New Day Avenue - Bronco:

After quitting The Alan Bown!, Jess headed back to Kidderminster to re-think his longer-term goals and take stock away from London.

Giving his first major interview, early in 1970, Jess recalled: “The stuff I was writing was too soft and light for Alan Bown. After about a year of that, I split back to Kidderminster to play with the people I was closer to.

I had a telegram from Guy Stevens that said, “Give me a ring”.

To term Guy Stevens as simply an 'executive' with Island and running their Sue label is, a considerable misnomer and, in fact, belies his standing in the industry - even at that time.

In short, Guy was one of the most influential figures in popular music - and certainly within that particular era.

He was not strictly a manager, record producer or musician in any full-time sense but his rôle as a catalyst that led to the coalescence of nascent talents into truly formidable wholes should never be underestimated - despite the fact that he spent longer in prison, for drugs offences, than most people in the music industry of the time.

When Guy got in contact, one sat up and took notice. Simple as that.

'And, when I rang him he asked me to come down and see him and Chris Blackwell. I went down and rapped with them and they helped me get the band together. Bronco conjures up rough and smooth really; western scenery, home on the range and that conjures up something warm that we want our music to sound like”.

The ‘group’ that Jess was referring had, as its antecedence, roots that can be traced back four years to 1966 – at which point The Band Of Joy included Robert Plant (vocals) and Pete Robinson (drums).

Plant, despite being still in his teens, had already released one single with his former band Listen as well as two solo singles for C.B.S. Records. However, due to conflicts with the band's management Plant left the group the following year and went on to (confusingly) form his own Band Of Joy but that band soon folded and he subsequently rejoined the original incarnation.

During 1967 the Band Of Joy comprised Plant, Kevyn Gammond (guitar), John Bonham (drums), Paul Lockey (bass) and Chris Brown (keyboards). They became one of the major bands operating out of the burgeoning Birmingham scene and toured Britain the following year as support act to the American singer Tim Rose before folding.

Robert Plant then, briefly, joined Hobbstweedle, before he and John Bonham were invited to join Led Zeppelin with Jimmy Page and John-Paul Jones.

Meantime, Robinson (drums) - whose own background included a stint with , Lockey and Gammond started to work with Jess and the earliest incarnation of Bronco was formed. However, Lockey soon left to be replaced by John Pasternak (bass) and Robbie Blunt (guitar) completed the line-up.

Drummer, Pete Robinson recalls: "It was Kevyn who first contacted me and we had our first get together at Johnny Pasternak’s Mum’s house. Being young I suppose I was a bit in awe of Jess, he had come from a very well known band, and it was him that Island Records had first put their faith in".
 
"We had our first ‘musical’ meeting - as the five of us - in a Kidderminster pub, eventually rehearsals moved to Arley Village Hall, this was great because it was just round the corner from the ‘Bellmans Cross’ pub!! At first we just jammed together with a few ‘west coast’ tunes and then moved onto working on original material of Jess’ and Robbie’s".

CB, a man besotted by the human voice, signed me to Island Records because I was the voice of the Alan Bown Set. Then, without hesitation or doubt, he let me form a group with my homeboys from Kidderminster and then... let us loose in his brand-new, state-of-the-art for the time, Basing Street studios to make a record.

But... not before they'd started playing a handful of shows - on the 14th December '69 - as noted from the John Coombes diary of Kidderminster-area 'events' - Bronco played their second ever show at Franks, the old base from which The Raiders had operated. 'Their music ranged from jazz to blues and country with Jess Roden on vocals on fine form.' Three days prior to that, Ralph McTell had appeared at the 'Mare & Colt' folk club and the day following Bronco's show, Deaf Cuckoo (whatever happened to them) appeared as support to Junior's Eyes at the Stourport Civic.

Pete Robinson recalls - "Johnny and Kevyn moved into a farm house not far from the rehearsal hall and I quickly joined them, this really helped the band get tight. I had a good friendship with Johnny both on and off stage, we worked well together, he was a great bass player.


l-r: John Pasternak, Pete Robinson, JR, Robbie Blunt & Kevyn Gammond - at Baynhams Farm

"Our first stab at recording was at Olympic Studios overseen by Guy Stevens and we recorded our more ‘rocky’ sounding tunes with him".

Back to 1970 – “Guy started producing the album but our musical feelings were different so we ended up doing our own (production). We had a demo of Love down on the sixteen-track and it turned out so well, we were allowed to do our own production. I did the first mix but I didn’t quite get enough quality into the recording so Island called Paul Samwell-Smith in to remix it”.

Bronco - who were still playing the occasional show at the time - for example at Kidderminster College on June 18th - were then introduced to (parts of) the waiting world via the summer release of the first of the (now legendary) Island double-album samplers; Bumpers.

