Family

The latest Family album to get the Esoteric treatment and it is a fine job too.
The whole of the original album, remastered from the original tapes, plus a bunch of BBC sessions from the same period and a few outtakes as well.
As usual, the remastering is superb, much cleaner than any other CD issue I’ve heard before, and with an airy and wide soundscape. I had a vinyl copy back in the day and this captures the same standards.

The band at this time was 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 and they are generally considered the ‘classic’ line up.
Musically, they certainly produced an original sound, touching on rock, folk, rock & roll and that ethereal thing called Prog.

They had a huge hit with ‘Burlesque’, but tracks such as ‘My Friend The Sun’ show a softer, Beatle-esque, side to them with Chapman’s vocals losing that all out vibrato.

‘Top Of The Hill’ is, for me, the real masterpiece, featuring all of Family’s strengths – great use of dynamics, complex arrangements, John Wetton’s powerful bass lines and Chapman’s vocals commanding the ear.

The bonus tracks are pretty good, the b-side to ‘Burlesque’, ‘The Rockin’ Rs’ is an excellent piece of jaunty rock – one can see where the Chapman Whitney Streetcrawlers came from, - and the alternate takes of a few of the tracks give an insight to the development process.

A worthy reissue of a very fine album.