• Home
  • About
  • Music
  • Performance
  • Gigs
  • Influences
  • Instructional
  • Instruments
  • Media

News - Classic

New Jon Dalton Release “Spaceship Orion”

Back in the late 70s early 80s when we were still mostly teenagers back in the UK, I knew a large group of people. Probably numbering well past the 100 if you count the ripple effect. We would often hangout in each others’ places having music parties. Hard rock and heavy metal along with a little prog, some jazz funk and even a little southern rock (shout out to Staple Hill crew there  ) were mostly the order of the day. Country Rock bands got a feature from time to time and the Ozark Mountain Daredevils were always a favorite. They seemed to be able to elicit a smile from even the most case-hardened biker! Their music ran the gamut from languid and reflective to manic and, often, very funny.

I’ve always wanted to cover one of their tunes and thanks, in no small part, to the tenacity of my friend and co-producer Richard E, who has been driving me to finish my current album project, I finally got it done.

The track is called Spaceship Orion from The Ozarks’, self-titled, first album. Fans often refer to that as the “quilt” album due to the depiction on the cover. I played the guitar and sang the vocal but I could not have done this without this spectacular group of players who not only were able to record the song 90% live in the studio (as I often prefer to work) they also nailed it on the very first take!

Eric Klerks: 12 string guitar

Brad Morrison: Vocals & fiddle 

Scott Rankie: Vocals & slide guitar

Kahlil Sabbagh: Vibraphone

Jonathan Sindelman: Organ & keyboards 

Oliver Steinberg: Acoustic bass

Dave Tull: Drums

A video is in the works but the audio is available for you to listen to now.

Published by Dj Aja from Jazz Syndicate Magazine & Promotions, Sept. 2022

Jon Dalton Trio

A very special performance brings together brilliant US-based jazz guitarist Jon Dalton with jazz organ maestro John-paul Gard, with Paolo Adamo on drums. A truly enjoyable evening of swinging jazz and blues grooves.

 

“Jon Dalton is a brilliant musician and consummate jazz guitarist”, now based in California after a career of international touring. Jon’s musical influences and style are compared to guitarists Wes Montgomery, Joe Pass. A prolific composer and broadcaster, at the request of the Unity Foundation, Jon recorded a jazz version of John Lennon’s classic “Imagine” in 2013 for broadcast on the United Nation’s International Peace Day Global.

“Gard is one of the best organ soloists around, a fiery and fluent player…a local hero, deserving of a national reputation” (www.jazzmann.com/reviews December 2015), John-paul plays in a really powerful, upbeat style, highly appreciated by jazz and wider audiences alike.

“the wonderful Paolo Adamo…” member of the Bristol European Jazz Ensemble, Afro band ‘Mankala’, and one of the most in demand players on the scene.

 

Jon Dalton (guitar) John-paul Gard (organ) Paolo Adamo (drums)

Jon Dalton

Guitar –

Jon Dalton is a consummate jazz guitarist.

After a successful career as an international touring session musician, Jon returned to the UK to form his first jazz-based outfit, the Latin tinged Dit-Da. BBC radio recorded numerous sessions of their original music for national and international radio broadcast.

The band’s relaxed sound pre-dated the commercial acceptance of Smooth Jazz by almost a decade.

At the same time, in common with artists like George Benson and Chuck Loeb, Jon did not neglect his passionate study of more mainstream jazz styles and is equally at home burning up on a classic standard like “Stella By Starlight” as he is composing radio-friendly tunes like “The Gift,” which reached number one on the New York-based CIM jazz radio chart.

Jon relocated to Southern California in 1999.

A recent and ongoing UK project is a swinging Guitar & Organ-based trio featuring the amazing John-Paul Gard on Hammond and top London session player Andy Roger on Drums. Their classic trio CD “Warm Ghosts (in a) Cold World” was released in the US in 2009 to critical acclaim. Jazzreview.com called it: “a fine example of strong group interaction from three exceptional performers.”

Jon’s style has been compared to Wes Montgomery, Pat Metheny and even Johnny Smith, but his style is unique and instantly recognizable. Also a prolific writer, his compositions have been featured on BBC Television and Radio, The Weather Channel in the United States, and countless broadcast and internet radio stations worldwide. Jon is a contributing composer to Carlin Music Libraries.

In 2013 at the request of the Unity Foundation, Jon recorded a jazz version of John Lennon’s classic “Imagine” for broadcast on the United Nation’s International Peace Day Global Webcast. The piece was reselected for the 2014 event where it was chosen to open the ceremonies.

Introducing Jon Dalton : Brand New Single release Of “Smile of the Beyond”

Jon was born in the UK in the early 60s of mixed British and Native American ancestry. As a teenager, heavily influenced by the likes of Gong and Steve Hillage, he formed and toured the UK with the cult space-metal band Gold.

gold-tiffanys1
For more information on Jon’s early days simply click on the jpg above.
Jon spent the early 80s as a touring session musician playing throughout Europe, Scandinavia and, latterly, the Middle East.
Jon Now

To purchase this song via band camp just click on the photo above. 

