Where was I when I heard Gracious’ music, you might ask. Alright, it is story time, again. The year, 2006. My Mom got me the 3-CD set, Time Machine: A Vertigo Retrospective 1969-1973 which covered the golden-era of the swirling label, Vertigo Records. I was blown away of the compilation. Some I knew of; Gentle Giant, Black Sabbath, Uriah Heep, Rod Stewart (of all people!), and Aphrodite’s Child who unleashed their third and final swansong 666.
But it was also an introduction to bands I never heard before; Cressida, Beggar’s Opera, Nucleus with Ian Carr, May Blitz, Patto, and Clear Blue Sky. But there was one band that completely caught me off-guard and took me to a whole other level beyond the four-letter Prog genre. That band was Gracious. Hearing the ‘Introduction’ track on Disc one, then later on in Andy Votel’s (Finders Keepers founder) tip of the hat tribute to the label on his sampler Vertigo Mixed which also included an excerpt of Gracious’ 17-minute epic ‘The Dream’, it was like a breath of fresh air.
It had the heavy guitars, the harpsichord, powerful vocals, climbing arrangements, it had everything to prove that this band could’ve been bigger, powerful, and one of those bands that was an eruptive cannon blast, waiting to happen at the right time, at the right place to give the so-called boy bands the giant middle finger which it badly needed. Now, here I am in 2025, enjoying the wonders of the 3-CD/1-DVD set covering the first two albums the band put out between 1970 to 1971, followed by a rare performance of them performing at the Isle of Wight in 1970.
The first and only two albums they’ve unleashed; Gracious! and This Is…Gracious!!, originally released on Vertigo and on Philips in 1970 to 1971, and released by the good folks from Esoteric Recordings, it is time to give the band, the proper recognition they truly deserve. This isn’t the first time the band’s music have been reissued. There was the BGO label which issued it as an LP in 1988, then as a 2-CD set in 1995 with This is…Gracious!!, followed by the German label Repertoire Records in the ‘90s and in 2004 in a mini-LP form.
And then with their final and second studio album, issued in 1993 by the Renaissance label, remastered by the late Kevin Gilbert who was a champion of the band’s music. When I heard that Esoteric were doing this, I knew right away I had to check this out. Going back and revisiting those first two albums during my time in junior college, was like reflecting a time which was good, amazing, and filled with mellotrons soaring in my earphones on my old iPod.
Formed in 1967 at a Weybridge-based school group, Satan’s Disciples, the line-up considered; bassist Mark Laird, Martin Kitcat on keyboards, guitarist Alan Cowderoy, and Paul ‘Sandy’ Davis on drums and lead vocals (Paul, as you may know, was the singing voice of Peter in the 1970 concept album version of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar featuring Ian Gillan, Murray Head, John Gustafson, Mike D’abo, and Yvonne Elliman).
But once Robert Lipson took over on drums, Paul stepped out of his kit and took over on lead vocals, timpani, and 12-string acoustic guitar. According to Mike Barnes’ liner notes, Gracious were covering blues classics such as Screamin’ Jay Hawkins ‘I Put a Spell On You’, Motown, The Nazz’s ‘Open My Eyes’, and Steppenwolf’s ‘Born to be Wild’.
Following in the footsteps of Vanilla Fudge and The Mothers of Invention, the band shared a bill with King Crimson as the Mistrale Club in Beckenham on July 11, 1969. During the previous year, they supported The Who when they were on the road with them on their first tour. But once King Crimson took the stage, Gracious knew this was the direction that they needed to take.
The first album is made up with themes with complexity, religion, classical, story-structured arrangements, and more of the impressions that is laid upon them. After ‘Introduction’ we get into the dramatic worlds of ‘Heaven’ which features drums, bass, and keyboards setting up with this pastoral atmosphere once the Mellotron comes out of the curtains, descending upwards into the sky, followed by wailing guitar lines into the swift, sunrise.
You can hear the same melody that Italian prog group Panna Fredda would honor the band’s music with the second track ‘Un Re Senza Reame’ from their 1971 album Uno. Once the acoustic guitars kick in for its Moody Blues-like approach for the sermon to begin, it becomes a walk into the distant future as the lines “Do you have a clear mind?” repeated twice before Paul sings “What do you think about/when you pass your time?”
It becomes a question and response in the church service that Davis and the rhythm section handle in the Sunday morning texture whilst going into some deeper, darker, yet sinister territories of ‘Hell’ with brutal keyboard arrangements, affecting the rumbling effects before it becomes a volcanic eruption then dropping lava-like rain falls to hurt the townsfolk.
Think Black Sabbath, but with a progressive attitude with some complexities of Crimson’s first two studio albums in a giant blender. That’s how heavy and hard it gets for Gracious to really kick it in high gear in the first five minutes of the composition.
