Eyes of Blue
In 1966 Weathers joined a Neath band The Eyes of Blue, along with Phil Ryan (keyboards) and Gary Pickford-Hopkins (vocals) from The Smokestacks. The band turned professional, and won the 1966 Melody Maker Beat Contest. The prize was a one-year record contract, but they had to record songs chosen for them, rather than their own material and neither of their singles, "Heart Trouble" / "Up And Down" and "Supermarket Full Of Cans" / "Don't Ask Me To Mend Your Broken Heart", sold well.
The Eyes of Blue changed label from Decca to Mercury Records and recorded their first album Crossroads of Time in 1968. They then recorded an album Buzzy, as the backing band for American singer-songwriter Buzzy Linhart, before recording their second album In Fields of Ardath in 1969.
The band Strawberry Dust supported The Eyes, and impressed Weathers, who persuaded Lou Reizner to commission an album, which Weathers produced and wrote/co-wrote 6 songs. Women & Children First was released in 1970, but Reizner renamed the band Ancient Grease, without telling them, and credited himself as co-producer.
The Eyes of Blue’s third album, Bluebell Wood, released under the pseudonym Big Sleep, was their last, as the band broke up shortly afterwards. Weathers briefly played with Strawberry Dust, until they also broke up, later reforming as Racing Cars. After this break up he played drums on the final appearance of the Swansea Soul band the John Smith Committee.
In 1970 Weathers and Phil Ryan joined Pete Brown & Piblokto! playing on one single, "Flying Hero Sandwich" / "My Last Band", before Piblokto also disbanded. Weathers then joined an embryonic Wild Turkey with Glenn Cornick (ex Jethro Tull), Gary Pickford-Hopkins (ex Eyes of Blue) and Graham Williams (ex Strawberry Dust), but Weathers and Williams left to join Graham Bond’s Magick before Wild Turkey recorded any material. He appeared on Graham Bond's 1971 album, We Put Our Magick On You, and later that year joined The Grease Band.
Read more about this topic: John Weathers
Famous quotes containing the words eyes of, eyes and/or blue:
“When the finishing stroke was put to his work, it suddenly expanded before the eyes of the astonished artist into the fairest of all the creations of Brahma. He had made a new system in making a staff, a world with full and fair proportions; in which, though the old cities and dynasties had passed away, fairer and more glorious ones had taken their places.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“On like the wind they hurried, and Morgan rode in advance;
Bright were his eyes like live coals, as he gave me a sideways
glance;
And I was just breathing freely, after my choking pain,
When the last one of the troopers suddenly drew his rein.”
—Constance Fenimore Woolson (1840–1894)
“But the lark is so brimful of gladness and love,
The green fields below him, the blue sky above,
That he sings, and he sings; and for ever sings he—
‘I love my Love, and my Love loves me!’”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)