Disc One, side one, track two – and that song Jess was referring to – Love.

Bumpers itself was issued in various permutations around the world; in the British release Bronco’s track is sandwiched between Traffic’s magnum opus Every Mother’s Son and Spooky Tooth’s downright grunge (before the term had ever been coined) interpretation of I Am The Walrus.

Even so, on the original release the title of the Bronco (source) album and its catalogue number were wrongly listed. In Scandinavia, the release was pared down to a single album and Love opened up proceedings on side two while in Australia and New Zealand, the track-listing differed wildly with Bronco being left out entirely.

Nevertheless, that one song was the precursor for things to come because, as the leaves on the trees turned to autumnal golden, came their first proper single - Lazy Now (released in October) and, the album itself - Country Home - followed swiftly on its heels, issued during the first week of November.

"We moved to Basing Street Studios (Island Records HQ) and set about the task of getting the first album together" remembers Pete Robinson. "Nearly all the first batch of song’s were Jess’ and we had thrashed these out many times at the village hall rehearsals so we were all familiar with them. While 'Diga' was tape op on the Country Home album, Jess had a lot of input on the final production".

I don't think that any one of us, including Richard Digby Smith (Diga) who was engineering the sessions (a first time for him also) had any idea what or how proper records were made.


Bronco recording at Basing St. Studios - it is possible that this picture was taken when being taped on a BBC programme called Sounding Out - a fan recalls:...I can remember footage of the band recording “Civil of You Stranger”.

The ‘Country Home’ album was pretty much recorded on the back of very few gigs and so, in my opinion, has a ‘put together in the studio’ feel to it.

Anyway, we ended up with about ten tunes – and Paul Samwell-Smith was bought in to polish up and finish off the record.

With this triumvirate of releases, Bronco – clearly in CB's mind, as much a vehicle for Jess’ voice as his songs – quietly burst into life.

And, for this, their first album, the band were augmented by former Alan Bown sideman Jeff Bannister who played piano on two songs as well as Clifford T Ward who not only provided vocal back-ups on the track Home but who co-wrote Misfit On Your Stair. A further co-write was with Susie Worth for Bumpers West, the final song on the first side of the record.

Susie Worth was one of the arty ones of our gang – wrote poetry and drew things – and so she wrote lyrics for a few of my tunes.

CTW was a very good friend of Kevyn’s and so they occasionally wrote together. When I was with the Raiders, he was known as Cliff Ward and his band were The Cruisers. They were without doubt, the best pop group in Kidderminster at the time.

During the Bronco years and after a spell as a schoolteacher, he had re-emerged as Clifford T Ward and was, if I recall correctly, signed to Island Publishing. He had one almighty hit single and a fairly successful album but developed MS and sadly died several years ago.

The album cover was shot near Rusper on the borders of Surrey and W. Sussex at a house that Elaine and I had rented with another couple who were our good friends.

The house was single-story, made mainly of wood and built in a Japanese style (large picture widows and clad in bamboo) as was the garden which contained a swimming pool (drained and somewhat slimey) and a very large iron cage – we were told that it had once housed a Bear (cruel fuckers).

It was all set in eight acres of woodland and fronted by a lake complete with a couple of islands.

The house (Laudate) was owned by Peter Asher, who, at that time, had become a major record producer in LA. Neil Kingsbury, one of our friends, was a sound recordist working in television and at that time he was working on a show called 'Nice Time' which was the first television vehicle for Kenny Everett. Kenny was the previous tenant of Laudate and, kind of, passed it on to us.

The story goes that John Lennon visited Laudate a few times – once when Derek Taylor (the Beatles PR guy) had invited him and Neil Aspinall (their roadie) over to listen to Harry Nilson’s new album… this – according to Sylvia, the housekeeper (who lived in a caravan in the woods) – they did whilst boating on the lake illuminated by spotlights and tripping… before the evening’s events were curtailed somewhat by a major thunderstorm.

Apparently, paranoia then set in and the assembled company spent the remainder of the night worrying about who may or may not be hiding in the trees. A combined obsessive level of mistrust that wasn’t exactly unfounded as one of the Great Train Robbers had, it seems, used the house as a hide-out and the boys in blue were, really, lurking locally.

We were also told by Sylvia that John had written 'Bungalow Bill' whilst staying at the house. He may well have written bits of it there though the song is actually based around a guy in the Maharishi's meditation camp who had set up residence right next door to where the Maharishi was staying and who took a short break from the ashram to go and shoot a few poor tigers, and then came back to commune with God.

And, there was a v. nasty fellow down the dirt-track who did seem to go out 'Tiger Hunting' at the drop of a hat. So it all seemed quite plausible.

