Ten Years After - Watt

How Alvin Lee’s 12-bar masters boogied into the 70s

After their success at Woodstock, Ten Years After faced 1970 in good heart. This, their sixth album in total, was the second of that year after Cricklewood Green, and gives a taste of their live prowess in the shape of Chuck Berry’s Sweet Little Sixteen, recorded at that year’s Isle Of Wight Festival and surprisingly brief at under five minutes. It’s a pleasing addition to the seven studio cuts.

Constant roadwork had honed the quartet’s craft, though it would soon burn them out, and any connoisseur of rock guitar would find something to admire in Alvin Lee’s fleet fretwork. Yet try to whistle any of these tunes five minutes after hearing them and you’ll have your work cut out.

There’s nothing as standout and/or commercial as Love Like A Man, highlight of Cricklewood Green, which had given them an unlikely Top 10 single when edited for airplay. But Watt, released in early 1971, nevertheless followed its long-playing predecessor into the Top 5. The album has already been available in the UK on CD via BGO, but will probably sell more in TYA’s heartland, the United States and continental Europe, than the band’s own country.

Chrysalis/EMI | 2081562

Reviewed by Michael Heatley
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