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| Big Swifty
recorded a session for Portsmouth's Radio Victory from which Endless Dream
their classic pyschedelic barnstormer comes. You can hear them perform
it on Vaguely Sunny - Isle of Wight Rock anthology CD, price £10 p&p |
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Big
Swifty
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An
extract from Isle of Wight Rock - a music anthology:
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| Big Swifty were keepers of the rock funk flame. Homegrown groove merchants par excellence who finally sank way out east in the Sahara. |
| ‘Swifty’ were, originally, the unlikely combination of the remnants of Paul Athey’s short lived Marimba Combo and folk guitar trio Shimera. The Adi Charlton/Russell brothers Ian and Alan plus Chris Mackett and Martin White had out America’d America with endless renditions of Ventura Highway. Pared with Dancers powerhouse engine room the band began to pull a full head of steam. |
| An early support gig with the very loud and “world’s greatest rock and roll band” the Rubettes at Sandown Pavilion pinpoints why we needed saving from the worst flared demin platform booted malaise that rock and roll sank into. Big Swifty were our saviours from mediocrity, in the West Wight at least. |
| During the summer of 1976 Big Swifty held court at the Blue Lagoon on Sandown seafront with Mick Woods fluid guitar work becoming a permanent feature by August 1976. Island songwriter Mick Jolliffe succinctly recalled the spirit of these pre-punk salad days. |
| High summer in Sandown, the hottest one in living memory and the sand white hot and hissing as the tide came in. It was the night we got a parking ticket and I got a bad sandwich in a rip-off cafe out to destroy the tourist trade single handed. |
| It was BIG SWIFTY at the Blue Lagoon, street level rock’n’roll and all around punters swaying, their perspiration running down the walls, condensation that rained from the ceiling turning your hair green in the lights. It was a different line-up then, but the driving power was still in the hands of Paul Athey and Micky Cuffe – listen please to Mickey Woods on guitar, Adrian Charlton on guitar and Chris Mackett on vocals. |
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Mike Jolliffe in Big Blue Programme Big Blue Whale Benefit at Ryde Town Hall, February 1st 1977 |
| During the winter of 1976/77 Big Swifty blew wide of the rising rebellion of punk. Sticking tight to the territory held by Billy Cobham, The Crusaders, Ronnie Laws and Return to Forever they mixed jazz rock standards with much of their own material. One Big Swifty song Endless dream has a timeless quality about it. It builds with Athey’s shimmering cymbals against a picked guitar intro blended with plucked harmonics. The section rises and falls before Chris Mackett’s lung busting vocal heralds in some cracking guitar work from Mick Woods and as rock solid rhythm from both Mick Cuffe and Paul Athey. |
| (Boon Gould depped for Mick Cuffe on bass for Big Swifty's final hour touring the Middle East, they came home and disbanded. Boon left for London and eventually joined Islanders Mark King and brother Phil in Level 42) |
| Big Swifty
recorded a session for Portsmouth's Radio Victory from which Endless Dream
their classic pyschedelic barnstormer comes. You can hear them perform
it on Vaguely Sunny - Isle of Wight Rock anthology CD, price £10 p&p |
