GRAHAM BOND Holy Magick!
Graham Bond was one of the most extraordinary characters you could ever wish to meet. Even when the world was full of hellraisers like Keith Moon, Vivian Stanshall, Jimi Hendrix and the Crazy World of Arthur Brown, Graham’s World seemed crazier than most.
A wild-eyed, rotund and moustachioed man, he once burst into a London pub, looking not unlike Genghis Khan on a mission to destroy. He loudly proclaimed he had the power to cast spells and wreak vengeance on all his many enemies. As we tried to calm him down with a healing potion of lager, he began drawing cabalistic symbols on my notebook and ranted about Aleister Crowley, ancient wisdom and the power of the occult. It was the autumn of 1970 and I had hoped to interview him about his latest album ‘Holy Magick’ (now re-issued on a Repertoire CD).
However, the once sensible, talkative and inspirational musician I greatly admired, had become something of a social liability. Of course, I would never admit this at the time. After all it was my job to draw people out and get an interesting story. If Keith Moon wanted to let off a fire extinguisher in a restaurant during an interview, then so mote it be. Bring it on. Even so the Bond who had become obsessed with ‘magick’ and was deeply into drugs was not the sort of chap you’d invite to your next social evening of fondue and backgammon.
POWER OF BOND
Graham Bond was a jazz and blues musician who sang, played alto sax, Hammond organ and the Mellotron. He led one of the greatest and most innovative British R&B bands of the Sixties. The Graham Bond Organisation featured such wondrous musicians as Ginger Baker, Jack Bruce, Dick Heckstall Smith, Jon Hiseman and John McLaughlin. They recorded two of the finest albums of the decade and just one of the tracks ‘Wade In The Water’ had influenced the young Bill Bruford. The teenage drummer would go on to play with Yes, King Crimson and Genesis. Such was the power of Bond.
The experience of playing with Graham also gave Baker and Bruce sufficient confidence to become soloists, composers and bandleaders in their own right. They went on to form the super group Cream with Eric Clapton, a huge international success. But after his star sidemen quit (including Ginger’s replacement Jon Hiseman), Graham languished, unable to find a way ahead and a meaningful outlet for his talents. As a would-be pop star he wasn’t as good looking as Barry Gibb and he certainly couldn’t sing like Tom Jones. As a Hammond organist he wasn’t even as popular as Zoot Money or Georgie Fame. Life looked bleak and so he turned to drink and the supernatural to help achieve his ambitions and bolster his faith. Of course the result was his lifestyle became a shambles and fewer people in the music business would take him seriously.
I would drive miles to see Graham playing a gig, whether it was with a big band, a modern jazz group or blues outfit. He always played with soul and fire and that was reflected in his personality. Far from being the archetypal uncommunicative British modern jazz musician, the first incarnation of Graham Bond was a big hearted, friendly man who could inspire you with his conversation as well as his music.
He was always full of ideas, energy and ambition. Yet once the Organisation broke up he became riddled with anxiety and resentment. Even worse he was descending into a drugs hell. I experienced this at close hand when I went with him to a party where something much stronger than hash was smoked. I was glad to escape what appeared to be a Chinese drugs den but another guest at the ‘party’ died not long afterwards.
PETER FRAMPTON
It wasn’t so bad when Graham was still capable of playing and I once sat in with him on drums at a pub in Islington. It proved one of the most exciting gigs of my life, as just the two of us blasted into a deafening ‘Wade In The Water.’ We should have been joined by a guitarist, but his regular guy Ray Russell refused to play, demanding to be paid the ten shillings he was owed from a previous gig. Graham hid in the toilet rather than cough up. I invited Peter Frampton, but when Peter arrived for the next session, Graham failed to turn up. What a super group that would have been.
Graham never accepted that a chaotic life style might have contributed to his slow decline. Instead he blamed managers, promoters and ‘the freaky beaks.’ My first encounter with Bond was seeing him on alto sax with a South London big band in 1963. I also saw him with the Don Rendell Octet with Johnny Burch on piano. They recorded the acclaimed soul jazz album ‘Roarin’. A few years later the bebopper in a smart blue suit began singing the blues in a raucous wheezy voice and playing Hammond organ with great violence.