Then, it calms down in this melodic piano affection as Davis’ vocalization sets up the relaxation after the storm before it comes back again with its Van der Graaf shriek for a couple of seconds before going into this Second Hand-like momentum, a-la vaudeville twist! That’s how crazy Gracious can be.
As the band take a break from the heaviness, we delve into the ‘Fugue in D Minor’ between Kitcat, Wheatley, and I believe Cowderoy going into this classical orientation to take us back into the Renaissance period where we drink up and be merry before all weapons attack for the 17-minute voyage into ‘The Dream’. Starting off with a militant drum sound, wailing guitar solo, followed by Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight Sonata’, it becomes this unexpected twist and turn from what you’re about to hear.
At first, you begin to scratch your head wondering how is Gracious writing a bit of a lullaby arrangement with its pastoral rise then go into this loop-hole arrangement as if you’re being hypnotized to go on this murderous rampage as the rhythm slows down before Gracious sets the alarm bells ringing with this complexity ascension in its 12-bar blues form as they kick it in with some cool Jazzy orientation of the ‘Powerhouse’ nod by Raymond Scott, which you could vision Gracious doing that, and making it a perfect chase sequence for the animated shorts in the Looney Tunes cartoons.
Just imagine them playing excerpts of this piece as an alternate soundtrack for the Porky Pig and Daffy Duck cartoon short, Baby Bottleneck from 1946. As soon as Paul shouts “Hey you! What about that branch you owe me?!” He sings a bit of The Beatles classic ‘Hey Jude’ before Paul shouts out “You gotta go!” This is where Gracious really are on their level with their prog trustee by climbing the mountain as Davis goes into some insane momentum of being the whistleblower before the piano goes into this classical concerto.
Guitars going in this proto-Zeppelin attack, piano and drums releasing missiles down below with fiery receptions, that’s how prog you get in this mo-fo! All of a sudden, as it ascends from the gods, they go into Santana-like samba, the rising keyboards which Premiata Forneria Marconi would channel this motif in ‘La Carrozza di Hans’ from their 1972 debut Storia di un Minuto.
Davis and the rhythm section are going heavier and heavier into the darkness that awaits them with an unexpected turn, channeling Zappa’s stop-and-go momentum. Now, we delve into their second and final studio album released in 1971 entitled This is….Gracious!!
Originally released on the Philips label, this was the band’s final stand as they were preparing to head into a throttle force with the 24-minute epic ‘Super Nova’. Starting off with the ‘Arrival of the Traveler’ it has this distorted humming sound and cracking it with a distress call from the shuttle, knowing something has gone wrong on his home planet as he makes the jump to light-speed with its mellotron distortion, drums, and early Floyd-like nod to ‘Astronomy Domine’.
It sounds like our hero is heading back towards Earth in ramming speed. But when he arrives during the events of ‘Blood Red Sun’, he sees that everything has gone to hell in this post-apocalyptic nightmare as Paul sings “Blood-red sun/what has it done?/Heat-torn sky/the rivers run dry/Not a fertile thing but a dead horizon/Looking at me from everywhere I gaze.”
The traveler is the last survivor on earth. He is in disbelief over what has happened. No contact, no one to tell him he’s home, and no celebration. You could feel a pin drop in this barren wasteland in our visionary mind. The arrangements during the scenery is mesmerizing before it heads back into its haunting mellotron strings, drums, and guitars setting up the disbelief in the man’s eyes.
Between ‘What’s Come to Be’ and ‘Say Goodbye to Love’ it’s a cross between King Crimson and David Bowie’s earlier albums; The Man Who Sold the World and Hunky Dory as Paul’s 12-string guitar sings in this folky-orientation for the Traveler, knowing he will be the loneliest person and will go in this mental state to delve in a survival of the fittest momentum over the lies the politicians had lied so many times for what has happened and brought it on themselves.
Meanwhile, ‘CBS’ is a straight-forward to bands such as Chicago (their first two albums) and unknown prog group The Greatest Show on Earth that goes into their soulful, blues-rock, and R&B influential background as ‘Once on a Windy Day’ returns to a churchly melancholia with its folky-mellotron walk to the meadow-like forest whilst ‘Hold Me Down’ sees Gracious honoring The Who with its Pete Townshend-like strum and closing off into the sunset.
The third disc which is also part on DVD as well is the band’s performance at the Isle of Wight in 1970. Despite doing a 16-minute approach of ‘Super Nova’ as the Mellotron started to malfunction, they had to stop. But it was great to watch them, try to accomplish the epic as audiences cheered for them. And once they do a 10-minute version on ‘Once on a Windy Day’, it was the band riding off into the sunset.
While they called it a day on August 5th, 1971, they were very much ahead of their time. Those two albums are considered unsung classics, hidden treasures, and true obscure gems that are definitely worth exploring if you want to delve into the underwater worlds of Gracious’ music.