Always drawn to jazz music, Jon left the world of rock and pop behind in his late 20s to focus on the study of jazz guitar.
Like so many other of his family members Jon moved “back” to the United States in 1999 presenting his first US release , The Gift, on Innervision Records in 2003 to critical and commercial acclaim. The Gift reached number 1 on New York’s CIM jazz chart.
 The follow up recording: 2009’s “Warm Ghosts (in a) Cold World” by his UK based trio featuring organist John-Paul Gard and drummer Andy Roger firmly established Jon as a force in the field of straight-ahead jazz guitar.
SOTB Band
The “Smile” orchestra taken just before the session started.
Photo credit is: Francis A Willey.
Jon met Sheila Ellis as the two performed charity jazz functions for seniors across LA County. The two would work together as a duo and Jon also sat in from time to time with Sheila and her husband, producer Richard E’s, award winning genre-bending ensemble Annabel (lee). Jon knew that the pair would be the ideal foil in his quest to realize a cover version of the Mahavishnu Orchestra’s sublime “Smile of the Beyond” and despite a seven year gap between concept and revelation the musicians are also pleased to present that for you now.
Click on this link to not only to hear this beauty but to watch the video Ft Shelia Ellis https://youtu.be/dvv6EG2oBSg
Stunning video by Hal Masonberg.
There is an album in the future pipeline ,that Jon and Richard are working on,but this opening single is just the first taste of  something very beautiful.

VINYL JUNKIES – Jon Dalton, 7 songs that shaped his world

January 15, 2018 / Gary Alikivi

The love for vinyl has always been there and many stories are attached to it. There is whispers in some quarters that vinyl is back, and they are getting louder. Not in the same numbers that it was in the pre-cd day’s of the 70’s and 80’s, but the records are up on display shelves of record shop’s.

There is hundred’s of reasons why we like a certain song. Vinyl Junkies is looking for the stories behind them.

Jon Dalton has lived in the USA for 20 years as a professional musician. In his early days in England he played in heavy rock band Gold, who were formed in 1979 in Bristol….  ‘I moved out to the US in 1999, I have Native American roots so it was like coming home. I also wanted to move my jazz career along. It seems that was a good call. I got signed to Innervision Records in 2003 and they released my first CD with them The Gift, and it did very well.

For the last several decades I’ve been mostly known as a jazz musician, but that wasn’t always the case. I didn’t start really listening to and consequently end up playing jazz until my late twenties but I was involved in music for many years before that’.

jon target

‘Because this piece is about vinyl, I’ve chosen to focus on the period in my life when almost everything we heard was on that medium. For me that would be around 1976 to about 1983. After that I was on tour a lot so I tended to buy cassettes or, later, CDs. They were much more portable and by then I was buying a lot of music to learn it for work so that previous period was, perhaps, the period I enjoyed actually listening to music the most. Here’s a list of my seven favourite albums from that time’.

1, Steve Hillage: “Fish Rising” (1975): Starting in the late 1970s, every year the City of Bristol, UK would put on a music festival at an old stately park near the Centre known as the Ashton Court Festival. It was a hugely popular event eventually drawing tens of thousands. It was also a strictly daytime affair with no overnight camping allowed unless you were a vendor or part of the stage crew. Of course, being me, I completely ignored all that. I generally crashed under the stage in my sleeping bag. I probably knew a lot of the sound guys so I doubt they cared either.

Anyhow one year, maybe 77 or 79, I was at Ashton Court on a Friday the day before the festival was due to start. That night I went out in a daze looking for a party to crash in the vendor’s section. It was probably around midnight. All of a sudden, I heard this strangely hypnotic music which stopped me in my tracks. The more I listened the more I reasoned this was likely one of the most cosmic things I’d ever witness and when you’re 17 under a black starlit sky next to a crazy caravan, that’s a moment. I knocked on the door and a glorious hippy lady invited me in for a drink and a chat. We sat in the candlelight and she told me I was listening to Steve Hillage’s “Fish Rising”. A Rubicon night.

I was already a big Hillage fan but more his later works like “L” and “Motivation Radio”. This was something else though: more raw, more psychedelic. Brilliant guitar riffs, swirling synth solos, tight grooves, wide soundscapes. My all time favourite track is “Aftaglid” a meandering sprawl in space. The mid section (they’ve all got names but I’m not that good at remembering) has an echoey acoustic guitar part with Miquette Giraudy’s pointy space whispers followed by a tabla grooved delve into the beyond. That’s what I heard outside the caravan.

Don’t buy or even listen to the “extended” version. The original Fish Rising ends on exactly the right note.

