BLACK WIDOW CAST MORE SPELLS
While some may dispute any musical connections between the two bands, intriguingly they enjoyed the services of the same celebrated producer. Roy Thomas Baker, later famed for his work with Queen, engineered Black Widow’s debut album ‘Sacrifice’ (1970). More recently Baker produced ‘One Way Ticket To Hell…And Back’ (2005) the second platinum selling album by…The Darkness.
While fierce debate has raged over the intentions, serious or otherwise of Justin’s merry men there was no doubting the somewhat frightening activities of Black Widow that often verged on the dangerous. On their album’s opening track ‘In Ancient Days’ Kip Trevor sang in strident tones ‘I conjure thee appear, I raise thee mighty Demon, come before me, join me here…’ Spooky stuff! Kip now admits that strange things happened as a result and he needed to embark on a bout of astral travelling to escape. He also had to flee the wrath of angry ballroom managers when he undressed his latest virgin on stage despite a nationwide ban on nudity and sacrifice. At least the controversy ensured the band appeared on Page 3 of The Sun and upstaged their deadly rivals Black Sabbath.
Rock critics might proclaim that bands such as Black Widow and The Darkness owe more to Spinal Tap than Led Zeppelin or Queen, but there has always been a strong element of theatre about all forms of hard rock. As Kip Trevor explains his band got much of the inspiration for their stage act by working with a friendly theatre group. Fresh interest in the band’s pioneering efforts has been conjured with the release of their best albums by Repertoire Records. ‘Sacrifice’ has been available since 2002 and subsequent albums ‘Black Widow’ and ‘Black Widow 111’ are also re-issued on CD.
Although Black Widow embraced the occult and were often compared to contemporaries Black Sabbath (who shared the same management) their music was surprisingly sophisticated and jazzy overtones set them apart from most heavy rockers.
PESKY GEE!
Black Widow was formed in Wigston, Leicester in 1970 and evolved out of an R&B group called Pesky Gee! that had begun life in 1967. Their singer Christopher ‘Kip’ Trevor was born in Oxford on November 12, 1946. His parents were teachers who travelled extensively before settling in Northamptonshire. After leaving school Kip went to Art College in Leicester. He planned to become a printer and was offered a plum job in Basingstoke that would have included a house as part of the deal. But he had another career in mind.
Says Kip: “ I had been singing since I was 14 and was in a Leicester band called the Fabulous Invaders. I left when I was 19 and planned to go into printing because it was well paid and it was what my mum wanted me to do!”
Just as he was about to take the printing job Kip was offered an audition with another local band. He sang ‘Ain’t That Peculiar’ and was about to leave when someone else approached him at the bar. The week before he’d seen Pesky Gee! playing at Leicester University. It turned out the stranger wanted him to meet the members of Pesky Gee! who promptly said ‘We want you to join our band.’ “It was a crazy situation and I was thrown into confusion.”
Kip decided to forget the other band, and the well-paid printing job and to join Pesky Gee! as singer and guitarist for a paltry £6 a month. Yet the band already had a singer called Kay Garrett. “She was fantastic. She still sings and is just as beautiful. She now works as a paramedic for Leicestershire helicopter ambulance service. The reason they wanted me to join was because they usually had two singers and the other guy had left for some reason.”
Pesky Gee! now comprised Kay Garrett, (vocals), Kip Trevor (vocals, guitar, harmonica), Chris Dredge (guitar), Bob Bond (bass guitar), Clive Box (drums), Jerry ‘Zoot’ Taylor (organ, piano) and Clive Jones (sax and flute). Patrick Meehan managed them and he arranged for them to record an album for Pye called ‘Exclamation Mark’ (1969). The title was a mistake. Pye had simply been asked to remember the band’s name had an exclamation mark! They recorded over night at Decca studios in a four-hour session with engineer the late Gus Dudgeon.
Pesky Gee! played regularly at The Nite Owl club and also entertained the inmates of Leicester prison when they performed a special gig at the behest of the Governor. They also played at London ‘in’ clubs like The Revolution, Blaises and the Bag O’Nails.
As the soul scene began to fade the group began to seek a new musical direction. Kip: “I can’t remember exactly what happened but there was an uncertain period when Chris Dredge left and Jim Gannon joined on guitar and vocals.”
SACRIFICE
Kay Garrett also left to get married but the others carried on and renamed the band Black Widow. Signed to CBS they released ‘Sacrifice’ (1970), written by Jim Gannon, which was a UK Top 40 hit. As single ‘Come To The Sabbat’ was also included on the best selling CBS sampler LP ‘The Rock Machine Turns You On’.
