TONY McPHEE
The Groundhogs’ formidable skipper (1944–2023)
LIKE many who came of age during the ’60s, Tony McPhee was charged by the electric spirit of the blues. His great epiphany was witnessing Cyril Davies All-Stars at London’s Marquee in 1963, after which he changed his band’s name from The Dollar Bills to The Groundhogs, in honour of a John Lee Hooker track. Within a year they were backing Hooker on both his UK tour and in the studio. Support slots with Little Walter, Jimmy Reed and Champion Jack Dupree did little to suggest that McPhee and The Groundhogs were anything other than blues purists, compounded by 1968 debut Scratching The Surface. But their re-emergence as a power trio for the following year’s cannily titled Blues Obituary signalled the onset of a heavier, more progressive assault. McPhee hit his first peak with 1970’s Thank Christ For The Bomb, fusing prog, space-rock, fingerpicked blues and proto-punk into an audacious whole. “The blues is really any music which arouses a deep emotion in the listeners,” he explained to Record Mirror. “Basic honesty and simplicity plus a powerful violent release…”