MI0002269423

2, Yes: “Relayer” (1974): I first heard Yes when I was 10 or 11 years old. I loved the way that none of it made any sense and yet somehow it all made sense. There was a tone and colour in their music and yet there was also a strange sense of angularity; listen to “Long Distance Runaround” from “Fragile” and you’ll know what a mean.

This album brought the “weird” side of Yes to a whole new level. A lot of Yes fans hate this album but I think it’s one of the best things they ever did. The music is often loud, angry and aggressive. Maybe they were trying to dump some of the bloat of “Topographic Oceans” but this cuts through like a knife. Yes pulled in Patrick Moraz on keyboards on this one and while they were some fine musicians, he was obviously giving them a run for their money. “Sound Chaser” is my favorite track. Steve Howe’s Fender Telecaster grinds and spits and yearns. Patrick Moraz’s jazz-synth playout burns on fire.

I saw Yes on this tour. It was the first “big” gig I ever went to. I went with my Auntie because nobody else would go with me. We both loved it!

“And to know that tempo will continue…….”

Yes Mr. Anderson.

R-797883-1422190271-6992.jpeg

3, Gong: “You” (1974): I mentioned Steve Hillage before but you can’t really discuss this era Hillage without telling of the Mothership, the immaculate “Gong”. Well, as a young lad, I was a tribal member and I’m not exactly sure if I’ve grown out of it, even since.

Gong, brainchild of Australian space anarchist Daevid Allen (R.I.P.) combined jazz, space, rock and eyebrow raising mirth into a potent package. It probably wasn’t their plan but Gong the anarchists ended up having, pretty much, their own virtual kingdom on the 1970s UK free festival circuit.

The early 70s are often said to be some of Gong’s best years. They recorded the essential “Trilogy” of albums: “Flying Teapot”, “Angel’s Egg” and “You”. I’ve always thought of them as one but I know I have to keep the list short so I’m going with: “You”. The band were playing really tight on this one. “Master Builder” is in some ways the musical peak in the trilogy. Based on a simple descending run which tweaks the blues scale to make it sound more space-bound and mystical, it keeps tripping over the beat in a way that makes you feel you are constantly falling forward.

Toward the end it reaches for a sense of community and gets it in the form of Daevid Allen’s deep chants wrapped in Steve Hillage’s twistily psychotic guitar. Hillage later released a version of this tune under the title: “Activation / Glorious Om Riff” on his 1978 release “Green”.

I’ve mentioned Gong related things quite a lot but you have to realize that they weren’t just some some silly hippy band from the 1970s (well, they were). Their influence permeates widely. The free festival circuit morphed over the 1980s into the 1990s into rave culture. This in turn begat Electronic Dance Music. When I listen to a lot of EDM, including Steve Hillage’s own “System 7” and particularly the trancey end of that spectrum,

I can often hear Gong’s echoes in the sequenced synth lines and eastern flavored melodies. The major difference being that the music is served over a heavy, electronic, 4/4 dance beat rather than a grooving, real life, bass and drums. There’s another sphere of meditational Electronica where, once again, you hear those Gong sounds but this time the beats are completely removed and we’re left with just the floaty, spatial stuff.

They even made a dent in the pop world. Listen to producer William Orbit’s treatment of Madonna’s 1998 single “Ray Of Light”. You could have knocked me sideways when I first heard that one. For a minute I thought she’d hired the old crew as her backing band. I’m thinking Mr. Orbit probably has a few of the Pot Head Pixies’ finest releases stuffed away somewhere in his listening locker.

Famous lines from “You” include: “Cops at the door………..no cops at the door!”

4, AC/DC: “Highway To Hell” (1979): So, late on a Friday or Saturday night you’d all come back from the pub or club. The venue kept changing but the purpose was always the same. Some metal lovers just can’t help themselves.  Wherever we ended up, I used to like to sit on the kitchen counter next to the fridge and it was always bright fluorescent lights or no lights and a toaster. As soon as the AC/DC came on, everybody was cool. All the barriers went down.

There’s a lot of betrayal and anger in this music but the ultimate lesson is that it can always be cured or, at least: suffered, by the sweet sound of a blues guitar. AC/DC made you feel like a criminal but; that, that was somehow normal.

Bon Scott’s voice hits like a finely tuned weapon. His beautiful primal screaming sounds like he’s getting ready to eat you while, brother cooks, Angus and Malcolm (R.I.P.) Young slice you right up with their guitars. And none of this is rocket science. AC/DC themselves never claimed to be anything more than a “rock ‘n’ roll” band! Highlights include the beginning and end of the record and everything else in between.

“It was one of those nights when you turn down the lights”.

Now, what on Earth is he talking about?

R-2351013-1356522870-7466.jpeg

5, Ozzie Osbourne: “Bark At The Moon” (1983): I first heard Black Sabbath when I was about 12. I remember lying on a chilly bed in my Nan’s prefab, must have been 1974, listening to their first, self-named, album. War Pigs and Iron Man were my usual songs from the crypt before breakfast.