As part of their ‘black magic’ image the band carried out its notorious mock sacrifice of a nude virgin on stage. A volunteer art student played the role. “She was beautiful and embraced the whole idea,” recalls Kip. Many of their occult ideas came from drummer Clive Box, although they were also advised on matters of ritual by Britain’s self styled king of the witches, the late Alex Saunders.
Kip: “Jim and Clive Box came up with the idea of adopting an occult theme and Jim wrote this amazing story. We knew people at the Phoenix Theatre in Leicester and spent a lot of time there putting a show together. We invited our management to come and see this rock opera and the show was an amazing success. Everything changed from then on. CBS got involved and it was like a whirlwind.”
When Black Widow appeared at the 1970 Isle of Wight festival they performed ‘Come To The Sabbat’ in front of hordes chanting fans. And when they later guested at the Plumpton Festival it seemed they were on the road to mega stardom. Kip: “The shows went down an absolute storm. We made our own lighting rig and we were one of the first bands to use dry ice.”
Although they appeared to be in competition with newly emergent Black Sabbath, the groups were actually mates. Kip: “We had a lot of laughs on tour but we pretended we hated each other. In Germany we staged a mock crash in a car park. We drove two VW vans we’d hired towards each other, collided and wrote them off. It was a joke that went too far. Their album came out the same week as ours but we had more publicity thanks to our sensational ‘live’ show at The Lyceum Ballroom in London.
Cameras were banned because there was going to be nudity on stage. But The Sun had been tipped off. My manager said ‘Whatever you do, you mustn’t take her gown off’’ and winked at me. I over powered our ‘virgin’ by muttering various incantations and she ended up naked on an altar. It was a frenzied climax to the show. A photographer leapt on stage and took a picture. He ran out pursued by the Lyceum bouncers. The next day we were on Page 3 of The Sun.”
Following the Charles Manson murders in Los Angeles, the group was banned from visiting America, as their act was deemed inappropriate. Their US tour dates went to Black Sabbath instead. They had taken the nifty precaution of denying they had anything to do with black magic. But how seriously did Black Widow take their involvement? Says Kip: “Jim and I got into the occult more than the others and we did have some very frightening experiences. You are more impressionable in your twenties and scary things happened. Alex Saunders was quite scary as well. We used to go to his meetings and very weird things happened which I found unnerving.”
ASTRAL TRAVEL
By 1971 they began to move on from magic as a source of inspiration. It seemed only sensible but drove a wedge between the band members. “Jim and I became more involved in the spiritual side and went got into astral travel. That was amazing. We used to spend hours in a London hotel room astral travelling. After a while the band got fed up with the focus being on the stage show and not on the musicians. That’s when it started to fall apart. After the first album and tour we stopped doing the theatrical show and became a normal jazz rock band although we still played songs from the show.”
Their next album ‘Black Widow 111’ (otherwise known as ‘Three’) was produced by Malcolm Koss and released in 1971. It earned good reviews although it didn’t sell so well. Factions within the band felt they had become just another progressive rock outfit. After various personnel changes the original impetus was lost.
Kip: “When Jim Gannon left the band became a bit dull and self indulgent.”
Sadly it is now impossible to recapture the impact of their early shows. They were filmed playing ‘live’ at Montreaux Casino in Switzerland in 1971 but the videotapes were destroyed when the Casino burned down in the disastrous fire that destroyed Frank Zappa’s band equipment and inspired Deep Purple’s ‘Smoke On The Water.’
KIP THE STAR
Shortly after ‘Black Widow 111’ Kip quit and planned a new band called Sacrifice with Jim Gannon. “I had great respect for Jim and I don’t think the others realised how much work he put in. We were going to do the Black Widow show again and worked on it for a year in a cottage in mid-Wales. We were going to put a theatrical show together in New York with dancers and musicians. The whole thing suddenly collapsed when the Americans pulled out and that was very depressing.”
Without Kip at the helm Black Widow could no longer summon an audience and CBS dropped them from the label. Nothing daunted they self produced ‘Black Widow IV’ in 1972 with new vocalist Rick ‘E’ but the album was not released for many years. The final Black Widow line up included John Culley, Zoot Taylor, Clive Jones, Geoff Griffiths and Romeo Challenger. The band broke up in 1972. “It just petered out in the end,” says Kip. “That last album was just a collection of stuff they did with me and some with their new singer. It was a bit of a hotch potch.”
In the aftermath Clive Jones teamed up with Clive Box to form heavy metal band Agony Bag. Romeo Challenger joined Showaddywaddy and Kip Trevor worked as a session singer and later became a music publisher.
Says Kip: “I had a fantastic time with Black Widow and the highest point was that show at the Isle Of Wight. As we finished the set everyone lit matches and lighters and it was a fantastic, wonderful experience. I felt like a star!”
Wednesday, May 3rd, 2006 in Hot New Repertoire Releases.
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