Congratulations to Spain, not so much for winning, but for fielding a player last seen in Uriah Heep, circa 1970. The Heep not only have their own tree in Rock Family Trees but feature in the Asia tree there as well, and both the Black Sabbath Tree and the Prog-Rock Years Tree in More Rock Family Trees.

Our thanks to family member Eugene Manzi for pointing out this bizarre episode in time travel.

We’ve added our second batch of five posters to the range. Madchester 1 and 2, Evolution of the Beatles, Kinks Stones and Pretties, and Clapton. Even more to follow soon(ish) but in the meantime see what takes your fancy here.

£20 per poster, with free delivery on orders of two or more. The same deal – and the same shipping price for one poster – for customers in the USA.

And on that subject it is time to reveal the winner of our summer quiz: congratulations to Jeremy Horwitz of San Francisco who recognised Pete’s unusual lines from the The Prog-Rock Years: Yes, ELP & Asia tree. Jeremy chose the Grunge poster for his prize, and it is probably somewhere over the Atlantic as I write.

Don’t forget if the fine art prints are more to your taste a selection can be viewed here although more than 100 are currently available if you have hankering for something else.

Finally, if you want to keep up with our special offers and announcements, sign up for our newsletter here. We will soon be offering special deals exclusively through the newsletter.

Down at the Hop Farm in Kent at the weekend. Fantastic line-up. Van Morrison in great form. Some say they caught him smiling for a split second. Some say it was indigestion. Dylan playing numbers you could recognize even before the chorus. Dr John harmoniously growling along. Seasick Steve getting the sound of a raucous six piece out of three strings. The younger crowd singing along both to Mumford and Sons and to Ray Davies. And then a series of fantastic acoustic acts: Laura Marling, Johnny Flynn, and possible future-tree subject, Pete Doherty, charming us all. Add The Magic Numbers, Stornoway, Richard Thompson, Peter Green, Blondie, Devendra Banhart and many more, and you might have to agree with Marcus Mumford that it was the lineup of the summer.

Enjoyable as it was, it would have been even better had it not been for the incessant funk rhythms booming out from the chicken rotisserie concession, just spitting distance (I know, I tried) from the main arena. Is it time for a rock against rotisserie campaign? I mean, I would have liked to have heard the quieter numbers from Laura Marling but it was never going to happen. And don’t get me started on the screams coming from the fairground rides.

Am I alone? Or do others feel that someone should have a quiet word with Vince Power and his mates to remind them what we have come to hear?

Do you know where this gem comes from? Shouldn’t be too difficult if you read carefully:

First person to give the correct answer wins a poster (value £20) of your choice. Send your answer to us here.

UPDATE 9.30 July 5th. Well, that didn’t take long. The prize has already been claimed. But so as not to spoil the spirit of summer, the next three people sending in the correct answer can purchase one poster each from the range for just £10 including UK delivery. Choose from the posters here or from those just in: Clapton, Evolution of the Beatles, Kinks Stones and Pretties or Madchester 1 and 2.

It is just amazing what you can find at the back of the (electronic) filing cabinet. We’ve just turned up a ‘Dio: Roots and Branches’ Rock Family Tree, not seen since 1986 when it accompanied a 12in single. It hasn’t been published before, and so we have just made it available in our series of limited edition Rock Family Trees. View all the details, tracing his career from 1970 to 1986, in Deep Zoom here.

We picked up from a blog site that many North American fans first came across Pete’s work from The Harmony Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock, edited by Mike Clifford. So naturally we had to send off for a copy, which can still be picked up cheap second hand. We have the 1992 Seventh Edition. It has a handful of very distinctive trees, such as the above. These are family trees in the family historian’s sense, simply setting out lineage, and containing almost none of Pete’s unique commentary. Understandable, as the Encyclopedia itself is meant to give you the information you need.

It will be no surprise to readers that the first thing one has to do with such a book is start at the beginning and work through until you find an entry of someone not represented in your music collection. It didn’t take long. On the bottom corner of the second page is Oleta Adams, apparently discovered in a Kansas City lounge by Tears for Fears. We didn’t know the name, but her one hit Get Here
will be familiar to you even if you don’t recognize the title. ‘

You can reach me by railway, you can reach me by trailway
You can reach me on an airplane, you can reach me with your mind
You can reach me by caravan, cross the desert like an Arab man
I don’t care how you get here, just- get here if you can

So of course we had to add it to our iTunes collection, alongside the earlier version by the song’s writer Brenda Russell.