Fast forward to the early 80s and somebody recommended I listen to this gem. This is a concept album. The concept is to make a record that sounds like a bad horror movie. This really holds water. Ozzie Osbourne as a poignant intellectual “I’m just a rock and roll rebel….” probably isn’t what you or he expected but he can’t hide it, he’s thought about this from every angle.

“I’ll make you wish that you had never been born”. When Ozzie says that, for a chilling moment you realize that he might actually mean it. How do these people keep going? The energy resources are beyond human.

Massive kudos has to go to guitarist Randy Rhodes (once again RIP). He wasn’t just an amazing player in his own right but a dedicated worker who obviously sweated how to make his boss’s dreams come alive, or should that be become un-dead? He utilized flattened or “diminished” notes to dark and cinematic effect. Sure, Death-Metal players have honed that down to a fine art now but RR was the first, at least as far as I’m aware. I was always looking forward to where he’d go next. Then he got killed in a plane crash. I was beside myself.

It’s not a flawless offering, there’s a couple of duffers which I think arise from trying too hard to make this a “production” record but when the group are genuinely reaching, such as in the preposterous “Centre of Eternity” you get the feeling that the abyss is, at least, intrigued.

6, Rush: “Hemispheres” (1978): I didn’t start as a huge Rush fan. I’d heard them at friend’s houses but I couldn’t figure out exactly where to place them. Their Rickenbacker bass sounds and strange Moog synthesizer twirlings reminded me a little of Yes but they were much more of a straight-ahead heavy rock band in other areas.

That all changed when bassist Paul Summerill joined our band “Gold” in 1980 or so. Paul was a strong Rush fan and he also played a Rickenbacker bass just like Geddy Lee and the late, great Chris Squire. Paul introduced me to the catalog and once I’d gotten a chance to appreciate their development through albums like “Fly By Night” and the classic “2112” I really got a taste for who they were in their own right. Theirs was a clever, thought provoking metal that started to appeal to the prog nerd in me.

I’m actually listening to “Hemispheres” for the first time in about 35 years as I write this. It’s all there. Geddy Lee’s piercing vocals, Alex Lifeson’s chorusy guitar and Neil Peart’s precise drumming.

I remember, as an 18 year old kid, learning the guitar parts for the entire side one of this record (which is all one track). I can’t think for the life of me why I did this. I’ve never played it live even once. Probably one of those “I’ve started so I’ll finish” ventures. Still I’m sure I picked up some useful tips which crept into my own playing later on.

Favourite tracks are the aforementioned “Hemispheres”, a mini fantasy novel set to music, and also “The Trees” from side two, a simple song form that rocks around just nicely. Of all the bands I went to see live, I probably saw Rush more than any of the others. They toured a lot, the tickets were pretty reasonable, and each of their albums was sufficiently different to make you want go back for more.

This was a very cleanly produced album, just made for late night headphone listening. If I remember rightly, my copy of “Hemispheres” was on red vinyl. I don’t know what happened to it. I probably gave it away.

7, Nova: “Wings of Love” (1977): While I was mostly known as a rock guitarist back when all this vinyl listening was going on, I did lead a secret double life as a jazz/rock musician even playing for a while in the band “Climax”. This was a decade or so before I started on the path to being, or at least trying to be, a full-on jazz musician.

Jazz fusion was a pretty big phenomenon in the late 1970s. The two biggest forces were probably Return to Forever and The Mahavishnu Orchestra. I tended to tip towards Mahavishnu, probably because it was guitar led? I don’t know for sure on that one but I can say that “Apocalypse” by them is probably my all time favorite fusion album but….I had it on 8 track cartridge so strictly speaking I can’t feature it here.

Now this album: “Wings of Love” I did have on vinyl and it got played a lot. It’s actually much more approachable than a lot of fusion records. Some of the tunes have danceable, almost “Disco” like grooves. That’s not to say that guitarist Corrado Rustici isn’t overlaying them with ridiculously amazing guitar solos, just that you can shake your booty while he does it. Check out “You Are Light” for a taster.

As an interesting aside, Mr. Rustici often played a fretless guitar; listen to “Marshall Dillon”. Killer bass-line too. I was amazed when I first heard about this. Fretless basses were starting to make inroads into fusion due to the tremendous influence of Jaco Pastorius but I’d never heard of anyone playing fretless guitar. I was sufficiently moved to take an old guitar and pull all the frets out with pliers, filling in the slots with plastic wood and sanding the whole thing flat. The conversion itself worked out brilliantly but whenever I played it, it sounded like a drunken person snapping elastic bands. Oh! Well.

This is largely a superb record, populated with world class and sincerely spiritual musicians reaching for the stars. If it has a fault, it can get a bit “drippy” devotional in places. A lot of jazz fusion players of the era were deeply into eastern philosophy and Guru Sri Chinmoy was a leader in that movement. That said, when you listen to “Beauty Dream Beauty Flame” with its evocative Italian mandolin backdrops and stunning guitar, flute and piano interludes, you have to conclude that, maybe, they did open a window into another dimension of the sublime.

