever heard!" I was an instant fan! "Undead" has an earlier recording of "I'm Going Home" which is very tame compared to the Woodstock version, but excellent nonetheless. The standout track is "At The Woodchoppers Ball" which is the reason for this review's title. Never before have I heard people play so furiously for so long. I'm surprised that they had enough juice to finish their set! The only thing that approaches this kind of endurance is one of those crazy-long Alex Van Halen drum solos. Maybe he was inspired by these guys. At any rate, this is a great cd that should have a place in any music lovers collection, especially those who don't mind a little noise or a few goosebumps along the way.

I have mentioned in other reviews, how highly I regard Alvin Lee. Many others have given you their long winded reviews of this musical offering. My crique is more simple and to the point. This CD/album changed the description of what is required of a rock/blues/jazz guitar player. Alvin is cemented into the top five rock & roll guitarist and to be truthful, he is actually in the top five axe players of ANY genre.

I had the great fortune of attending TYA in concert, as the middle act on a three act show in 1970, where the great Muddy Waters was the headliner. Ten Years After stole HIS show! In truth, Alvin Lee stole the show. I was in total awe of this man with his fret speed. The ONLY other artist I ever saw that was in his league with speed, is/was Johnny Winter (another on my top five list). What is so unique about Alvin, is the clarity that he maintains with such speed. Many times, he is so clean and fast that his guitar comes across as sweet as a violin.

This is as close as you'll get to hearing what Bill Graham and others found amazing as a live performer! Graham continued to use TYA at both Fillmores and at Winterland. TYA's album "Live at the Fillmore East" is a steal on Amazon MP3 download for $8.99 for the two disc set.

If you are new to TYA, "A Space In Time" (in my humble opinion) is their best studio offering as a group.

It appears I've found myself being long winded too. It is hard not to be when reviewing a LIVING LEGEND. Buy it and smile:)

After releasing their debut album and earning a reputation as an earth-shattering live band, Ten Years After decided to record their second album, UNDEAD, in a small club in England called Klooks Kleek (it was not recorded at The Marquee Club, as many people seem to think). It amply demonstrates the uncanny stamina of the band in concert.

This is primarily a jazz album, except for one song, the slow blues "Spider In My Web". All the other songs are pure jazz, and Lee plays them so damn good that you almost begin to wonder if the guy was born with a guitar in his hands! I'm telling you - no other guitarist in the world has ever played jazz like Lee does on this album. The best example, of course, is "At The Woodchopper's Ball", in which the boys take Woody Herman's jazz classic and turn it into a breathless jamming extravaganza. Just listen to those guitar licks, unbelievable or what?! Alvin's playing is so fast, smooth and fluid that you simply can't help but marvel at him. And if you listen closely, after Churchill's organ solo, he even inserts a few guitar lines from "Rock Around The Clock"! But with all due respect to Bill Haley, he could never match this in his wildest dreams. Anyway, Leo Lyons is also given a bass solo, although it's nothing spectacular (I'm MUCH more fascinated by the way he thumps his instrument on the Woodstock version of "I'm Going Home"). But you hardly even get a chance to contemplate his bass before Alvin comes back and rips into it one more time for the grand finale. AWESOME!
No other song on the album could hope to beat that masterpiece of jamming, but they do come awful close. "I May Be Wrong, But I Won't Be Wrong Always" also swings pretty good, and once again, Alvin plays some killer licks and Churchill and Lyons are each given a chance to solo (you could never accuse Alvin of hogging the spotlight). The slow blues tune "Spider In My Web" shows Alvin taking a page out of Eric Clapton's book and delivering some stunning blues work. That is, until it comes time for the solo, when he just freaks out and starts playing a thousand notes per second!
"Summertime" is a trip, with some rather psychedelic guitar licks. And it segues into Ric Lee's drum tour-de-force "Shantung Cabbage". Ric is definitely a very underrated drummer, and he proves it here. I just love the way he wails on that snare drum.
And last, but certainly not least, is "I'm Going Home". While not nearly as mind-blowing as the Woodstock version, it's still quite good. VERY good, in fact. The intro alone is fabulous, as Alvin introduces some blazing notes before the rest of the band follows him and starts to get a killer groove going. Perfect way to end a perfect album.

Ride on, Mr. Lee!

Believe me, this was TYA recorded in top form live at the North London club, Klooks Kleek in 1968. I know many Americans believe that the performance at Woodstock was brilliant and Lee's best. But by that stage TYA had largely become 3 backing musicians massaging Alvin Lee's (by then) hugely inflated ego. His performance there was grossly overstated to the point of embarrassment, and alienated many of his Brit fans, myself included. But undeniably it did break TYA's career in the States if nothing else.

Meanwhile just over a year earlier this album shows what Alvin Lee and the boys were really capable of. Here, TYA work as a serious jobbing band and not just there purely to showcase Alvin Lee's virtuosity on lead guitar, although naturally he's still the major focus. Then, Lee had a more modest stage personna, and allowed the other members to do more of their thing. Chick Churchill's fine playing on Hammond organ, and Leo Lyon's hard pumping bass result in a strongly jazz flavoured blues set. Both of these guys are given plenty of opportunity to solo, eg I May Be Wrong...and Woodchopper's Ball, two of the most jazz influenced numbers here. WB is a pure instrumental taken at breakneck speed, and Alvin Lee's playing is awesome the first few times you listen to it. Other highlights are, I can't Keep From Crying (not on the original album) and the controversial I'm Going Home. This is how it was normally played pre-Woodstock. Spider In My Web is a decent slow blues track, penned by Lee, whose limited vocal style is exposed here. But to be honest, Lee's vocals were never his strong point.

There's no doubt that Alvin Lee was on fire that night, and sadly from '69 onwards, he never sounded as inspirational again. Those that accuse Lee of being a tasteless, cliché-ridden blues guitarist who could play fast had a point when I listen to his post '69 work. But Undead proves that before Alvin Lee got big-headed he was a guitarist to be reckoned with, and possibly more talented than most of his more famous white blues guitar peers around at that time.....Recommended especially for blues guitar fans.