Roy Wood: Forever

I used to be ashamed that Wizzard had been my favourite band in 1973. But the more I have learnt about music history, the less ashamed I have begun.

Alex Petridis wrote about Roy Wood, the band's founder, this week:

His influence has occasionally seeped into subsequent pop in some peculiar ways – not least the fact that Glen Matlock claimed the opening guitar riff of God Save the Queen by the Sex Pistols was based on the Duane Eddy-inspired twang of Fire Brigade – but you never hear Wood’s name dropped as an inspiration by a hip new band. 

The heritage rock mags never run grand retrospective features, tracing his career from the Move, through the formation of ELO to Wizzard and his extraordinary, maverick solo albums, Boulders and Mustard, in the 1970s. He is seldom placed on a par with all the other revered idiosyncratic pop craftsmen, which is exactly where he belongs.

Forever was a solo single replaced by Wood in 1973, when it made number 8 in the charts.

Petridis described it as "a solo hit that imagined what it would be like if Neil Sedaka had joined the Beach Boys with beautiful results".

The results were beautiful, but I recall from the time that Forever was chiefly a homage to Del Shannon.