Recommended:

Jon Dalton, California Dreaming, 18th October 2017.

VINYL JUNKIES:

Will Binks July 7th 2017

Martin Popoff July 12th 2017

John Heston August 3rd 2017

Neil Armstrong August 11th 2017

Colin Smoult August 29th 2017

Neil Newton September 12th 2017

Tony Higgins October 11th 2017

Vince High December 11th 2017.

Intro by Gary Alikivi.

CALIFORNIA DREAMING – Jon Dalton on his journey from Glastonbury to L.A.

October 18, 2017 / Gary Alikivi

981102_1637929499789473_4919485545198588902_o

A call came in from Los Angeles ‘Hello Gary, it’s Jon here how you doing, I received a message that you have been asking about Gold. Well here is the story’.

Before we go any further let me give you some background. Gold were formed in 1979 in Bristol, UK by guitarists Jon Dalton and Pete Willey. Like many of their contemporaries, Gold had grown up listening to first generation rock and metal bands Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Free and later Thin Lizzy and Queen. Gold’s music was a combination of space and glam mixed with heavy rock. Jon has lived in USA for 20 years as a professional musician.

‘I moved out to the US in 1999, I have Native American roots so it was like coming home. I also wanted to move my jazz career along. It seems that was a good call. I got signed to Innervision Records in 2003 and they released my first CD with them The Gift, and it did very well. The title track reached number 1 on New York’s CIM jazz chart.

I spent some time over 2006-2007 back in the UK touring and recording with a jazz organ trio with my friend John-Paul Gard on Hammond organ. I released the resulting album in the US in 2009 and it’s been very well received among people who like that kind of jazz. I still come back to the UK from time to time for mini-tours with John-Paul and I love doing that. Gives me a chance to catch up with my UK friends and my family’s mostly over here these days’.

13340121_10207951198650213_209291697859250641_o

‘I keep myself busy playing live with a residency in Los Angeles. I also have a YouTube channel dedicated to jazz guitar with performance videos, instrument reviews and playing tutorials, that kind of thing. I just got done completing the first track of my next CD with producer Richard E.

Richard has done a wonderful job on that and a performance video cut will be up on YouTube soon. If things go according to plan, that CD will release on Innervision in 2018’.

When did you pick up a guitar and who were your influences ? ‘We had an 8 track player in the house and I’d listen to the Stones, Bowie, The Doors anything I could get my hands on, I was really into my music. I was already playing a bit of rock guitar but I was mostly into progressive rock like Yes. Then around 1975 I met Pete Willey and we hit it off straight away.

Pete and I formed a school band called Grafitti we did a few school gigs and played in some pubs in Bristol. One memorable gig was in The Naval Volunteer. My chemistry teacher came into the pub and saw me playing. Next day at school he said you were quite good last night, maybe that’s why you never do your homework haha.

That band split up after the summer holidays and I started hanging out on the free festival circuit in the west country. I used to like Steve Hillage and the band Gong and they were heavily involved in these festivals. I think it was 7th day of the 7th month in ’77 when I first went to a festival, yes very mystical ! And there was Tim Blake’s Crystal Machine ’79 Glastonbury with a laser light show I’d never seen anything like it – blew my mind.

I was a complete dyed in the wool Gong fan I couldn’t think of a better thing to do than sit in a damp field and watch them play at a free festival ! I may be wrong on the dates but I think it was 1979 when they started charging, it was a fiver to get in but Tim Blake’s Crystal Machine, Steve Hillage and Mother Gong were on the bill so I think it was probably the best fiver I spent’.

Gold Mk1

Did you form a band again and what venues did you play ? ’I met up with Pete Willey again, he was more of a straight ahead rocker. He liked bands like Thin Lizzy, Queen but in common we liked songs from Free and Bad Company. Pete also had good knowledge of what was in the charts at the time.

He liked a bit pop music, I was a bit more of a rock snob really. We brought this sound together and that formed the early version of Gold. We started getting a few gigs one was at The Granary where all the top rock bands played. There was Tiffanys, The Locarno, we did have a good following for our spacey rock. This was at the end of the hippy rock era just before the tables turned and in came punk’.

Gold Tiffanys
Gold Tiffanys 2
Gold Riverside

What were your first experiences of recording ? ‘We recorded a 3 track demo Mountain Queen part one – I think the idea behind this song was a trilogy, but I can’t remember a bloody note of parts 2 and 3 haha. Other tracks were Change for the Better and Is My Love in Vain that was a really popular song a sort of love ballad with a guitar solo in the middle.

We then changed our bass player, the first was Andy Scott who was more of a new waver he played on that demo but he really wanted to do more new wave stuff. We got another guy in Paul Summerill he was more of a rocker listening to bands like Rush and played a Rickenbacker bass.

