Family Reunion

There has been a shortage of posts over the past two weeks as I have been relaxing in Spain. While I was there a friend kindly notified me of the reunion of Family that is taking place at the Shepherd's Bush Empire next February.

While still at what would today be known as High School, a few of us would spend lunchtimes hanging out in the music room when it was too wet outside to play football. People would take in recently purchased albums and I can still recall walking in one day to hear what I believe was 'Me My Friend'. Whatever track it was, it came from the debut album by Family, 'Music in a Doll's House'. Being unable to afford to buy many albums in those days, I managed to borrow a copy and record it onto my Philips reel to reel tape recorder. From then on, I was a devout fan of Family and eagerly awaited every one of their releases. I also made sure that I saw them live on almost every occasion that they happened to play in the north east of England.

Although I never really took to their final album 'It's Only a Movie', I was still devastated when they announced their decision to split in 1973. Now, forty years on they are to reform for what is I believe to be a one-off reunion concert. Featuring a line up of Roger Chapman, drummer Rob Townsend, Jim Cregan and John 'Poli' Palmer, they will also be augmented by Geoff Whitehorn on guitar, Gary Twigg on bass, John Lingwood on drums and percussion, Paul Hirsh on keyboards and Nick Payn on sax and harmonica. They will perform a selection of material from each of their seven albums released between 1968 and 1973.



It is a little sad that the line-up will not feature John 'Charlie' Whitney who was the songwriting partner of Chapman and who played some great guitar throughout the career of the band. In fact, Chapman and Whitney continued their partnership beyond Family, in what became known as The Streetwalkers. Unfortunately something went wrong in their relationship and since Streetwalkers split in 1977 after releasing four studio albums, the pair have never played together.

Despite the passing of the years and the absence of Whitney, I am excited by the prospect of hearing the band play live again. My ticket has been secured so expect to hear more on this subject in February 2013.