Titus Groan — Titus Groan 1970 (UK, Progressive/Jazz Rock) Full lp

Tracks: 01. It Wasn’t For You — 00:00 02. Hall Of Bright Carvings — 05:44 including: a). Theme b). In The Dusty High-Vaulted Hall c). The Burning d). Theme 03. I Can’t Change —17:23 04. It’s All Up With Us — 23:04 05. Fuschia — 29:12 Personnel: Stuart Cowell — guitars, organ, piano, vocals Tony Priestland — saxophones, flute, oboe John Lee — bass, vocals Jim Toomey — drums, percussion Barry Murray – producer “Titus Groan” is one of the undeservedly forgotten bands of the seventies, and although they have only one album to their credit, this record makes the band one of the brightest representatives of early progressive. The music is not particularly fancy or sophisticated, but what primarily attracts people is the unconventional thinking and ingenuity of the musicians. They clearly do not seek to copy the “monsters” and think quite creatively and independently. The name of the group comes from the title of the novel by the English writer, poet, playwright and artist Mervyn Peake, which marked the beginning of the fundamental trilogy about Gormenghast. The group’s first performance was at the Hollywood Pop Festival in early 1970. One of the organizers of the festival was the London company Red Bus, which subsequently planned, together with Dawn Records, to release a double live LP with recordings made during the festival. But due to legal problems, the release of the record did not take place. Then “Red Bus” and “Down Records” took up the promotion of little-known teams on the music market, whose songs were planned to be included in this album. As part of this project, first singles were released, and then full-length albums by the groups “Demon Fuzz”, “Heron”, “Comus”, as well as “Titus Groan”. The four bands then toured together, culminating with a gig at the Marquee Club and a performance on Radio 1 on January 3, 1971. Unfortunately, none of these bands subsequently achieved much success. Titus Groan broke up just a few months after the completion of the project, and none of the former band members were able to achieve success. Only drummer Jim Toomey worked for some time as part of the Larry Wallis project, one of the former musicians of the once popular “Pink Fairies”.