We had a guy called Steve Dawson on drums. There was a guy called Al Read who used to run a rock show on Radio Bristol and he played our stuff a lot and get us on for a few live chats’.

Andy and Pete 2

‘But that line up of Gold split up and I started playing in a jazz funk band Climax. I still liked my rock though. I went to see AC/DC on one of their first tours in the UK and I remember the guy on the radio saying they were like a rock band but quite punky. I couldn’t see how the two would work together and I went more out of curiosity really and wasn’t sure if I’d enjoy it. But by the end of the concert I was dancing and jumping around, they were great.

The name of the band at the time was quite daring plus they were breaking all the rules with this punk thing. Walking outside I thought that’s the future of rock. The sound was edgier, harder and I could see that society was going that way, politics were changing, Thatcher got in power 1979 the whole landscape was changing and not in a good way.

Bristol had around 250,000 people and in the whole city there were a handful of homeless people. Then suddenly there was a big rise in people living on the streets, it became a different world. There was a sense that everything had hardened and that transferred over to music with the start of NWOBHM with Iron Maiden and Saxon’.

Were you aware then and now, the impact of the music scene – heavy rock/metal/nwobhm ?

‘Well, I can say that, at the time, music was incredibly important to a lot of young people. What you listened to defined who you were, where you hung out and who your friends were likely to be. Right down to every little sub-set of every kind of music you can think of.

Back then, if you bought an album, that could be the central talking point of your life for months. People would come to your house and listen to and discuss it. How it sounded in itself, how it compared to previous releases, where the act might be going. I can’t stress how important that kind of thing was to us. It was our lifeblood.

I think today, with the Internet and access to a gazillion tunes at your finger tips rather than having to go out and buy it, people are more eclectic in their tastes. That means that they tend to be less tribal but it also results in a sense of a greater loss of community. People are much more individual and isolated today than they were back in the day.

Many of my friends from Gold days, are still in touch now and we still have the same core interests that we used to have back then. I’m still a Heavy Metal hippie/biker underneath despite the fact that these days, I’m more likely to do a gig in a dinner jacket than a cut-off t shirt and spandex pants’.

12513562_10206951246532035_992313850287642704_o

‘I would add that, here in the States young people still really revere the classic rock acts of the 70’s. Led Zep, The Who, Pink Floyd. They’re still seen as the classics, rather than that stuff your Dad used to listen too. That may just have something to do with the sheer size of the place.

New ideas take longer to roll out here to the extent it affects the culture. For instance dance music and electronica never really took off in the US at all beyond a small cult following. I can remember in the UK that you had to be really on top of things or people would laugh at you for being dated or old hat. That never bothered me because I couldn’t care less about trends and fashions.

Americans don’t seem to care so much about that. If something’s good, it’s good regardless of when and where it was made or who made it. I guess you need both angles to make the world work’.

How did Gold get back together ? ’I bumped into Pete we had always been good mates, and he said come and have a jam well I thought ok. I’ve seen AC/DC lets have a harder, rockier sound. There was Phil Williams on drums who had a great laid back powerful sound and that’s what we needed to move forward, it’s what we were looking for.

We went out with this new version of Gold and the crowds we were playing to then were headbangers in their late teen’s. We bought a pa system and rented it out to other bands to make a bit of money because we were broke. It was all coming together, we got a van and toured around the country. We got all over, up to Reading, Southend, Doncaster we were out a lot and picking up some interest.

I heard we were watched by scouts for the management team from Motorhead and Girlschool, they were looking for a support band for the tours. But one night we got back home at 4am after playing and for once we decided not to unpack our van. It got pinched. All our cabs, pa, the lot. We didn’t have the money to replace the gear, we had no idea who had done it or where it had gone. Sadly, that was the end of Gold. That’s the story in a nutshell really’.

Jon

‘We really had a blast but listening back to recordings just before that happened I got the feeling I had enough, and it was time to move on. Although that loss of equipment was a tragedy I didn’t want to be stuck being a rock musician. I admired great guitar players like Eddie Van Halen and Randy Rhoads. They were brilliant guitarists but some became these crazy virtuosos, and hair metal bored the pants of me.

A band was at it’s best when you had team players, commararderie of playing in a group is what I like’.

Compared to the GOLD days what is the feeling you get today going on stage to perform? ’Well I’m a lot less nervous now than I used to be. I’ve always been a bit shy about performing which is odd because I get on well with people and I’m not exactly an introvert. But my hands used to shake like jelly and I could barely hold a guitar pick for the first few songs.

I did do about 8 years on what we used to call the Cabaret circuit, that would be playing covers around the world in bars and hotels and on military bases. After sometimes, playing five, forty-five minute sets per night every week and six on Saturdays that kind of work tends to knock that out of you.

