The Gods

The Gods owe their greater renown less to the pair of albums they issued than to the roster of prominent British rock musicians who passed through the group before achieving wider fame. Keyboardist and vocalist Ken Hensley together with drummer Lee Kerslake—both of whom later became mainstays of Uriah Heep—performed on the recordings, while Mick Taylor and Greg Lake had already appeared in the lineup by the time the first album was made. The discs themselves presented unremarkable keyboard-driven rock positioned between the pop-psychedelia of the late 1960s and the heavier progressive style that emerged in the early 1970s. Although markedly less theatrical than Uriah Heep, the music lacked strong identity and occupied a middling tier within the British rock landscape of the period.

Formed in Hatfield, England, during 1965, the band began as a blues-oriented outfit that featured Hensley alongside future Rolling Stones guitarist Mick Taylor. Taylor departed in 1967 to join John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, prompting a brief disbandment; when the Gods reassembled, Hensley remained the sole link to the original configuration. Greg Lake spent time in this incarnation before exiting ahead of the 1968 recording of the debut album Genesis; he would soon surface with King Crimson and subsequently Emerson, Lake & Palmer. Genesis attracted little attention, as did the non-album singles that followed, among them a 1969 reading of “Hey Bulldog,” apparently the sole attempt to turn that lesser-known Beatles track into a commercial success. The group dissolved in early 1969, yet the follow-up LP To Samuel a Son appeared posthumously the next year. Repertoire later reissued both albums on CD, appending the non-album 45s as bonus material. On September 19, 2020, drummer Lee Kerslake passed away at age 73.