The Harmony Illustrated Encyclopedia is a nice timeslice of what was hot in 1992. But it reveals certain anxieties about musical standards. The Clash are dealt with approvingly as ‘a genuinely talented punk outfit’ whereas the Pistols ‘ironically influenced the entire rock industry [but] accomplished little musically’.

Here is Pete’s more measured account from the Flowers of Romance Tree, a few years later:

Responding to popular demand we have introduced a new range of Rock Family Tree posters, the little sisters of the fine art prints. They are smaller than the signed prints, but still a good size at A2 – around 600mm by 400mm on 120 gms paper. This month we introduce our first five; The Flowers of Romance, Liverpool 1980, Hawkwind, Deep Purple, and a special exclusive Grunge tree, which has not appeared in any of the books and so is really something special. Look at them all here.

The posters in this range cost £20 + postage (free postage for orders of any two products or more). And while you’re in the shop, take a look around. We’ve added more trees to be viewed in deep zoom. Only scratching the surface of the range, of course, and we will continue to add more.

Next month we will extend the range of posters with another five. If there is one you would particularly like us to include let us know in the comments.

Enormously enjoyable evening on Friday night at the 100 Club, visiting far off galaxies and ancient civilizations – not to forget a bit of astral traveling – in the company of Space Ritual, which stars several former Hawkwind members.

Got chatting with guitarist Mick Slattery, who was there even before Hawkwind were Hawkwind, though not for long. ‘What I want to know’, says Mick ‘is who said to Pete that I was “too stoned”. Not that I’m denying it – I can’t remember – just want to know who mentioned it.’

Enquiries with Pete have failed to yield an answer. We will not take the cheap opportunity of commenting further.

Here at Family of Rock we are always pleased to celebrate other musical families and so it was a great delight when the track O-o-h Child came up on our iTunes random play from a fantastic compilation – The Tryptch. 90 tracks put together by Fred Deakin from Lemon Jelly.

O-o-h Child is by The Five Stairsteps, four brothers and a sister, so named, apparently, because of the way they looked standing in a line (we first thought that they were a victim of the crippling name shortage afflicting ‘60s music) also known as the First Family of Soul, until the Jackson Five came along.

The song has a bit of a 70s Rock Musical feel, swapping between lead vocalists, modulations, bits of hyper-active boogaloo bass, and lots of cheerful brass, rather contradicting the ‘O-o-h child some day things are going to get brighter’ mood of the lyrics. But a fantastic period piece.

If you’ve got 3 minutes and 23 seconds to spare take a look. You won’t regret it. Treat yourself, watch in full-screen mode.

If you were born in 1951 you’re probably fretting about turning 60 quite soon (don’t worry, we know what to put on your birthday list).

But you should be going round with a big smug smile on your face, for you are one of rock’s chosen people. You would have been a mature 15 or so when the Beach Boys released Pet Sounds, but still only a youthful 25 when Johnny Rotten and co ended Bill Grundy’s career, and made many others realize that their time had passed. Almost the entire history of rock passing by in what now seems a flash of just over a decade, while you were in your prime.

I was hoping to mark out the years by going from God Only Knows to God Save the Queen by finding a decent song for each year with God in the title. Can’t claim to have done it from memory, and 1967 still defeats me, but I like (most of) what I’ve come up with so far, although there is surely room for improvement. Any suggestions will, of course, receive due credit.

1966 God Only Knows – The Beach Boys

1967?

1968 God Bless Our Love – The Ballads

1969 That’s The Way God Planned It – Billy Preston

1970 God – John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band

1971 (For God’s Sake) Give More Power to the People – The Chi-lites

1972 God’s Song (That’s Why I Love Mankind) – Randy Newman

1973 God Gave Rock and Roll To You – Argent

1974 Dear God – Elton John

1975 God Made Me Funky – The Headhunters (Featuring the Pointer Sisters)

1976 Have A Talk With God – Stevie Wonder

1977 God Save The Queen – The Sex Pistols