Library Rock's Backpages

Savoy Brown and Them Changes

Jim Esposito, Rock, November 1972

2012 NOTE: I was young, probably a bit too much of a fan, and just looking to do a superficial, light-hearted story, but we now know why Savoy Brown went through so many people. The band was managed by Kim's brother, Harry, and everybody else were simply hired help. Kim and Harry controlled the finances, and probably ended up with most of the money. One interesting sidebar to this piece: the drummer who held the record for the shortest tenure in the band (at that time) never made it through his first rehearsal. They told him to do a blues shuffle and he said: "Huh?" Did not know what they were talking about. "He couldn't do a blues shuffle," I remember somebody telling me, "so we fired him." This is going back a-ways, and I want to say it was Harry Simmonds telling me the story. At any rate, according to my source, this drummer later rose to prominence in the Yes, where an unfamiliarity with the blues shuffle apparently was not much of a liability. JE

Total word count of piece: 891

Subscribe

Becoming a member is easy. Membership gives you access to all the thousands of articles in the library.

Click here to go to Subscribe page.

Click here for academic and other group subscriptions.