Groundhogs

Formed in 1963, and part of the first wave of the British blues boom, the Groundhogs initially came to public attention as John Lee Hooker’s backing band when the veteran bluesman paid a visit to the UK in 1964. More gigs followed with Jimmy Reed and Champion Jack Dupree, and in 1968 they were signed to Liberty Records by future Wombles supremo Mike Batt. However, it wasn’t long before the band were embracing the new progressive aesthetic with their 1969 album, Blues Obituary, proclaiming in no uncertain terms a move away from blues purism towards pursuing a more experimental direction.

The Groundhogs are a classic example of a band that incorporated progressive elements into their music while retaining their core sound, a process that was rife in the early 1970s. Think of hard rock’s big three at the time – Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Black Sabbath – and then consider , and . But under the leadership of singer and guitarist Tony McPhee, the Groundhogs pushed out further, , and – saw the band become increasingly ambitious, both compositionally and conceptually, with the deployment of Mellotron and synth helping to create an exciting progressive/blues rock hybrid.