I still get the heebee geebees a little today but nowhere near as much because I’ve kind of trained that out of me. I also realize that it’s only a gig. There will be another one tomorrow or maybe their won’t. As for the upside, that’s never changed. Every now and again you get a stonking gig. You can never tell or anticipate when that’s going to happen, it just does. Your playing kicks up a notch. The audience senses that something’s going on and focuses more clearly on what you’re doing and something transformational happens.

It’s moments like that, that keeps us musicians chasing the dragon in terms of live music. There’s nothing like that sensation and I’m as much a sucker for it now as I was 40 years ago’.

Jon Now

What has music given you ? ’Music is my life. It has been since as long as I can remember. It’s defined me as a person. Taken me around the world, paid my bills, introduced me to my greatest friends and provided me with years of beauty, solace and wonder.

My greatest inspiration has always been watching my grandmother Ada Dalton who would get up, every year, on her annual church bash on the stage of the Methodist Central Hall in Bristol and sing When I Grow Too Old To Dream in memory of her husband John-Francis who died between the wars from complications of being a soldier.

She passed on in 1974 at the age of 88. She never had much, but her love and passion expressed through music, kept her going. I learned a big lesson from that. Mostly that you should never give up, whatever the cost. Some things in life are just too important to let slip away. To be honest, I’m still chasing that level of heart and conviction in my work.

I know I’ll never come close but it gives me a reason to get up in the morning. That’s what music’s given me. Thanks for taking the time to investigate Gold. I’ve really enjoyed sharing these experiences’.

For more information contact the official website jondaltonjazz.com

Interview by Gary Alikivi September 2017.

Bristol Archive Records » Blog Archive » Gold – Bristol Rock

Gold – Bristol Rock

Gold was formed in 1979 in Bristol, England by guitarists Jon Dalton and Pete Willey. The two had previously played before in the rock band Graffiti but this was more of a junior effort that played some school gigs and “prom” events. Gold was the boys’ first serious band. Jon was 17 and Pete was 19 when they formed Gold. The remaining members of Gold “MK 1″ were, bassist, Andy Scott and Drummer Steve Dawson.

Like many of their contemporaries, Gold had grown up listening to first generation rock and metal bands like: Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Free and later acts like Thin Lizzie and Queen.

Gold Mk1

The first Gold’s music was a combination of space and glam rock served over heavy metal beats. Their set featured space-opera epics like “Mountain Queen” (remembered as a three part trilogy although only the first “movement” was ever recorded). Mountain Queen referenced concepts of “Wisdom Castles” and “Crystal Isles” rendered with a deeper than usual vocal style and a number of tempo changes that suggested the Canadian rockers “Rush” as well as a spacey guitar playout reminiscent of the hippy/space rock leaders: Gong and Steve Hillage who were immensely influential in the West of England at that time.

The band quickly gained a reputation beyond their years and were asked to play live at the prestigious “Granary” club in Bristol. Word spread quickly and Gold soon began attracting larger and larger crowds. At this point, it’s probably true to say that Willey brought the soulful, rocky elements to the music while Dalton supplied the more cosmic side to the proceedings.

One of Gold MK 1′s biggest crowd pleasers was the Power Ballad: “Is My Love In Vain”. A song of struggle and unrequited love with the obligatory “epic” guitar solo in the middle, IMLIV was picked up by legendary rock DJ: Al Read and broadcast numerous times on BBC Regional Radio; even though he had to do so with a taped version as it never made a vinyl release!. Another notable Gold tune of the time was the hard rocker: “Change For The Better” which featured a slamming Stones-AC/DC type backbeat and laconic vocal harmonies from Willey and Dalton. This was perhaps the first sign of where later Gold music was headed.

After nine months or so, Andy Scott decided he wanted to pursue other music styles and the, much loved, bassist left in an amicable split. His replacement Paul Summerill was the perfect match for the band and began the season of Gold MK 2.

Andy and Pete 1

Paul’s ferocious Rickenbacker sound was a combination of a chiming high end coupled with the characteristic deep, “Ricky” growl particularly when amplified by his massive Electrovoice bass stack.

Gold MK 2 attracted the interest of a local manager who is, sadly, now only remembered as “Jeff”. Jeff really believed in Gold and suggested that the band should build their fan base by not only focusing on their own following but by putting on Heavy Metal extravaganzas with other top local HM bands. The strategy worked and soon all of the bands involved benefited from the cross-pollination of their respective fan bases.

Gold headlined many of these gigs working with acts like Stormtrooper, Jaguar and Cheltenham based, Stealer.

By now Gold were regular features on the local metal scene playing all the famous Bristol rock venues like The Granary, Tiffany’s, The Locarno, The Stonehouse, The Hollybush and many more. This was also about the same time that the stirrings of a new movement the “New Wave of British Heavy Metal” was beginning to take hold in concert with support from the popular national weekly paper “Sounds”. Gold saw this as a great potential opportunity but were frustrated by the lack of interest from record companies and the press, despite their strong following and sell-out gigs.

