The Odd-Man-Out Blues of Kim Simmonds
Birthday Salute to the innovative guitarist, founder of Savoy Brown, and their Raw Sienna LP
Happy heavenly birthday to Kim Simmonds, the great British guitarist, songwriter, and anchor for the legendary and long-suffering band Savoy Brown. Simmonds may have been a proud bluesman, but he was also celebrated for his unorthodox solos and unique guitar tones. In 1965 he co-founded the band Savoy Brown. They named themselves after the Savoy Record label (because it sounded elegant) and the color brown (because brown sounds humble and earthy). The band rose up with the British Blues Movement—spearheaded by John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, the group that hot-shotted the careers of Eric Clapton and Peter Green. Savoy Brown went down the same neo-traditional path.
While their contemporaries diversified into progressive rock and pop, Savoy Brown kept on as flag-bearers of standard issue British Blues until they expanded their palette for their 5th album, RAW SIENNA. It’s a little-known but remarkable recording, released in December 1970. It’s an oddball “fan favorite,” imagining if Wes Montgomery and The Kinks had done a soundtrack for a noir British crime movie.
Legendary arranger Terry Noonan was hired to create brass and string parts, adding a raw elegance to their sound. Main songwriter and then-lead singer Chris Youlden wore a monocle and bowler hat onstage. His skillful and unusual baritone voice could be as gentle as Bert Jansch and as jazzy as Mose Allison. To satisfy the band’s hippie blues tendencies, Youlden dashed off the disturbingly catchy “Needle and Spoon” and the down tempo “Stay While the Night is Young.”
Beyond the blues idioms, Youlden’s song-crafting indicated the range of Ray Davies and Pete Townshend, citing working man’s bromides (the single “A Hard Way to Go”)
and life’s lessons in the big band strut of “I’m Crying.” The beguiling “When I Was a Young Boy” is a song gem I wish I’d written. Youlden’s wise-man lyrics and Noonan’s bittersweet orchestration gave the album a cinematic ending. Here’s my cover of “When I Was A Young Boy.”
Kim Simmonds turned in amazing lead guitar, stinging, thrashing, twanging, climbing bizarre scales, then relaxing into a cool jazz lull. The albums two instrumentals, “Is That So?”
and “Master Hare,”
gave space to Simmonds eccentricities.
After RAW SIENNA, Youlden went solo and the band dabbled into a hard-driving boogie jam band, which became their trademark sound. The band went on to intersect with Fleetwood Mac, Foghat, Jethro Tull, Molly Hatchett, and other classic rock legends, and Savoy Brown recordings appear in major films and TV programs. Despite that, Savoy Brown never attained the same notoriety as their peers (at least in America). However, before he passed away in 2022, Simmonds kept the band on the road for 55+ years, 47 albums, and countless line-up changes. He relentlessly honored his fans and kept the guitar grooves going.
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