Blonde On Blonde

Blonde on Blonde took their moniker from Bob Dylan’s freshly issued album of the same name and coalesced in 1967 when the Welsh blues-rock outfit the Cellar Set expanded its lineup. Gareth Johnson handled guitar, sitar, and lute, Richard Hopkins covered bass, piano, harpsichord, cornet, celeste, and whistle, and Les Hicks supplied drums. Ralph Denyer’s arrival completed the quartet and supplied vocals, while Simon Lawrence, already heard on early Roy Harper and Al Stewart sessions, joined briefly to play twelve-string guitar. The band appeared on the Middle Earth Club’s Magical Mystery Tour, earning their first press attention, and later supported Jefferson Airplane throughout the American group’s British dates. These opportunities attracted Pye Records producer Barry Murray, who secured them a contract and oversaw the release of their debut single “All Day, All Night” backed with “Country Life.” Although rooted in guitar textures, the group’s psychedelic pop arrangements conveyed a sweeping, almost orchestral grandeur, further colored by Johnson’s Eastern and early-music instruments, Hopkins’s harpsichord and other atypical keyboards, and Hicks’s tabla work, resulting in an exotic overall palette. Their concerts often split, in the manner of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, between acoustic and electric segments to display their full stylistic breadth.

In 1969 they issued their debut album Contrasts on the Janus label, a set that already betrayed the rising influence of progressive rock while retaining psychedelic hues. That same year the quartet performed before their biggest-ever crowd at the inaugural Isle of Wight Festival. They also put out the single “Castles in the Sky” backed with “Circles” and the album Rebirth, both on Ember; by then Denyer had departed to form Aquila and was replaced by singer-guitarist David Thomas. Mid-1971 saw Richard Hopkins yield the bass chair to Graham Davis, who also played guitar and banjo. This configuration tracked the third album, Reflections on a Life, at Rockfield Studios. Commercial response remained modest, and the group disbanded in 1972 shortly after the record appeared. Their LPs have since become sought-after vinyl collectibles, with Contrasts in particular prized for its blend of psychedelia and progressive rock. Yet many observers regard the opening single “All Day, All Night” as the band’s most enduring achievement, a quintessential example of late-1960s psychedelic pop and rock.