Dear Mr. Time

The roots of Dear Mr. Time can be traced back to 1968 and a Chelmsford-based group called The Shoo String Band. After earning their spurs on the local group scene, they ventured to London in the spring of '69, even appearing at the celebrated Marquee Club on a couple of occasions (their first Marquee gig that March saw them share the bill with pre-Uriah Heep band Spice). However, The Shoo String Band was primarily a goodtime club band with its origins in soul, and in August of that year Chris Baker (guitar) and John Clements (drums) took up the offer to expand their musical horizons by forming a new group with Barry Everitt (vocals, keyboards) and Dave Sewell (bass), both previously with another local group, The John Maclintyre Collection. The new band's direction was progressive rock, its goal to develop and record its own material. It was christened Dear Mr. Time, a name that came from what Chris Baker remembers as "a pretty useless song that I'd written!". Under direct management (headed by Bryan Reeve, another former member of The John Maclntyre Collection), Dear Mr. Time put their own slant on contemporary material by the likes of The Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel and Procol Harum and hit the road. With the British college and club circuits being a virtual closed shop as far as untried provincial groups and managers were concerned, it was decided that the band should cut its teeth in Germany and France, where Chris and John had played before with The Shoo String Band. On the back of a mailed demo and a one-off gig in Munich, the band stayed on, knocking on doors, doing whatever gigs came up, and then repeated the process in France, looking up old contacts. The strategy paid off. It was the atmospheric use of instrumentation, including 12-string guitar, glockenspiel, recorder, flute, bowed bass and even an old bellows-operated harmonium that set the band apart. They quickly gained a following in clubs like the famous PN. Club, Munich, and Paris's Golf Druout, becoming one of the most popular British bands playing the French circuit that autumn. During their December 1969 tour, gendarmes (members of military corporations, charged with maintaining public order and security) lined the stage In Lille to keep the crowds back. On that same tour, the band appeared on French TV. Chris Baker: "lt was filmed live at Golf Druout, but I cant remember what songs were featured - probably 'In the court of the Crimson King', 'Nights in white satin', that kind of thing. We hadn't progressed to our own material at that point, we'd been too busy playing". In that vital regard, it was time to move things on. By the end of the year, the band was home for what a local newspaper, Saturday Parade, described as "preliminary recording work", with Direct Management claiming that the group hoped to release their first record "early in the New Year". Back on the UK circuit, on 17th January 1970 they supported Badfinger, who had just entered the charts with "Come and get it". More importantly that month, Dear Mr. Time won their regional heat of the Melody Maker Search contest, an annual event to unearth new, unsigned talent, with the winners being rewarded with a recording contract with a major label. In February they played at the Chelmsford Art Festival, sharing the bill with fellow Essex act The Lloyd and Spice, playing their penultimate gig before changing their name to Uriah Heep. The Essex Chronicle were clearly impressed by Dear Mr. Time, describing their performance as "the highlight of the concert", further noting that "the jazz-orientated 'Paperback writer', with scintillating flute play by Chris Baker and well-balanced harmonies, together with 'A salty dog', which is one of the group's favourites, were worthy of special mention". Rival publication The Essex Weekly News concurred, saying that Dear Mr. Time were "undoubtedly the highlight" of the show and "just what the concert needed... it was unfortunate that they were squashed between two groups who seemed to be vying for the prize of the noisiest one there". A return trip to France in April was followed by a number of Essex-based appearances, including a mid-May gig in Braintree that saw them share the bill with (once again) the Lloyd as well as a couple of recent Vertigo label signings, Gracious and the newly renamed Uriah Heep. It was around this juncture that Dear Mr. Time expanded to a five-piece with the addition of another former The Shoo String Band member, Jim Sturgeon (sax, flute, guitar). "We brought him in when we were writing material for our first album", recalls Chris Baker. "Technically Jim was a better musician than the rest of us, and the saxophone was in vogue at the time due to bands like King Crimson and Family... ". The arrival of Sturgeon coincided with the group's management landing them a recording contract with Square Records, a deal which disqualified them from the national final of the Melody Maker Search contest at the Lyceum. "lt was arranged by our manager, Bryan Reeve", recalls Chris Baker. "He had gone to London to hawk our demos and met Rolling Stones producer, Jimmy