Tuesday, December 07, 2010

Wizzard: Ballpark Incident



I am back to blogging, and the first thing to do is post a music video.

Market Harborough is full of posters for a Roy Wood concert which is a good reason to pay tribute to Wizzard. I had the misfortune to get interested in the charts in 1973. It was the height of glam rock and things got worse after that.

Still Wizzard have lasted better than most (to be honest, any) bands of that era. Ballpark Incident was the first of a succession of great singles that relied upon a pastiche of earlier rock styles. Despite what the caption says, it dates from late 1972. Do enjoy the inventive abuse of Steve Wright in the Youtube comments.

At the same time as Wizzard was enjoying chart success, the band's moving spirit, Roy Wood, was issuing solo albums on which he played all the instruments, including the single Forever, which was a sort of Del Shannon pastiche.

I may have to go to that concert.

1 comment:

Andrew Hickey said...

He was doing more than just that - Ball Park Incident and See My Baby Jive were recorded contemporaneously not only with his solo album Boulders (one of my very favourite albums), but *also* the last Move album *and* the first ELO one. I can think of very, very few people who could come up with such a remarkably eclectic body of work in such a short time...