Patto - Hold Your Fire (1971 uk, blues-rock)

Patto - Hold Your Fire (1971 uk, blues-rock)

Patto’s second album is a bit of a nugget amongst Vertigo swirl collectors, for with its elaborate sectional “Consequences” styled fold-out cover, finding one in anything better than “slightly knackered” condition – that’s “VG+” to the unscrupulous seller – is nigh on impossible, and daftly expensive should you be lucky enough to chance upon one. The cover was to feature the band’s own sketches on the delicate design, each member putting hours into their artistic noodlings, only for designer Roger Dean to either lose or throw them away! The band were, shall we say, dischuffed!

Collector’s obsessing and cover art niceties aside, Patto managed to up the ante from their blistering debut to record an album that shows a bunch of musicians at the top of their game, with the intimate understanding of each other’s playing that can only come from years on the road together. Ollie Halsall turns in a staggering display of dexterity, adaptability, and an instinctive melodic and harmonic nous that at the time had his contemporaries stooping to pick up their mandibles from the floor whenever they witnessed the shy genius at work. Alvin Lee in particular, whose band Ten Years After the boys supported on tour, was a big fan.

The band has honed its chops considerably, and a track like Give It All Away sums them up neatly. Starting as an R’n’B belter replete with honky-tonk piano, it doesn’t take long before time signature changes that your standard blues-based rock band would not imagine incorporating give the song a careening quality as it charges along. Ollie answers Mike’s storytelling lyrics with some fine curtailed lyrical fills. Then, not long after two minutes in, the tune leaves the orbit of The Faces playing with jazz rhythms to fly off at an oblique angle on the back of Ollie’s short but mesmerising solo before returning to Earth with a maniacal grin plastered across its fizzog.

Air Raid Shelter is this album’s Money Bag, taken up a level or two. 1. Hold Your Fire - 0:00

2. You, You Point Your Finger - 8:02

3. How's Your Father (Ollie Halsall) - 12:37

4. See You At The Dance Tonight (Ollie Halsall) - 17:21

5. Give It All Away - 22:17

6. Air-Raid Shelter (Ollie Halsall) - 26:27

7. Tell Me Where You've Been - 33:33

8. Magic Door - 37:23

9. Beat The Drum (Mike Patto, Ollie Halsall, Clive Griffiths, John Halsey) - 41:46

10.Bad News (Mike Patto, Ollie Halsall, Clive Griffiths, John Halsey) - 46:53

11.Air Raid Shelter (Ollie Halsall) - 51:31


All songs by Mike Patto, Ollie Halsall except where stated

Patto

*Mike Patto - Lead Vocals
*Peter "Ollie" Halsall - Guitar, Piano, Organ, Vibes, Vocals
*Clive Griffiths - Bass, Vocals
*John Halsey - Drums, Percussion
With:
*Bernie Holland - Guitar



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