The Marquee Studios in Wardour Street is where they rehearsed, and the rest of the time was spent playing in France, Germany & selected parts of England. It has to be said that the new line-up with Kellie & Grosvenor benefited from the success of the single “I Wanna Be Free”, but eventually it was obvious that this was a band that had a long term future.
They auditioned Keith Emerson on keyboards and he joined until in Hamburg, Luther put a slimming pill in Keith’s bottle of coca-cola. Halfway through the set Emerson could be seen enthusiastically shaking his hammond organ backwards & forwards, fascinated by the war-like explosion sounds coming out of the amp! Thus was born a seed of E.L.P… some months later Emerson left to form The Nice.
Chris Blackwell was by now concerned that the group needed a new identity and a new name. Guy Stevens, part of the SUE/ISLAND family was brought in to produce an album of songs by the unit, now called “ART”. The album would be titled “Supernatural Fairytales”. Any copies still surviving have become highly collectable.
Back at home it was obvious to the band & management that no natural songwriter existed in “ART” . Keith Emerson had been on board for the French adventure, but had now moved on to form P.P. Arnold’s backing band “The Nice”, leaving Harrison, Ridley, Kellie & Grosvenor in need of another “facelift”.
Once more Blackwell came up with the next move. As business manager of “TRAFFIC” he accompanied them on their first public outing, a mini tour of Scandinavia, a warm up before their first British tour.
Supporting act for Traffic in Sweden was a band called “The New York Tymes”, featuring on vocals and Hammond organ a lad from New Jersey called Gary Wright
Blackwell liked Wright, but was not keen on the band. He offered to pay for Wright and his musical partner Jim Carol to come to London and record their songs. This they accepted but within a short while it was evident that the project would not work. He then had the idea of putting Wright together with the members of ART to see if this was the answer. He arranged a meeting with Messrs Harrison, Ridley, Kellie & Grosvenor and informed them that this was the “last chance”. They were to get together with his new signing, Wright, and MAKE it work! They were introduced, and started hanging out together at Wright’s Ennismore Gardens flat in Knightsbridge.
A harpsichord was purchased from Harrods on which Wright was to compose new material for the five-piece to record. Kellie remembers, …it was actually quite an enjoyable time. Gary was American and had a wicked sense of humour which mixed well with our hard nosed no frills approach to life…. Wright already had one song completed, “Sunshine Help Me”. The band and Blackwell thought this was commercial and should be recorded as soon as possible.
By now a new member of the Island team had arrived. Jimmy Miller was an old friend of Wright’s from New Jersey days. He had been in the business of writing and independently recording songs then leasing them to a label for a year at a time, a practice common in those days.
Apparently his recording of ‘Incense’ by The Anglos had come to the attention of Island. Sequence of events is hazy but the result was Miller joining Island as ‘house producer’. Using Olympic studio number 1 and with Miller producing recording began for the first album ‘It’s all About’.
Kellie remembers, .’.Jimmy had an infectious enthusiasm and great approach to music. We felt confident with him around and things became very creative…?. Miller’s work with Traffic at the same time shows great creativity and excitement. Rhythm was especially one of Jimmy’s strengths having been a bit of a drummer in his early days. His dad, Bill Miller was the one who signed Elvis for his first comeback appearance at The International Hotel in Vegas in 1968..
Things were now really beginning to move….all they needed now was a name!
