The Fat Angel Sings

Coming in September, a newly remastered 3CD edition of the classic 1971 Family album “Fearless”. Featuring 24 bonus tracks,

Family’s Roger Chapman, discusses the new Cherry Red Records special 3-CD release of the British progressive rock band’s 1971 album “Fearless” remastered plus bonus tracks and BBC recordings. He also shares stories about the subsequent album “Bandstand”, both with the late John Wetton, before his time with King Crimson, Roxy Music, Uriah Heep, and most notably Asia. Chapman mentions a John Wetton tribute event and shares a pair of songs from his latest solo album “Life in the Pond”, and his guest vocalist appearance with the duo The Sinclairs: Rat Scabies of The Damned and Billy Shinbone of Flipron.

Featuring vocalist Roger Chapman, guitarist John ‘Charlie’ Whitney, drummer Rob Townsend, bassist and vocalist John Wetton and multi-instrumentalist John ‘Poli’ Palmer on vibes, keyboards and flute, ‘Fearless’ was released in October 1971 and was the first album to feature new member John Wetton following the departure of John Weider following the band’s second US tour in 1971 and the UK Top Ten hit single ‘In My Own Time’.

The album was one of Family’s finest and reached the UK Top 20 upon its release; featuring such strong material as ‘Spanish Tide’, Burning Bridges’ and ‘Between Blue And Me’. The first time I heard Family on AM rock radio station playing “Larf and Sing” from “Fearless”. The vocal arrangement on Poli Palmer’s composition is so unique, and the remastered version captures that very well in stereo, along with Poli’s flute.

Poli did a demo of it as his home and brought it to the Olympic recording studio in London and we performed it there. John Wetton and Roger did the barbershop vocal stylings, then Poli put the lead vocal on afterwards. That vocal arrangement was a great idea, and it is such a good song.  

Poli was one of the instigators in that musical league with the synthesizer, which he would bring on the stage along with his vibes. As people changed in the band, we took their influences to propel the band to somewhere else. Everyone was an equal partner in the band, very democratic, making it very creative as we toured the U.K., France, Germany, Italy, and the U.S. we toured two or three times. We did well in New York and Los Angeles, but once we got out into in the middle of the country, our recognition was hit or miss.

Charlie Whitney and Roger wrote this song and so many songs for the band, since the first album, “Music in a Doll’s House” in 1968. We clicked together. His real name is John Whitney, but we had so many Johns in the band that we decided to call them by different names. John Whitney became Charlie, John Wetton became Ken, and John Palmer became Poli.

The chorus on “Spanish Tide,” that Roger and Charlie co-wrote sounds like a predecessor of what John Wetton would bring to Asia’s debut album a decade later, a bit faster on “Only Time Will Tell.” 

Before the “Fearless” album was the summer hit single of 1971 “In My Own Time,” with a marching beat, and is one of the bonus tracks on this new 3-CD collection.

The second disc of the new set begins with 1971 BBC sessions in the studio and the recording is so professional in sound. It opens wonderfully with “Procession/No Mule’s Fool.”  it was a very nice version. It includes John Weider, yet another John who played bass for the group before John Wetton joined. On this song he played violin. John Wieder had been in Eric Burdon and The Animals before joining Family.

The BBC concert on the third disc features . “Drowned in Wine” is so powerfully dramatic. Chapman says that was also powerful on stage and a big favourite with fans because it is explosive. Fortunately, my voice hardly gave out. If I got a little hoarse, people really wouldn’t know if I was hoarse or not. With my range, I could rock it out or sing a breathy love song ballad.

This new three-disc edition of this classic album has been newly remastered from the master tapes and also includes 24 bonus tracks drawn from the ‘In My Own Time’ single, BBC Sessions and “In Concert” performances, plus an illustrated booklet with new essay and reproduction poster.