Ancient Grease

Ancient Grease is a proto-metal band from Wales. Formed in 1967 until 1970

Profile
The history of the band Ancient Grease goes back to the late 1960s, when the four Welsh lads Gareth "Morty" Mortimer (vocals), Jack Bass (bass, certainly!), Dick "Ferndale" Owen (drums) & Graham Williams (guitar) were playing in the local cover-band Strawberry Dust.

After Strawberry Dust had supported another Welsh rockers Eyes Of Blue on their tour, Eyes Of Blue's drummer John "Pugwash" Weathers got so impressed with the instrumental skills of Strawberry Dust's musicians, that he asked the Mercury boss Lou Reizner to sign them.

Reizner agreed, but suggested the new title of the band - Ancient Grease. With help of Weathers and two other Eyes Of Blue members Phil Ryan (keyboards) and Gary Pickford-Hopkins (vocals, guitar) the band recorded their first and last album, called "Women and Children First", which was released in July 1970.

All the tracks on this album were written by Eyes Of Blue members, but still this work is far more progressive than everything done by this band in the earlier years.

Do you want some pure early heavy rock? Try "Freedom Train"! Are you seeking for structural complexity? Try the awesome closing title-track! Are you in need of beautiful rock ballad? Check out "Time To Die"! Are you eager to hear the blues-flavoured proto-pro-gressive rock? Listen to "Mother Grease The Cat"! Anyway, this is a rare example of the album totally devoid of low points. Unfortunately, Ancient Grease proved to be a one-shot classic.

Following its quick demise, Mortimer and Williams formed Racing Cars, Bass joined Boogiemen, while Owen teamed with The Rattle. John Weathers went on to join Pete Brown's Piblokto!, while Phil Ryan became the member of the famous Welsh band Man.

Another related one-shot project was called Big Sleep - this band recorded the great "Blue Bell Wood" album in 1971 with the participation of Weathers, Ryan and Pickford-Hopkins.

The latter guy soon joined Wild Turkey - the group led by ex-Jethro Tull bass-player Glen Cornick. His later musical activities included the session work with Cozy Powell and Rick Wakeman. At the same time, Weathers became the drummer of Gentle Giant to release with them eight studio albums between 1972 and 1980.

The sole Ancient Grease album remains the unsurpassed treasure of early British heavy progressive rock. As the original LPs are getting hard to find, this CD-reissue gives you a great possibility to listen to this classic work (CD Notes).