Guide to British Music of the 1960s
July 2004
Book Review
The Creation- Our Music IsRed With Purple Flashes by Sean Egan
The long and eagerly awaited book about one of England's least-known but highly respected groups has been well-worth waiting for. The Creation barely troubled the compilers of the singles charts in the UK and never released an LP while they were together. However, it was quite different in Germany with hit singles and the We Are Paintermen LP. Nowadays the importance of the Creation is recognised with Eddie Phillips seen as one of the most important guitarists of the 1960s and certainly up there with Pete Townshend, Jeff Beck and Jimi Hendrix. Their songs have been covered by Rise, the Sex Pistols and Oasis and they are widely seen as an important influence on the recent Britrock phenomenon. Red with Purple Flashes is the amazing and often sad story of the Creation.
The Creation was a bit of a mess with no really stable line-up. The original line-up of Eddie Phillips, Kenny Pickett, Bob Garner and Jack Jones produced the first two classic singles, Making Time and Painter Man. However, fighting within the group led to Pickett's departure. The resulting line-up with Kim Gardner of the Birds coming in on bass and Bob Garner moving to vocals could probably be viewed more of the classic Creation line-up. Again there was bickering and Eddie Phillips left to be replaced by a number of guitarists including Tony Ollard, Ronnie Wood and, possibly, an Australian called Digger. Jack Jones was sacked at one point but reinstated after a short period of time. Then Garner left to be replaced by Kenny Pickett. The final line-up was Pickett, Jones, Gardner and Ronnie Wood. Despite this ongoing upheaval, the group toured extensively, mostly in Germany, and continued to produce some classic tracks. However, the heart of the Creation was Eddie Phillips with his innovative guitar style including the use of feedback and using the violin bow on his guitar, long before Jimmy Page. Without Phillips the Creation struggled despite the undoubted quality of those who replaced him.
Sean Egan's has produced the definitive biography of the Creation. There is extensive research with interviews with all of those who were involved with the band with a couple of exceptions. Former fan club secretary June Clark appears to have the best memory and one that is least tainted by the problems within the group. With the band members, especially, memories of muddled. This was partly due to the fact that it was the sixties, of which memories tend to be poor for various reasons, but also the ever-changing line-up made it sometimes difficult to ascertain who played on what. To Sean Egan's credit, he has worked hard at unravelling the recording history, relating tracks to those who played on them and wrote them. Again, Pickett/Phillips is frequently viewed as the classic Creation song writing team but they were not responsible for much of the band's output. After Kenny Pickett's departure, Phillips started to write with Bob Garner and it was this paring that created tracks such as Life is Just Beginning and How Does It Feel to Feel. Furthermore, the band released a plethora of acceptable but unremarkable cover versions and the final few tracks released were not band compositions.
This is the incredible story of one of the 1960s most influential but lesser-known groups. Eddie Phillips was possibly asked to join the Who as second guitarist while Kenny Pickett auditioned for the band that become Led Zeppelin but did end up as road manager. This is a classic case of what could have been. They did not get the breaks, particularly in the UK, and it is possible that this lack of commercial success was behind the discontent in the ranks. Today, their contribution to music is accepted more than when they were together as evidenced by the success of the 1990s reunions. They recorded again with a single and album on Creation records. This was a good though not great effort but which was again ruined by the infighting and the fact that Eddie Phillips was less behind the venture than the other three.