Gold at The Stonehouse 1982

As a result, Gold split for a while in early 1981. Willey and Summerill formed a power trio with ex. “Shiva” drummer, Phil Williams. Meanwhile Dalton took off on a completely different tangent playing with the jazz-funk outfit “Climax” for a while. But the draw of the rock scene and the constant pleading of the fans proved too much and eventually Dalton folded back in with the power trio to form the 3rd and last iteration of Gold.

If Gold MK 1 was the “Space” Gold, Gold MK 3 was definitely the “Rock” Gold. Phil Williams had the drum sound of a great rock “pro”. He had also mastered the lazy Hard-Rock backbeat so reminiscent of bands like Free, Bad Company and, even AC/DC. In terms of sheer tightness and quality, the live Gold 3 were streets ahead of Gold 1. This also introduced the band to a new and almost totally unexpected phenomenon: full dancefloors!

Gold MK 3 did keep some of the “old” space material like section one of the Mountain Queen to please the long-term fans but also introduced a lot more, straight-ahead, hard rockers like the slide guitar driven “Freight Train” and the street-fighting “This Place Never Changes”. By now it was not uncommon for the fans, a diverse mixture of bikers (most of the Gold members were also bikers), hippies and head-bangers to reward the band with so many set encores that pub landlords and concert promoters had to throw the venue lights up to get the fans to finally drink up and go home. Gold were on a roll and convinced that great times lay ahead then, several months later, tragedy struck.

Gold Mk 3

Gold were now touring nationally. They played venues in places like Southend, Norwich, Doncaster and the Midlands and also throughout South Wales where they enjoyed great support. Many of their Bristol fans also got on their bikes and in their cars to see them play around the country. One night after a particularly late travel back from an out of town gig. The band parked their van outside Dalton’s home and, for once, didn’t take the time to unload their equipment. The following morning Dalton awoke to find the van and all of the band’s equipment had been stolen. The only item left was one of Dalton’s guitars which he had taken in to play a little while before finally crashing out.

The band were devastated. They had no insurance and were completely broke. They fought with how or if they could continue. Commercial forces were trying to mold them into a typical NWOBHM band but Gold valued their musical diversity. They also saw the writing on the wall with regard to the up-coming neo-classical metal with its month-long solos and, often, second rate song structures which is something they didn’t want to entertain given that Gold had always been a tune-based band. With that in mind and with a wider sense of change in the air with the continued rise of Punk and New Wave, the band decided to finally call it a day.

Dalton moved to the Midlands for a short-lived stint with Prog-Rockers “Guizer Jarl” but eventfully took up a career as a touring session musician as did drummer Phil Williams. In fact the two did play once more in a hard rock cover band providing entertainment for, predominately, British and American ex-pats in the Middle east, particularly Dubai.

Dalton returned to the UK in the late 1980s and formed his last band with Pete Willey, the Latin-Jazz “Dit Da” which signaled the beginning of his transition from rock to jazz guitar which continued with his move to the US (Dalton is part Native American) in 1999. In 2003 he signed with the California jazz label: Innervision Records whom he has recorded for ever since.

Pete Willey remained in Bristol as a much respected guitar tutor and educator as well as giving frequent live appearances on guitar AND bass. Phil Williams lives in Corfu and runs a pan-European P.A. and sound reinforcement company. Paul Summerill remains true to his roots as a popular rock and blues musician in the West of England. He’s also an avid curator of all things “Gold”.

With the exception of the aforementioned “Muscle Power”, Gold never had any commercial releases but they did visit the studio on several occasions as well as pulling recordings from the mixing desk on many live gigs. They distributed the music in the form of affordable tape cassette releases to their friends and fans.

The various Gold members still get contacted by those fans who remember the band, the music, the bike runs and the parties (Gold threw a lot of parties ;-) ) Many still own those old Gold recordings and still play them to this day.

Headfirst Bristol

ON DALTON TRIO – £8

Jon Dalton – Guitar

John-Paul Gard – Hammond Organ

Toby Perrett – Drums

Outstanding Los Angeles based Jazz Guitarist returns to his hometown for a rare not to be missed visit with his superb take on the classic Hammond Jazz Trio. To quote the American published Vintage Guitar Magazine”He continues to write the book for organ trio jazz”.

For this UK Tour Jon has teamed up with his old friend John-Paul Guard on the Hammond and the rock solid Toby Perrett on Drums.

This is gig number ten of the tour so you expect the band to be COOKIN’.

ADVANCE TICKETS ARE NOW AVAILABLE ONLINE at http://www.thebristolfringe.com/tickets/

Tickets are also available at TREBLEROCK Guitar Shop, 52 The Mall and over the bar at The Fringe. Please note that the pub does not open until 4PM on most weekdays but if you are in Clifton Village Treblerock is only just round the corner on The Mall and is open all day Mon – Sat.

Copyright © 2023 Jon Dalton Jazz
All rights reserved | ODAPMUSIC ™