Miller, who had also worked with the likes of Traffic, Family and Spooky Tooth. Jimmy was already committed months in advance, but introduced Brian to his accountant, Mike Weston, who happened to be setting up his own label at the time". Weston's client base included a number of music industry insiders, among them Island boss Chris Blackwell. He was also involved with the charity Mencap and it seems that part of his Intent was in some way to aid the charity with the new label - which is probably why, later, he attempted to register Square Records as a charity. Weston, who had also signed Crispian St. Peters (who'd had a couple of hits in 1966 with "The pied piper" and "You were on my mind"), duly offered Dear Mr. Time a deal. "With label distribution through EMI and the contacts Mike had, it seemed like a good idea, so we signed", says Chris Baker. Recording began at Island's Basing Street Studios, with Mike Weston producing. However, it soon became apparent that the studio time available was predominantly 'downtime' between other sessions. Thus it was that Dear Mr. Time spent that summer of 1970 piecing together their debut album. Chris Baker: "However mind- blowing it may have been to be working in the same environs as Led Zeppelin, Free, Traffic and Curved Air, scooting up and down the A12 at a moment's notice took its toll. Island became heavily booked, downtime became scarce, and things were rushed". Despite the piecemeal schedule, at least the Basing Street studios were well-equipped, and the band were able to add one or two neat little production flourishes. Barry Everitt's vocals were given a megaphone effect on one of the stand-out tracks, the propulsive "Out of time", while the lead singer made good use of the studio's Mellotron on tracks like "Yours Claudia" and the stately "Prelude (To your country needs you?)". The latter song also included contributions on cello and French horn from a couple of session musicians, while "Yours Claudia" (the only track on the album to be sung by Chris Baker rather than Barry Everitt) featured some evocative sound effects at the start of the recording. Nevertheless, the album's core instrumental stew reflected the major progressive rock bands at the turn of the decade, with the use of sax and flute, coupled with some poetic lyrics and complex song structures, often showing a considerable debt to bands like King Crimson and The Moody Blues. "We were absolutely influenced by what was all around us, particularly Crimson, the Moodies and Procol Harum", agrees Chris Baker. "But then it would have been pretty strange if we hadn't been! We also picked up a bit of a jazz influence - best heard on 'Make your peace' - from our time in France playing with people like Lou Bennet. I'll always remember him. He had terrible arthritis - when he waved his hands about they sounded like a couple of maracas!". In keeping with the spirit of the prog-rock age, "Grandfather" was a concept album, rooted in the First World War and telling in picaresque fashion the story of one man's life from birth to death. "If I remember rightly, the basis of the 'Grandfather' concept was already there when we'd made the demos that were shopped around", says Chris. "We'd locked ourselves away with a borrowed Akai for a couple of weeks in a rented bungalow". The war was a subject which had always been close to Chris Baker's heart, further cemented by the band's trips to northern France. It was therefore decided that the album cover would feature the band posing amongst some Chelsea Pensioners, at that time almost exclusively Great War veterans. "lt was pretty surreal", admits Chris, "and it probably came out looking a bit cheesier than we'd have liked. I'm not sure whether the Chelsea Pensioners knew too much about what was going on. Presumably they were just told that some long-haired scruffy pop group wanted a photo with them...". The final master of the album was duly cut in September 1970 (the local press claimed at the time that it would be issued in December), after which Dear Mr. Time continued to play live. Boosted by their recording experience and the imminent release of the album, some songs from which they included in their set, they were developing rapidly as musicians and playing better than ever. At the beginning of November, they supported Ginger Baker's Airforce before playing at the Marquee with Mickey Jupp's band, retro-rockers Legend. This was an intriguing event, because both of the bands were presented by Vertigo (who'd just signed Legend). On the eve of Square releasing their debut album, clearly Dear Mr. Time were still looking for bigger fish to fry. "l think our management were hoping to get us out of our deal with Square and onto a major label", says Chris Baker. "Vertigo showed interest, but our contract with Square was for three years, so that was that". Late November saw the release of their debut single, "A prayer for her/Light up a light". It received a predictably positive review from the ever-loyal Essex Weekly News as well as national coverage from Top Pops & Music Now, who reported that "A prayer for her" was "...a pleasant, folksy ditty