Be that as it may, the photos for the sleeve were shot by our friend Malcolm Macintosh in the woods surrounding the property – and the wooden hut was, well, just there in the middle of nowhere. 

All the people in the gatefold shot were our close friends and they used to come and crash on our floor for days, sometimes… weeks on end.

With the album out, and a slew of good reviews under their collective belt, Bronco took to the road with their final show of the year being the homecoming for Jess' homeboys with a December 27th appearance at Franks in Kidderminster - an afternoon Christmas party.



Again, as noted by John Coombes - 'a very confident Bronco entertained the capacity crowd with fine performances from dual lead guitarists Kev Gammond and Robbie Blunt, and superb vocals from Jess Roden in spite of his raging toothache. It was their first hometown appearance since the release of their Country Home LP and also a rare opportunity to see Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant on stage where he also played the guitar'.

I remember that day very well, and not just because it was the day before my birthday.

By the evening, my toothache had become so unbearable that I went to the casualty department of Birmingham Hospital (all the dentists were closed over Christmas). Anyway, the hospital couldn’t really help but they did give me some painkiller of one type or another.

Elaine then drove me back to Laudate where we were to have a party the next day. Thankfully, a dentist in Dorking was open on the Monday morning because, by now, I’m delerious with pain.

No messing, the dentist ripped the malfunctioning molar straight out of my jaw. The party was a bit of a damp S for me - I think I slept through most of it and when I was awake, I listened to Laura Nyro albums - so, not really in a dancing mood!

Time, of course, is the healer of all things and there were more gigs to play and songs to record.

Bronco had three principal writers and also combinations of the three with other writers and so, it’s not too difficult to fathom why there was always plenty of material to be recorded. When I think back, it always amazes me that I made, or was involved with, so many records in a relatively short period of time.

Myself / my bands, always seemed to be in the recording studio working on new stuff just weeks after the release of previous efforts.

‘Ace of Sunlight’ benefitted from coming on the back of a few weeks solid gigging and, with a couple of exceptions, has a more ‘group playing’ feel to it.

The 'Ace Of Sunlight' pictures were also shot by 'Mac' at Laudate. I think that he actually carved the name into the log with a Swiss Army knife.

When the cover image was chosen (by Muff Winwood – who was kind of, our-man-at-Island, for a bit) I really hated it! I thought that it looked like something from between the legs of a stallion which meant that it didn't really fit with the 'SENSITIVE' nature of our music.

It was a very diverse record, very hard to channel all of the rapidly-expanding creative energies (something to do with brown lumps and green leaves I expect) within the group – hit & miss I guess.

However, despite a wealth of touring to coincide with the album's release, it was also the precursor to the end of that line-up.

I suppose the beginning of the end for Bronco came with that unfortunate road accident. Incidentally and thankfully, I wasn’t in the van with the other guys - I had travelled to the gig in Bristol from Berkshire with my friends Bob Pridden and Mike Kellie - the rest of the band, together with Sound Engineer, Dick Hayes and Road Manager, Alan Stone, had travelled from Kevyn and Johnny’s place, Baynhams Farm in Arley, Worcestershire.

Bob Pridden has played an integral role with The Who for over forty years; not just as their principal front of house sound egineer but also as producer in his own right - the live album that emanated from Eric Clapton's comeback show at London's Rainbow Theatre in 1973 being one such. At Live Aid he mixed f.o.h. sound for The Who, Paul McCartney and David Bowie while other key Who performances that he mixed include Woodstock and The Monterey Festival. Bob is also widely acknowledged to have invented something now taken for granted at any live show - big or small: on-stage monitors (wedges) when, during the late 1960's he requested a set of slanted speaker enclosures placed directly in front of the band in order that they could hear themselves - and each other.

Bob Pridden and I are, I suppose, best friends (his mum took me in as a lodger when I moved to London with ABS) we used to hang out at Traffic's and Kellie's and also, there was a couple called Helen and Patrick who lived in Blewbury where we often congregated. They, of course were older than all of us - they had two boys. Trevor Burton and Ace Kefford used to hang with us too and much reefer was consumed together with some of that ghastly stuff that Dr T. Leary and Mr K. Kesey used say was v. good for one.

The tall and lanky Mike Kellie was - at that point in time, drummer with Spooky Tooth who were all holed up near Theale at an out of the way hideaway - somewhat similar to Traffic's remote (now mythical) Berkshire cottage high up on the downs and only accessible via a long (and often axle-deep) muddy track out near Blewbury.

In the Spooky's case, it was Woolwich Green Farm, an old Tudor farmhouse that was surrounded by a manmade lake which Chris Blackwell had bought at auction after spotting it one day while driving with producer John Gilbert. One of the outside barns was set up for music - in much the same manner that the Traffic cottage had its frontal area concreted as a make-shift stage and, over time, both witnessed many creative nights with a huge variety of musicians bowling up and jamming into and through the night.

