Tornadoes: Fathers Of Prog

Avram Fawcett wrote: The Tornadoes. Ever heard of them. Not the surf group of the same name that did "Bustin' Surfboards," before them. Produced by Joe Meek (early Brit rock's Syd Barret), they created wildly spacey instrumentals with Meeks compressed production. You not be familar with them, but chances are you've heard their number one hit: Telstar. That's right, they were the first to do Telstar.

Billy Fury's backing group! No chance. (Cliff Richard's backing band) The Shadows predates them and  more innovative and I never contemplated them in the genre. But now let's consider B Bumble & the Stingers and not forgetting Sandy Nelson...........................

Congratulations on being the first to relate Syd Barrett and Joe Meek - but there is no mention of such in either of those gentlemen's biographies!!

emdiar wrote: I always thought Syd Barrett was early Brit rock's Syd Barrett.

Good one- made me laugh out loud, anyway.

"Telstar" had very little to do with the Tornadoes...they recorded some basic tracks and left the studio. Joe Meek (and partner Geoff Goddard) added the Clavioline synth lead as well as other sounds and finished up with Meek's unique production touches. The Tornadoes hated it, it became their biggest hit (and the best selling British instrumental ever), and they ran back to Meek for more inspiration.

Good one James Lee!

It seems like there's a lot of keyboards on The Tornadoes' stuff. Is that of Meek and Goddard, or did the group themselves have some input? I heard Clem Cattani (I'm surely misspelling that) played organ or something on "Telstar."

You know Easy Livin, I never thought about the "Interstellar Overdrive" connection. Now I see it! Except that Overdrive goes on and on and on........

(A little side note: has anyone heard The Challengers' version of "Telstar" on Killer Surf? Are they also using the clavioline?)