Biography
Balls assembled considerable musical ability yet generated scant recorded output, managing to release only a single undistinguished hard rock 45, "Fight for My Country"/"Janie Slow Down," in 1971. At different points the lineup included Denny Laine, Trevor Burton, Steve Gibbons, Alan White, and Jackie Lomax, each already known to some degree among listeners of British rock from the 1960s and 1970s. The brief history therefore demonstrated, on a modest scale, that lineups stocked with established names did not reliably produce impressive results.
The project began in February 1969 when Trevor Burton quit the Move, where he had handled bass, and joined the Birmingham group the Uglys on guitar instead. After adopting the name Balls, the musicians withdrew to a cottage in Fordingbridge to rehearse in the rural style then associated with Traffic. Original Moody Blues lead singer Denny Laine joined on guitar and vocals that summer, although Steve Gibbons remained the most visible frontman. The band re-formed as a quartet in summer 1970, retaining Laine and Burton while adding Jackie Lomax and future Yes drummer Alan White. Lomax departed after seven days, allowing Gibbons to return. Cohesion never developed, and the group dissolved in February 1971, though ex-Spooky Tooth drummer Mike Kellie had entered shortly before the end.
Pete Frame's Family Trees presents this sequence of events. Separate accounts claim White actually exited at the close of 1969, that Kellie arrived substantially earlier, and that Lomax never participated at all. Laine and Burton also spent portions of 1970 in Airforce and performed as an acoustic duo at intervals during the same year.
With only one single issued, the chronology remains difficult to verify. Burton wrote "Fight for My Country," which recalled the Move's mixture of pastoral folk and chunky hard rock yet lacked strong melodic material. Laine and White composed "Janie Slow Down," a routine hard rock piece carrying a light boogie feel. Melody Maker reported in 1970 that Balls had completed twelve tracks for an album that never appeared, partly because the group still lacked a label; Ric Grech has been mentioned in speculation about some of those recordings. Both sides of the Balls single later surfaced on the Move bootleg Family Tree.
The project began in February 1969 when Trevor Burton quit the Move, where he had handled bass, and joined the Birmingham group the Uglys on guitar instead. After adopting the name Balls, the musicians withdrew to a cottage in Fordingbridge to rehearse in the rural style then associated with Traffic. Original Moody Blues lead singer Denny Laine joined on guitar and vocals that summer, although Steve Gibbons remained the most visible frontman. The band re-formed as a quartet in summer 1970, retaining Laine and Burton while adding Jackie Lomax and future Yes drummer Alan White. Lomax departed after seven days, allowing Gibbons to return. Cohesion never developed, and the group dissolved in February 1971, though ex-Spooky Tooth drummer Mike Kellie had entered shortly before the end.
Pete Frame's Family Trees presents this sequence of events. Separate accounts claim White actually exited at the close of 1969, that Kellie arrived substantially earlier, and that Lomax never participated at all. Laine and Burton also spent portions of 1970 in Airforce and performed as an acoustic duo at intervals during the same year.
With only one single issued, the chronology remains difficult to verify. Burton wrote "Fight for My Country," which recalled the Move's mixture of pastoral folk and chunky hard rock yet lacked strong melodic material. Laine and White composed "Janie Slow Down," a routine hard rock piece carrying a light boogie feel. Melody Maker reported in 1970 that Balls had completed twelve tracks for an album that never appeared, partly because the group still lacked a label; Ric Grech has been mentioned in speculation about some of those recordings. Both sides of the Balls single later surfaced on the Move bootleg Family Tree.
Albums
Singles
