Author: Peter Podbrežnik
Artist: Gryphon
Label: Transatlantic Records
Release: 1973
Length: 36:43
Rating: 3.5/5
Gryphon are legendary folk prog rock standard-bearers who earned cult status among prog rock connoisseurs mostly thanks to their unique, off-the-beaten-path use of all sorts of instruments and their knack for crafting complex sounds. They made their name above all by mixing folk rock with traditional yet richly varied medieval and Renaissance arrangements, played in an almost authentic troubadour manner.
Their original incarnation, united under multi-instrumentalist Richard Harvey and wind player Brian Gulland, swore mostly by acoustic guitar and a few historical wind instruments, led by the Renaissance horn. The electric guitar only found its way into their sound later, since at the start they wowed listeners with purely pastoral melodies, aiming to capture the medieval romance of their troubadour forebears as faithfully as possible. In the early seventies, despite the abundance of great folk-prog rock bands, you’d have been hard pressed to find one that fused the heritage of their Anglo-Saxon ancestors with more modern folk approaches as successfully as Gryphon did.
Their self-titled debut is built on a harmonious weaving of traditional medieval-Renaissance arrangements with acoustics, which was a downright pioneering idea at a time when progressive rock was still wide open to every form of sonic experimentation. The use of historical wind instruments is superb and key to the whole thing: it’s what lets individual tracks effortlessly whisk the listener in spirit some five hundred years back, to when the rowdy King Henry VIII ruled the English kingdom with an iron fist and every so often got rid of one of his many wives, while already picking out the next victim among his mistresses.
Besides the decadent royal chambers, though, some of the pieces also carry us into the more earthy, not to say muddy, side of Tudor England, where in the middle of filthy taverns it’s not hard to picture assorted yellow-toothed bailiffs, executioners, merchants, craftsmen, rogues, hunchbacks and swineherds bellowing over one another across gallons of ale. And somewhere nearby, Black Adder, Percy and Baldrick are cheerfully sharpening their knives.
Pastoral-romantic pieces like the opener “Kemp’s Jig”, where the listener finds themselves in the middle of a shepherds’ dance, are defined above all by traditional Renaissance arrangements played on woodwinds (bassoon and Renaissance horn) and mandolin. “Sir Gavin Grimbold”, a comic little ditty about a brave knight, is likewise built on a traditional medieval arrangement. The percussion lays down pompous rhythms that practically call for a jousting tournament, while the vocals are deliberately a touch off-key, just as befits a “royal herald”.
The short instrumental “Touch And Go”, marked by a gentle, pastoral acoustic guitar melody, is the first fully original Gryphon composition on the album, meaning it contains no traditional arrangement at all. “Three Jolly Butchers” is another almost entirely traditional “drinking” number with plenty of Renaissance arrangements, where the vocals are deliberately sung off-pitch in the manner of three drunken butchers. The dulcimers in the background crank up the comedy, but also the warmth of the whole atmosphere. The next instrumental, “Pastime With Good Company”, is based on a classic madrigal by the aforementioned red-bearded boor Henry VIII. The popularity of this legendary madrigal has surged again in recent years, thanks to Jethro Tull chieftain Ian Anderson, who recently made a fine version of this Renaissance masterpiece.
“The Unquiet Grave”, the longest track on the album, is the first to show the melancholic side of the band. A romantic acoustic guitar arrangement in the first part accompanies mournful singing, then the song suddenly changes completely in the second half and the rhythm nearly grinds to a halt, before they build up the central romantic-Celtic motif once more. On “Estampie” they dive back into goofy waters with the help of some rowdy woodwinds. A rhythm that gets faster by the second and the mandolin playing crank up the dance-floor mood. The original arrangement is said to have been written by an unknown author.
The acoustic arrangement for “Crossing the Stiles” was written by guitarist and keyboardist Graeme Taylor, which means the piece is built mostly on his laying down of pastoral chords on acoustic guitar. “The Astrologer” is marked by a traditional Anglo-Saxon arrangement, held together by sarcastically tinged singing and an extremely simple acoustic guitar melody. No album with a medieval vibe and lyrics can of course go without an astrologer among its main characters. With “Tea Wrecks”, another short instrumental, Gryphon then bow to their English orthodoxy, which among other things includes a cup of afternoon tea.
“Juniper Suite”, one of the few fully original pieces on the album, is the only one here that can already be said to offer a glimpse of the band’s later, much more complex sound, since it contains noticeably more rhythmic modes and distinct motifs than the rest of the tracks. The glue, of course, is once again the combination of baroque woodwinds, mandolin and percussion. The closing burlesque “The Devil and the Farmer’s Wife” could easily be imagined with Rowan Atkinson on lead vocals, while somebody with a dreadful cockney accent chimes in from the background. If nothing else, the lyrics offer a fine specimen of English black humor, while the closing sacred polyphony is a short but lovely seal on the end of the album.
Even though Gryphon hadn’t yet shown their full experimental potential here, their debut already paints a picture of a pioneering outfit that prided itself on innovative and witty injections of medieval-Renaissance arrangements into pastoral folk rock fields. With its completely acoustic nature and near-total reliance on traditional arrangements, the album is a long way from later masterpieces like “Midnight Mushrumps” and “Red Queen To Gryphon Tree” (both from 1974), yet it’s still an almost one-of-a-kind work, in which the Anglo-Saxon musical past and present successfully shake hands through the use of a few traditional instruments. “Gryphon” carried some ancient, traditional pieces into the second half of the 20th century and kneaded them into something new that will never go stale, so it keeps delivering plenty of good fun for all lovers of quality folk rock and traditional music from the Anglo-Saxon lands.
Lineup
Richard Harvey – Renaissance horn, keyboards, guitar, recorder, mandolin
Brian Gulland – bassoon, Renaissance horn, recorder, keyboards, vocals
Dave Oberl̩ Рdrums, percussion, vocals
Graeme Taylor – guitar, keyboards, recorder, vocals
Production
Lawrence Aston and Adam Skeaping
Tracklist
1. Kemp’s Jig (3:07)
2. Sir Gavin Grimbold (2:45)
3. Touch and Go (1:29)
4. Three Jolly Butchers (3:54)
5. Pastime with Good Company (1:31)
6. The Unquiet Grave (5:40)
7. Estampie (4:53)
8. Crossing the Stiles (2:22)
9. The Astrologer (3:12)
10. Tea Wrecks (1:06)
11. Juniper Suite (4:49)
12. The Devil and the Farmer’s Wife (1:55)
