Ahead Rings Out

Ahead Rings Out was the debut album by British blues-rock band Blodwyn Pig, released in 1969. The band had been formed in 1969 by Mick Abrahams, the former guitarist of Jethro Tull, and sales of Ahead Rings Out rivalled those of Jethro Tull’s next album, Stand Up, reaching No. 9 on the British album chart.

The album contained a healthy mixture of various styles of progressive blues and “The Modern Alchemist” displayed the jazz influence and saxophone skills of Jack Lancaster.

In liner notes for the 2001 re-issue of the album, songwriter and singer Mick Abrahams recalled: “The producer was Andy Johns (little brother to Glyn Johns of Rolling Stones production fame. I think the tape operator was Robin Black, who later went on to produce Jethro Tull and other notable acts of the time.

“I recall that we were all quite chuffed with the end result of this, our first offering after my not too long ago departure from Jethro Tull.

“One of the first songs we laid down was ‘It’s Only Love’ and it was cool at the time to have the availability of an eight-track machine to record with. Great for overdubs and thickening out the sound ...

“‘Dear Jill’ (a favourite of mine to this day) was the next track we laid down and the nice thing about it was that by double-tracking the guitar, which was an Ecko 12-string with only 9-10 strings on it (depending on my mood or how many strings I could afford on the day) it sounded akin to a modern chorus effect pedal which, coupled with Jack’s haunting soprano sax, made it into a solid stand up song. It was featured in Cameron Crowe’s movie Almost Famous as part of the background music to reflect the theme and time of the film.”

About “See My Way”, he comments: “It was a solid two days work to get it just how we felt it should be with all the odd changes of tempo and feel, i.e. the section that sounds like Ravel’s Boléro ... That song didn’t go on the UK version of Ahead Rings Out, but instead the powers that be decided in their wisdom to put it on the USA version and left it until we recorded the second album, Getting To This.”

He described “The Modern Alchemist” as “a great composition of Jack Lancaster’s that brought a mixture of hard hybrid jazz-rock flavour to the album.”