Music Blog

It’s Gone Bedlam

Nancy's Notes 🖊️🎶

It’s week three of the Mixed Music Bag and Glyn’s theme is a solo artist or band beginning with the letter A or B.

Don’t ask me the date …. early 70s is as close as I can get …. we went to the Nassau Coliseum to see Bedlam, Badger and Black Sabbath. It was one of the most bizarre nights with a strange vibe in the place. A guy in the audience must have gotten his hands on some of the brown acid left over from Woodstock because he decided it would be cool to set his arm on fire. I can say with 100% certainty of all the many, many concerts we went to from ’67-’77, no one ever set fire to any part of their body before or after that night. What people won’t do for their 15 minutes of fame.

There’s no need to discuss Black Sabbath, is there? I decided to feature Bedlam in my post today; they had a good sound and the group’s members were infinitely better known than Badger’s. But the whole story about Bedlam is a bit weird.

Originally known as Beast when it formed in 1972, Bedlam was one of the UK’s least-known supergroups, a hard rock band featuring singer Frank Aiello (from Truth), guitarist Dave Ball (from Procol Harum), bassist Dennis Ball (formerly with Long John Baldry), and drummer Cozy Powell (who made his name with major rock bands and artists such as The Jeff Beck Group, Rainbow, Michael Schenker Group, Gary Moore, Graham Bonnet, Brian May, Whitesnake, Emerson, Lake & Powell and Black Sabbath). Wow!

In 1973 they made one self-titled album produced by Felix Pappalardi, best known as the bassist and co-lead singer for Mountain. Like I said, the lineup was a good one but in 1974, after just two short years, the group fell apart when Cozy Powell left. That one studio effort showed the band to be a talented, bluesy, hard-rock outfit in the vein of the Jeff Beck group and Rory Gallagher’s band, but without the new twist of originality that might have sustained interest.

Adding to the ambiguity surrounding this group, I was unable to find lyrics for any of Bedlam’s songs; I hope you enjoy the tune I’ve selected for you today.

This is “Sweet Sister Mary”

Mixed Music Bag 2024 – week 3 – The Adverts

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18 thoughts on “It’s Gone Bedlam”

  1. Greetings Clive, Denny Ball here. Just found this as I scrolled around.
    I remixed the Bedlam album to make it sound MUCH better!
    The Bedlam Anthology box set is out and about.

    Cheers!

    Denny Ball

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  3. I’d heard the name Bedlam but never listened to any of their songs. Going by that track; they do sound a bit samey. When I saw the name Dave Ball, I thought that can’t be the same Dave Ball who played keyboards in Soft Cell?…..It wasn’t 🙂

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    1. This doesn’t surprise me, Willow. They weren’t around that long but you’re right about the impressive lineup. I chose this track because I couldn’t find lyrics for any of their songs; it was easy to understand what they were saying in this one! 😂😂😂

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  6. Least known is right – I’m from the UK and had never heard of them. I think calling them a supergroup might be a little on the generous side, though. This was quite pleasant, in its melody a kind of weird fusion between The Band and The Carpenters 🤣

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    1. 🤣🤣 Kind of like a supernova, this “supergroup” burned out quickly!
      As I just mentioned to Willow, the only reason I went with this track was because I didn’t have any lyrics to type and it was quite easy to understand what they were saying. I’m not sure if this “supergroup” could even qualify as a one hit wonder! 🤣🤣 Whenever possible, I like to include a personal anecdote in my music posts; this one fit the bill.

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      1. I think it was a great choice. One of the things about my music posts that gives me most pleasure is introducing acts that I don’t think others will know. But I don’t always have to go back fifty years to find them! Those personal anecdotes round it out, don’t they

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        1. Thanks, Clive! One think I’ll never get used to is the number of younger people these days who never heard of The Beatles. To me that is almost like saying they don’t know what a car is. I find that very sad and thought I’d never see the day.

          The personal bits of info add so much, even if it’s a little thing like finding myself sitting next to Michale J. Pollard (who?) at one of the earliest showing of A Hard Day’s Night, which was the inspiration for one of my stories. Thank goodness my long-term memory is still intact …. so far. 😂 😎

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          1. I did my best to encourage my daughters to listen to them. My younger one got to know a fair bit from me asking ‘who’s this?’ when they came on the radio in car trips for her tennis tournaments. The older one once surprised me with loads of questions about them. When I asked her why she was interested she replied ‘we’re doing them for a history project at school.’ I suddenly felt old!

            I try to add in anecdotes when I can, but I’ve never sat next to a movie star. Memory can become an issue, can’t it 🤣

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