Clad in robes and rings, Graham lurched towards his perceived destiny as a rock star. The Graham Bond Organisation, managed by Robert Stigwood, was booked on a UK tour with Chuck Berry. I remember seeing them at Lewisham Odeon when Ginger broke his bass drum pedal in the midst of a solo. His fury almost matched Chuck Berry’s after the R&B idol was heckled by local youths. The Bond Organisation continued their doomed charm offensive by recording a version of the dreary pop ballad ‘Tammy’. All to no avail. Bond just couldn’t crack the Top 20 and by 1966 his wonderful group had disintegrated.
For the next two years Graham tried to revive his career. He married singer Diane Stewart and formed a new band in 1967. The following year he went to America with a Dutch group called The Fool to make an album in New York. Graham enjoyed jamming with various musicians there, including Jimi Hendrix and the Grateful Dead. After a trip to Jamaica he returned to England where he formed Graham Bond’s Initiation with drummer Keith Bailey.
ARREST
Unfortunately the band’s initiation was halted by Bond’s arrest on a bankruptcy charge and he was held in Pentonville Prison until bailed out by Jack Bruce. Eventually the group got on the road and performed regularly during the latter half of 1969. In 1970 Graham was invited to join Ginger Baker’s Airforce, organised after the demise of Blind Faith. Graham was arrested again after the first Airforce show in Birmingham on January 1970, on the same bankruptcy charges.
After his release, Bond remained with Airforce but when an American tour was cancelled, Ginger’s highflying band was forced to take a break. During the hiatus Graham set about recording a solo record for the Vertigo label, which was going to be called ‘Reunion’ but ended up titled ‘Holy Magick.’
The hand picked musicians assembled for this album included keyboard man Victor Brox, guitarist John Moreshead and drummer Keith Bailey. At the sessions it was said that Graham drew a huge pentagram on the studio floor and insisted that all the musicians stood on their birth signs.
Bond the master magician carried out various rituals and set up an altar with two large candles perched on a vibraphone. Victor Brox obediently drank from a chalice Bond offered him and was promptly sick. The fluid it contained wasn’t wine. It was some kind of vomit inducing perfume. As the music got underway one of the candles fell over and set fire to the studio. Outside came a great clap of thunder and it began raining.
The first part of ‘Holy Magick’ consisted of a long improvised piece that related to the Qabalistic Cross, the Pentagram and the Tree Of Life. One of the 18 songs ’12 Gates To The City’ was released as a single coupled with another track ‘Water Water.’ Graham later formed a touring band called Holy Magick that recorded a second album in a proposed trilogy entitled ‘We Put Our Magick On You.’ They played a few gigs but the omens were not good and Holy Magick broke up in 1971. Graham worked briefly with Jack Bruce then teamed up with Pete Brown the former Cream songwriter, as Bond And Brown. After one particularly deafening gig in Leicester, when Graham dropped acid and proclaimed he was the inventor of feedback, Bond and Brown broke up in November 1972.
SHATTERED
By 1973 Graham was reduced to working with semi-pro bands for £5 a night and also played with folk artist Carolanne Pegg in Magus. They played a gig at the Howff Club, London on New Year’s Eve 1973, which turned out to be Graham’s last public appearance. According to biographer Harry Shapiro (author of ‘The Mighty Shadow’) Graham was arrested for drugs possession early in 1974 and sent to a mental hospital. Released in March, friends described as a ‘shattered man’.
One morning he left his flat and went for a walk. He never returned. Two days later the police reported that Bond was the man who had dived under the wheels of an underground train at Finsbury Park station. Graham died instantly. It happened on May 8, 1974 and he was just 37. It was a great tragedy and although his life had been cut short he he’d left a truly magical legacy of inspiration and excitement.
Sunday, September 9th, 2007 in Hot New Repertoire Releases.
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