Horn bands (Chicago, Blood Sweat & Tears, The Electric Flag, among others) were pretty common in the USA in the 60s and 70s. Many other bands used horn sections on some of the songs they recorded (including The Doors and Spirit). And, of course, horns were a big part of Spector’s productions, as well as many Motown hits.
Did the British have a similar affection for horn bands and horn sections in that period? I’m really straining to name some.
(Answers should include primary sources and citations in proper format. Notarized statements are preferred, but not required. Keyboard horns and synthesizers do not count. “British” means “East of NYC.” Offer not valid in MN.)
The late seventies and into the eighties saw a huge amount of chart success in the UK for ‘Horn-Tastic’ pop ska bands. Perhaps the most successful (in terms of singles success) were Madness but large amounts of hits also for The Selector, The Specials, the Beat. Not really ska but early Dexys Midnight Runners (before the ‘Oirish’ fiddles of Come On Eileen) had brass and their song Geno is superb.
Coming to think of it Gerry Raferty’s BakerStreet has one of the most famous sax solos PLUS it’s the basis of a HILARIOUS (to UK people of a certain age) ‘fake truth’ that it was performed by Bob Holness. If you’re not British, don’t ask.
ELO spun off from The Move. The Move main man, Roy Wood formed Wizzard who had a big hit with their song I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day. Plenty of horns in there. And it’s been played every Christmas since.
Great responses! But I was trying to zero in on actual horn bands. ELO, for example, didn’t usually tour with horns and concentrated primarily on cello and violin. Plenty of songs used a sax or two, so I don’t really think of “Baker Street” as being an example of Rafferty as a “horn band.” Again, even The Doors used a horn section and sax on occasion (both live and in the studio) and nobody considers them to have been a horn band.
Brighouse and Rastrict Brass Band had a big hit with The Floral Dance. They only reached Number 2 in the charts because Wings mega hit Mull of Kintyre held Number 1.
Meanwhile the Dutch Private Eye TV show Van Der Valk theme tune, Eye Level, was a genuine Number 1 hit performed by a full orchestra.
Yeah, their “orchestra” was a string section in the studio, or, when on tour, two cellists and a violinist. On their first album, they experimented with wind instruments like oboes and clarinets, but otherwise, very little in the way of horns, and anything that one hears on one of their albums that sounds like a horn might well have been a synthesizer.
The Stones in their classic phase often had horns, in the studio and at stage. Sax player Bobby Keys was kind of an unofficial sixth band member (and a big buddy of Keith). Here’s a great example:
Yes, but I’m still trying to identify bands that had permanent horn sections/personnel and made the horns an integral part of their overall sound. The Grass Roots’ “Midnight Confessions” was their first big hit and it certainly suggested that they were a Chicago-type horn band, but this was not the case at all.
Another example of a horn band from the USA is Sly and the Family Stone, with sax and trumpet players. Of course, if we allow a sax as a “horn section,” we would also need to include The E Street Band.
For British bands with horn sections of the 60s and 70s, the best resource is the career of sax player Dick Heckstall-Smith, he virtually played in all of them, including Blues Incorporated, the Graham Bond Organisation and Colosseum.
For the last few days, I’ve been re-enjoying Pick Up the Pieces by Average White Band, which I’d forgotten about for a long time. They sure don’t sound like Scotland
Seriously, what a cool, slinky sound! If you think about it, the guitar line and song structure aren’t too far from Stayin’ Aliive, which was released three years later.
Off topic, but I always wondered why ELO went with 2 cellos and 1 violin on tour instead of 2 violins and 1 cello. From videos I saw of their performances, one of the cellos would play falsetto. I’m guessing they were all mates who got together on the first couple albums before they could afford a studio orchestra, then the string players got phased out from the “official” lineup.
On the first ELO album, it was mostly Roy Wood playing the baroque instruments, though they had another guy playing some horns, and a violinist
Starting with the second album, they had a couple of cellists and a violinist as official band members (including on tour), though the exact musicians changed a bit from album to album
Starting with their fourth album (Eldorado), they had a full string section in the studio, but still had the two cellists + one violinist who were actual band members. By that point, it was Mik Kaminiski on violin, and Melvyn Gale and Hugh McDowell on cello – those three were with the band for a number of years, and and they played on the albums as well as on tour.
They stuck with that arrangement for several albums, until around 1980, whe Jeff Lynne de-emphasized the string sound in favor of more synths; at that point, they stopped using the string section in the studio, and Kaminski, Gale, and McDowell only had minimal roles with the group from that point on.
Good question… none of the mentioned bands are what i’d call horn bands - ie having
a dedicated horn section.
Nearest i can think of is Van Morrison, but he’s not a band !
So far I’ve been unable to find information about the horn players on The Beatles’ “Got To Get You Into My Life.” Were they a bunch of individual musicians who were brought together to play on that particular record, or were they already an established horn section?
The Bonzo Dog Band had two dedicated sax players (Rodney Slater and Roger Ruskin Spear), who also played brass when called for. Lead singer Vivian Stanshall played trumpet, among other things.
The had started out as a trad (i.e. Dixieland) jazz band and several of their recordings were in that genre.
The Temperance Seven were successful into the 60s, playing trad jazz.
Soft Machine regularly included brass and saxophone.
