Homemade Jams by Dave Sinclair & John Murphy

Prelude by Dave Sinclair

I left Caravan for the first time in August 1971, a few months after recording the album ‘In the Land of Grey and Pink’. The other musicians in the band by that time had invested in newer more powerful amplification and during a gig I sometimes couldn’t actually hear what I was playing.

Added to that, life on the road was becoming less appealing playing almost the same set every night. I decided I drastically needed a complete change and, when I said I was thinking of leaving the band, incredibly, no one including our manager tried to persuade me otherwise.

Soon after leaving, and in the Seven Stars pub in Canterbury, I met up with John Murphy, a guitarist, singer, and song writer, and from that moment on we became close friends and musician buddies, exploring many songs, rhythms, and melodies together.

Later on, with a drummer, and occasionally a bass guitar, we enjoyed a number of jam sessions, most of which we recorded on a small tape recorder using a single microphone.

Those sessions, we played for our own enjoyment, the first of which was in the basement room of Underhill Studios in Blackheath near London, and later in the front room of Windyridge, a large house overlooking the Thames Estuary where I was living at that time, (and where Robert Wyatt had come a few years earlier to listen to my songs which I played to him on my piano, choosing the one which eventually became ‘O Caroline’).

It was a big relief not having the restraints of a touring band, with managers, record companies and tight schedules.

The music was raw, edgy and sometimes didn’t go anywhere, but there were many enlightening moments and very enjoyable times.

Surprisingly, my son Nic found an old box of reel to reel tapes I had discarded a long time back, and went ahead painstakingly restoring some of those recordings. The tapes dated back to 1973-4, over 50 years old!

I could hear, for the first time since, the excitement and magic of those early days, even though our technology back then was very basic compared to the much more advanced systems now.

These really are ‘Homemade Jams’

Dave Sinclair joined the Canterbury-based, semi-pro outfit, the Wilde Flowers. Almost every future member of the early line-ups of Soft Machine and Caravan passed through the ranks of this now legendary band during the two or three years of its existence (1964-67).

Continued at http://www.dsincs-music.com

dsincs-music.com
Facebook
YouTube
tiktok.com