I don’t recall how the gig went. But, afterwards we sat around for while and then simply headed off... back to to our respective bases.

The first I knew about the accident was in the early hours of the Sunday morning. Perhaps it was Kevyn but, I don’t remember who called me, and the news was not good.

Dick was driving and Alan and Pete Robinson had been in the seats alongside. All three of them were pretty badly injured and together with Johnny Pasternak (who had suffered a broken leg), were all in Cheltenham Hospital. Elaine and I drove to Cheltenham to see them and we were massively relieved to find them all conscious and although very badly injured, they were all alive!

What had happened? A truck had broken down in the middle lane of the east-bound M5 - there were no lights and tragically, the bands’ van just ploughed into it. Perhaps there was one thing that saved everyone’s life - the broken down truck was full to capacity with clothing.

John Pasternak and Pete Robinson were released from hospital after a day while Alan Stone remained in hospital for a further week.

Dick had one of his hips badly smashed up, underwent several operations and would be off the road for the forseeable future. After about a year of recuperation, he joined The Who’s road crew and I believe he now runs a P.A. and amplification hire company.

For Bronco, their onward and upward momentum stuttered to something of a halt for a few weeks whilst everyone recuperated.

We eventually started doing some gigs and travelled to Holland. On stage, Johnny would sit on a high stool his leg was still heavily plastered.

A tour of the west coast of America was booked. So, off we very excitedly went.

For the first couple of weeks, we stayed at the Tropicana Motel on Santa Monica Boulevard and played about four nights at the Whisky A GoGo on Sunset Strip.

We were pretty good, but also, pretty small-time for LA and so, not much attention was paid to us. Still, we had time to look around the Hollywood sites. From our base at the Tropicana, we played gigs in Huntington Beach (a big surfer hang-out), Long Beach and San Diego before heading north to San Francisco.

On the way we played at Palo Alto and Santa Barbara - these were really good gigs. Santa Barbara was a fantastic party, everybody dancing wildly and Palo Alto was the complete opposite. The venue was full of Vietnam Vets - the smell of grass heavy in the air and they sat and soaked up our music and were really appreciative.



Eventually, we got to look around San Frasncisco, ride the tram, took in Haight Ashbury and Market Street and sought out the places where the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and Quicksilver Messenger Service had been. We played a gig at Berkley University and were due to play another but somehow it got cancelled.

Far from home, pretty much broke and... disillusionment set in...

It was a Saturday night and we had very little money and nothing to do but sit around in our motel rooms. Bronco was not a group that took alcohol but for some bizarre reason, we decided to go to the liquor store and buy ourselves a bottle each. Not knowing anything about liquor, I chose Southern Comfort.

That was the last time I ever drank that stuff (not its fault - mine!). We were all in pretty rotten shape the next day and then, we flew back to England.

In fact, the band returned to the UK and played a number of number of shows in the November with the likes of John Martyn; at Wembley Empire Pool with Led Zeppelin and Stone The Crows as well as London's Rainbow Theatre - a benefit concert in aid of the Glastonbury Fayre (now, of course, the Glastonbury Festival) on a bill that included Bridget St John and Formerly Fat Harry.

The following February they also toured extensively, mainly in company with Island stable-mates John Martyn and Claire Hammill but... as Jess remembers... That was pretty much it - and, it really feels to me, like Bronco just dissolved.

(For a full interview that Jess gave at the time, please see the Bronco: Concerts and Radio / TV listings page)

After Jess' spring departure, Bronco went on to make one final album - Smoking Mixture - that was issued by Polydor the following year, 1973. It was released on red vinyl (at the start of the vogue for such things) inside a 'book of matches' gatefold sleeve. Gammond, Pasternak and Robinson remained as the nucleus of the band and, for the album, were augmented by Dan Fone (vocals / guitar), Paul Lockey (guitar - taking Robbie Blunt's role) along with Clifford T Ward (backing vocals) and Simon Lanzon (keyboards).

The band - mark 2 - gigged sporadically from Jess' departure (April '72) and, eventually, played its final show at Manchester Polytechnic with Jack The Lad (an offshoot of Lindisfarne) on November 24th of that year.

There is a sad coda to the Bronco tale; John Pasternak died of a heart attack on September 23rd 1986 whilst out riding his bike in Kidderminster. At the time he was involved with a local band, Pictures In The Dark Room and had set up Zone To Zone Records.

Mourners at his funeral, at St Johns, included Robbie Blunt and Robert Plant - the latter leading an all-star tribute concert at Stourport Civic Hall - scene of a number of early Shakedown Sound gigs - in his memory during December of that year.