If you’ve chanced upon Youtube footage of The Move on German TV’s Beat Club show, despite the grainy b/w quality, it’s hard not to be impressed: moving like thugs but grabbing the mic to singing like angels to some thrillingly driving inventive rock and pop sounds penned by Roy Wood.

A supergroup of local talent from Birmingham, who gave the singles charts some serious attention back in the late 60s, by the time of their second album Shazam, in 1970, all was not well. Bass player Ace Kefford and guitarist Trevor Burton had scampered, lead vocalist Carl Wayne followed suit before the album’s release and Wood, drummer Bev Bevan and new bass player Rick Price were tossing coins about what to do with this Electric Light Orchestra idea, and took another two albums to make a decision.

Recorded at Abbey Road Studios, Shazam also found the band with Wood having only song ready, a series of covers (largely recommended by Wayne), and a slowed down version of a track from their debut album released two years previous were left to fill the gaps, alongside assorted experimental in-the-studio routines adapted from their live act – Performance art it may have been but God only knows what even those in the rest of the country thought of those thick Brummie accents back then, let alone across the Atlantic, and it simply puts the lie to Ozzy Osborne’s poverty-stricken routes because he speaks bloody posh by comparison!

While it didn’t dent the charts, Shazam has gathered a cult following in the decades since its release, bridging the gap between their early hits and their later heavy underground sound and the aforementioned tomfoolery. For those of us not privy to those times, a new vinyl edition of the album is imminent and with an advance copy forwarded our way we lowered the needle and gave it a play… Side One opens with ‘Hello Susie’, previously a hit single for Amen Corner. Here it’s given a big fat lazy heavy rock ‘n roll approach, Wood singing a song about a girl come back from holiday, but delivering the lyrics in raw obnoxious lude manner more befitting Keith Moon’s characterisations in ‘Uncle Ernie’ – Actually, there’s this spirited guitar strumming that both opens the song and appears latter punctuated by the rhythm section that’s captures a mood somewhere between The Who’s ‘Tommy’ and the yet-to-be-realised Lloyd & Webber’s ‘Overture’ to Jesus Christ Superstar.

Following some off-colour comments as an attempt at humour, we have Wood’s ‘Beautiful Daughter’ and it is; Wayne taking lead vocals on a number that borrows from The Beatles’ latter day orchestral period as much as the early Bee Gees. Then, over picked-out acoustic guitar Bevan narrates the part of a man suffering mental illness for the opening of ‘Cherry Blossom Clinic Revisited’. It’s followed by a sudden mad rush of glee and raucous guitars with Wayne and Wood singing wildly way, incorporating some barbershop quartet moments into proceedings and it then veering off into an instrumental medley of Bach, Dukas and Tchaikovsky that’s seamless, impressive and invigorating with particular praise for the bass playing, albeit whether it’s Price is a mystery – Burton’s also credited with playing bass but no-one’s sure on what previously recorded tracks, while a young Tony Visconti played on ‘Beautiful Daughter’.

Imagine, having just heard ‘Cherry Blossom Clinic Revisited’ for the first time and the needle on your gramophone’s refusing to lift, just gently scratching away the final grooves as you set there perfectly perplexed by it all. For those who played it again, I’m sure they revelled in its cacophony of sound and I wonder to what degree this track, no actually much of this album, influenced Supertramp when they came to record their breakout album Crime Of The Century.

Following the classical arrangements that closed Side One, medieval folk rock of the kind Jethro Tull would profit by jigs out of the speakers, Wayne singing about Mother Earth, peace and love, and all those hippy values that were at least paid lip service to back in the day. However, for a cover tune, ‘Fields of People’ goes much further than just hither and yon – Aside from lovely group harmonies and more Brummie conversational input, Bevan steers this number through changes akin to San Franciscan rock, The Beatles and Bee Gees again, and some extended instrumental duelling guitars that begin as Midlands raga rock then take a trip on the Celtic rock side; the influences of both the local Asian and Irish immigrant communities we might presume. I can also hear some chord sequences that both Rush and a solo Steve Hackett would use years later, and I never thought I’d make those comparisons.

Now, Frankie Laine hit ‘Don’t make My Baby Blue’ is really given a makeover; it’s like Dee Snider gave it a dirty big kiss, but before we get there, we must suffer another comedy skit. Monty Python this wasn’t, Blue Cheer and Vanilla Fudge it kinda was, but there’s not just bludgeoning rock there are lighter bouts of varying melody and Wayne again reminds us he had a really good set of tonsils able deliver a wide range of styles, albeit history likes to pigeonhole him as the guy who wanted to follow the variety club route.

Another cover concludes the album, a Tom Paxton number, ‘The Last Thing on My Mind’ and it’s fine rendition. Picking up from its folk roots The Move develop this as a classy sophisticated progressive number. Wayne’s vocals veer between a resigned weariness that draws you in to anguished screaming of the soulful rock kind. The bass is what you follow most keenly in the number’s first half, but when the electric guitars pick up there’s more of that raga rock feel going, but as an extension of the actual song with some tight wah-wah effects driven through it, similarly Wood and Price join Wayne in harmonies that flow in a Crosby, Stills & Nash manner that take the suite to a fitting pinnacle.

There’s much diversity to be found on Shazam, some trial and error but as many gorgeous hidden rewards too. And I’ve just discovered the cartoon album cover was drawn by Mike Sheridan, of Mike Sheridan And The Nightriders, who Wood previously played with, and whose name I last saw adorned on a poster at a social club out in Sutton Coldfield but a few years back, where he was going to be performing as disc jockey; see once music’s in your blood it never leaves.

• Reviewed by Paul H Birch.

• Shazam is released via Cherry Red Records on 24th November 2023.

Track list:

Side A:

1. Hello Susie
2. Beautiful Daughter
3. Cherry Blossom Clinic Revisited

Side B:

1. Fields Of People
2. Don’t Make My Baby Blue
3. The Last Thing On My Mind