Caravan

Emerging from England amid the 1960s, Caravan counted among the more commanding progressive rock ensembles of their era, yet they registered only as a highly successful cult act on home soil and, aside from a fleeting spell in 1975, scarcely registered even at that level beyond British borders. Across their opening six years they placed just a single album on the charts, although they generated considerable attention within the English rock press and maintained a devoted, far-reaching audience that ensured repeated reissues of their catalog throughout the 1970s, the 1990s, and the twenty-first century.

The band arose after the Wilde Flowers disbanded; that Canterbury-rooted outfit had formed in 1964 as an R&B unit carrying a jazzy inflection, with an initial roster of Brian Hopper handling guitar and saxophone, Richard Sinclair on rhythm guitar, Hugh Hopper on bass, and Robert Wyatt behind the drums. Kevin Ayers moved through the lineup as vocalist, while Pye Hastings replaced Richard Sinclair on rhythm guitar in 1965; Wyatt then shifted to lead vocals and Richard Coughlan took over the drum chair. Hugh Hopper departed, succeeded first by Dave Lawrence and then by Richard Sinclair, after which Richard’s cousin Dave Sinclair joined on keyboards. The Wilde Flowers finally split in 1966 once Wyatt and Ayers established Soft Machine. In the aftermath, Hastings, Richard Sinclair, Dave Sinclair, and Richard Coughlan launched Caravan during January 1968.

Initially the quartet operated somewhat in the shadow of Soft Machine, which quickly became a London club and press favorite; paradoxically this association benefited Caravan, as writers and venue operators began scrutinizing them because of those prior ties. A performance at London’s Middle Earth Club caught the attention of music-publishing executive Ian Ralfini, yielding a publishing arrangement with Robbins Music that in turn secured a recording deal with MGM Records through its Verve imprint, then attempting to gain a foothold in England. Their self-titled debut, Caravan, blended jazz and psychedelia yet displayed sufficient virtuosity to qualify as a serious progressive-rock statement at a moment when the genre itself remained embryonic; alongside the Nice’s Immediate releases and The Cheerful Insanity of Giles, Giles & Fripp, it helped lay progressive rock’s foundations.

The album moved few copies, leaving the members barely able to subsist through much of 1968 and early 1969—one stretch found them literally camping in tents—and MGM’s British operation closed in late 1968, causing the record to vanish from circulation. From that disarray emerged a new manager, Terry King, and, aided by fledgling producer David Hitchcock who had caught the band live, a contract with England’s then-major Decca Records. Their Decca debut, If I Could Do It All Over Again, I’d Do It All Over You, arrived in early 1970 and marked a decisive advance, codifying the humorous yet progressive blend of classical, jazz, and traditional English elements that defined their strongest work across the ensuing six years; backed by Decca’s robust distribution, it reached stores, gained campus airplay, and sold respectably.

Caravan suddenly emerged as an ascendant college-circuit attraction, even appearing on British television’s Top of the Pops. Buoyed by national exposure and an expanding listenership, the group met the challenge with their second Decca release, In the Land of Grey and Pink, which displayed an acute melodic gift, understated wit, and a smoothly integrated fusion of hard rock, folk, classical, and jazz laced with Tolkien-esque fantasy. Tracks stretched from the airy “Golf Girl” to the quietly imposing twenty-three-minute suite “Nine Feet Underground,” which occupied an entire LP side. That piece ranked among the era’s most forceful yet musically ambitious extended compositions; it never felt its full length and highlighted Pye Hastings’ incisive lead guitar alongside Dave Sinclair’s soaring organ and piano. Though few noted it then, the suite’s duration underscored a recurring issue: unlike most contemporary progressive outfits, Caravan possessed enough invention to stretch even concise material to six or seven minutes while remaining highly prolific, forcing them to omit strong songs and edit others for album length. Listeners only discovered the extent of this when a 2001 reissue campaign restored ten to twenty-five extra minutes per disc through previously unissued tracks and unedited masters.

Keyboardist and vocalist Dave Sinclair exited in 1971 to join ex-Wilde Flowers colleague Robert Wyatt in Matching Mole; Stephen Miller of the jazz-oriented Delivery replaced him and remained for the single album Waterloo Lily (1972), steering the music toward a bluesier stance. Internal friction prompted Miller’s departure and Richard Sinclair’s exit to Hatfield and the North. Once the dust settled, Caravan operated as a five-piece featuring Geoff Richardson on electric viola, which introduced a fresh timbral richness. By the sessions for For Girls Who Grow Plump in the Night, Dave Sinclair had returned to keyboards. That album succeeded, as did its successor, the live 1973 recording Caravan & the New Symphonia, issued the following year with full orchestral accompaniment.

Poised for an American breakthrough, the band enlisted Miles Copeland as manager and embarked on a fifty-date tour of the United States and Canada that met with favorable response. They also issued Cunning Stunts, their first chart album in Britain as well as in America (peaking at number 124) and across much of Europe. Despite its commercial achievement, Cunning Stunts proved an endpoint rather than a fresh start; after its release the group parted from Decca. They cut Blind Dog at St. Dunstan’s for Copeland’s BTM Records in 1976 and Better by Far for Arista the year after, yet by then their moment had faded and they appeared increasingly misaligned with the rising punk wave. Caravan halted activity in the early 1980s after releasing The Album and Back to Front, both issued on Kingdom Records, the label owned by former manager Terry King.

Their story appeared concluded until 1990, when the original quartet—Pye Hastings, Richard Sinclair, Dave Sinclair, and Richard Coughlan—reconvened for a one-time television-special concert. The performance and accompanying live album sold strongly enough to spark a full reunion and second career. The group persisted into the new millennium, augmented largely by ex-Camel members and other later personnel, issuing new recordings at irregular but steady intervals. Equally significant, English Decca—by then absorbed into Polygram, itself later part of MCA—oversaw an extensive vault excavation in 1999–2000 that yielded vastly expanded reissues of the entire Verve and Decca catalogs, placing more Caravan music, including classic 1960s and 1970s material, into circulation than at any prior point. Around 2005, however, drummer Richard Coughlan’s health problems compelled him to stop touring; Mark Walker assumed drum duties while Coughlan restricted himself to percussion. Coughlan died on December 1, 2013, at the age of 66.