with sad lyrics, nice vocals from Barry Everitt and a good, clean sound. This is taken from the band's first album on Square Records. The album deals with the life of one man and is titled 'Grandfather'. This deals with the death of Grandfather's wife, thus the sad lyrics in spite of the backing. If anything, I prefer the B-side - heavy organ and haunting vocals. Lend an ear to both sides". However, the single failed to make an impression, at least partially due to the band's chronic lack of gigs: "We've got a band with a single but nowhere to play", wailed co-manager Peter Hunter to the local press". Nevertheless, the album was about to come out, eventually materialising in mid-February. Square are only thought to have pressed a thousand copies, but at least its distribution deal with EMI ensured that the album was reviewed in thr national pop weeklies. Generally, those reviews were pretty goody. Disc & Music Echo reckoned that the band were "yet another unknown group trying desperately to come up with something new... all we can say is that they are trying, but haven't yet succeeded at originality". Amusingly this opinion was the polar opposite of the reviewer in Music Business Weekly, who noted Dear Mr. Time as "a new group that shows a great deal of originality... At times the playing resembles King Crimson. But, although this probably won't be a huge seller, it does enough to show that any future albums will be worth a listen". However, the most positive review came from the highly influential Melody Maker. "As album conceptions become more ambitious, so standards of judgement become harsher", they observed. "This one makes it. It's an album to listen to. The ideas incorporated in the lyrics are imaginative. The music is carefully stitched into the fibre of the album. Although a large amount of instruments is used, there's nothing that's superficial. Most of the songs are written by Chris Baker (lead guitar). His lyrics are simple and effective". Despite such comments, the band were devastated by the finished product. "lt wasn't how we remembered it at all", says Chris Baker. "lt sounded worse than the cheapest budget album, which, at that time, was pretty bad. I can't remember if any of us were at the final mix, but it sounded as if it had been lIiterally thrown together. Compounding that, the vinyl cut was as flat as a pancake, absolutely awful". To cap it all Square had no marketing budget, in fact no marketing concept of any kind. There was no promotional tour. Even in the band's local stronghold, record shops were unaware of the album's release. It was the final nail in the coffin, both for the album and for the band, contractually tied to a company in which they had lost all faith. "We were so despondent and disillusioned", says Chris Baker. "Seemingly hamstrung for another two years, we just called it a day and went our separate ways. In hindsight, we should have stuck together, but wisdom comes with age and we were barely out of our teens". The dissolution of Dear Mr. Time meant that a batch of songs Chris had intended for the group - possibly for a second album - went unused. The pick of his acoustic home demos from this period ("l used to record songs I'd written for the band at home on a two-track Truvox, bouncing from one track to another") are now appended to this release. The melodic nature of his writing had been apparent on such album tracks as "On a lonely night", "Yours Claudia" and "Years and fortunes", but, shorn of the band's accompaniment, demos like "This place was us was home" and the gorgeous "Only fooling" are a sharper showcase of his McCartneyish grasp of fragile, winsome balladry. Following the demise of Dear Mr. Time, Barry Everitt left music to pursue a successful career in the poster and fine art world. Dave Sewell turned to farming, and Jim Sturgeon disappeared without trace. Still legally contracted to Square, later that year Chris Baker found himself working with Mike Weston again with his next band, King Rat, supplying the instrumental B-side to a football single by the Arsenal Supporters Club! In the mid-seventies, Chris and drummer John Clements - who, in the interim, had played with Mr. Moses School Band, among others - teamed up again in Marty Wilde and the Wildcats and spent the next fifteen years, to misquote Status Quo, "rocking and rolling all over the world". By the late Eighties, Chris was co-proprietor of the Chocolate Factory, a South East London recording studio that played host to the likes of Squeeze, Brother Beyond, Robin Trower, Manfred Mann and Robert Plant. As Mott the Hoople once sagely observed, it's a mighty long way down rock 'n' roll, and it's certainly a considerable distance from the bowels of the late Sixties/early Seventies progressive rock scene to Brother Beyond. But everybody has their story, and this is Dear Mr. Time's. - David Wells, November 2009. Members: Dave Sewell - bass, backing vocal Chris Baker - guitar, acoustic guitar, John Clements - percussion, drums flute, bass, percussion, backing vocal Jim Sturgeon - saxophone, flute, guitar, backing vocal Barry Everitt - organ, piano, harpsichord, lead vocal