Curved Air
Curved Air are an English progressive rock group formed in 1970 by musicians from mixed artistic backgrounds, including classical, folk and electronic sound. The resulting sound of the band is a mixture of progressive rock, folk rock, and fusion with classical elements. Curved Air released eight studio albums, the first three of which broke into the Top 20 in the UK Albums Chart, and had a hit single with "Back Street Luv" which reached number 4 in the UK Singles Chart.
Band history
Sisyphus
The group evolved out of the band Sisyphus, who played one of their early gigs in the ballroom of Leith Hill Place, Surrey for a masked ball and which was formed by Darryl Way and Francis Monkman, a member of the Royal Academy of Music. While wandering through an outlet store of the Orange Music Electronic Company, Monkman was intrigued by the sound of Way testing his first electrically amplified violin, and the two "got to talking." They discovered they had a lot in common, and in 1969 invited pianist Nick Simon who, along with bassist Rob Martin and drummer Florian Pilkington-Miksa, completed the line-up of Sisyphus. "Darryl and Nick were very much into Spirit. One could cite them as a formative influence for Curved Air", Monkman later remembered. Many of the early Curved Air songs were written for Sisyphus, among them "Young Mother in Style" and "Screw".Sisyphus was hired to provide accompaniment for Galt MacDermot's new play, Who the Murderer Was, at the Mercury Theatre in Notting Hill Gate, serving as the pit band. Mark Hanau, an aspiring band manager at the time, saw the show and decided he wanted to manage Sisyphus. He felt that Sonja Kristina, an aspiring folk musician who he had seen in the London stage production of Hair, was the missing ingredient in the group. On 1 January 1970, Hanau contacted her through the singer and impresario Roy Guest. She listened to a cassette of the band's music and was impressed. With Kristina's joining and Nick Simon's departure, Sisyphus metamorphosed into Curved Air, named after the album A Rainbow in Curved Air by contemporary composer Terry Riley. The name was suggested by Monkman who, having played in the first London performance of In C, was a great fan of Riley. The band's new sound immediately came together, and the five-piece Curved Air was born, Sonja Kristina being both the band's voice and its sex symbol.
From formation to first breakup
After a series of intensive rehearsals in Martin's family home in Gloucestershire, the five-piece launched a well-received UK tour, supporting Black Sabbath at one point. The band toured with their own sound engineer, Shaun Davies, which allowed them to achieve a better on-stage sound mix than other groups with unusual combinations of instruments. Shaun's father, Guy Davies, made the perspex violins used by Way and later Jobson. Curved Air publicist Tony Brainsby fanned the enthusiastic audience response and a bidding war for the band ensued, and in summer 1970 Curved Air signed with Warner Bros., becoming the first British band on the company's roster. The band received a much-publicized advance of £100,000 and their debut album Air Conditioning was released in November notable for its being issued as the first commercially available LP picture disc in the UK. The album reached number 8 in the UK Albums Chart, preceded by a single, "It Happened Today". John Peel picked up on the band and they performed on several Peel radio Sessions and Roundhouse ‘Implosion’ events.Bass player Rob Martin left due to a hand injury, and was replaced by Ian Eyre. The band released "Back Street Luv" which reached number 4 in the UK Singles Chart to become the band's most successful single to date. The Second Album peaked at number 11. A non-LP follow-up single, "Sarah's Concern", went by unnoticed.
The band played three U.S. tours and built a cult following there. In the course of constant touring drummer Pilkington-Miksa became ill in late 1971 and, for several months, Barry de Souza, who band members knew from studio work, sat in for him. It was de Souza who played with Curved Air at the 1971 Beat Club German TV performance of "Back Street Luv", the televised version of which became well known. In late 1971, Sonja Kristina joined Faces, Soft Machine, Marc Bolan and David Bedford to do a Christmas radio show for the BBC.
One highlighted performance was on 7 May 1971 when Curved Air was the opening act for B.B. King and Johnny Winter at the Warehouse in New Orleans.
By the time of the third album's release, serious musical differences within the band emerged. According to Sonja Kristina's Cherry Red interview, Francis was fascinated with overtones and natural harmonies, and "His other obsession is/was jamming... real 'out there' cosmic rock jamming. And that is not Darryl at all... He's a very disciplined perfectionist, he likes things to be as precise and exquisite as possible. Whereas Francis is completely the opposite way; he just wants to play and things just come out of the cosmos". As Monkman explained,
Basically Darryl and I respect each others' work, but we don't really see eye-to-eye on most things. And we never really got the co-writing thing together. I wanted to get my first "epic" together, so it looks like a split forming at the time of the Second Album. In fact, the centre was never really solid after Rob left.
This division was reflected in the arrangement of tracks on Second Album and Phantasmagoria; side A of both albums was occupied by music composed by Darryl Way, while side B was devoted solely to Monkman's compositions, with no true collaboration between the two writers. While working in the studio the band was in a dire condition. "I remember the moment when Clifford Davis, our manager after Mark Hanau, spelled out what we were going to have to do just to get somewhere near even. We felt burned out", Monkman later said. By the end of 1972 Monkman was a self-admitted "nervous wreck" and on the verge of physical and mental breakdown. He had to wear earplugs to go on the London Underground and went to a naturopath three times a week.
Phantasmagoria was recorded with bassist/guitarist Mike Wedgwood, who replaced Eyre. The album's title was drawn from the Lewis Carroll poem of the same title. The album came out in April 1972 and reached number 20 in the UK Albums Chart.
Curved Air split up, Way formed Darryl Way's Wolf, Pilkington-Miksa joined Kiki Dee's band, and Monkman moved into session work and was later to play in, among others, the supergroup Sky.
The new Curved Air
Having retained a good working relationship, Sonja Kristina and Mike Wedgwood formed a new band with Kirby Gregory, Eddie Jobson, and Jim Russell. Jobson had come from a band called Fat Grapple, who had been one of Curved Air's support acts on tour. The new musicians brought more direct rock energy, with young prodigy Eddie Jobson, influenced by Curved Air, kept the classical blend strongly in the mix. On the suggestion of manager Clifford Davis, they continued using the name Curved Air with the approval and support of the departing band members.Kristina later commented:
What I wanted to do with the band at the time was get more of a rock edge to it, and Kirby's guitar playing really excited me – he was just really wild. And Jim was the same way, a very solid rock drummer. Mike and I really wanted to continue, and it was our manager Clifford Davis who said we would do a better business continuing to call the band Curved Air. So we kept the name and followed along the same pattern as before, as a writer's band. Everybody in the new band contributed material except for Jim Russell, who really wasn't a writer. Before it had mainly been Darryl and Francis, but I had managed to get some of my compositions in.
Whereas all three of the original Curved Air's albums had broken the UK top 20, the new band's sole album, Air Cut, failed to chart at the time.
Not long after the release, Eddie Jobson was asked to replace Brian Eno in Roxy Music, so Kirby Gregory and Jim Russell both left the group to form Stretch. Sonja Kristina recorded a demo tape for Warner Brothers but they discontinued the contract.. Mike Wedgwood joined Caravan.
Reunion
In 1974 Chrysalis sued the band. "We had broken their contract on the advice of Clifford Davis, who said we could prove that they had not been acting in our best interests, but by then he was no longer our manager!" Monkman explained. In order to discharge an enormous unpaid VAT bill, in September 1974 the band's mainstays reunited for a three-week tour of the UK, put together by Darryl Way's manager, Miles Copeland III. The reunion interrupted Way's new band, Stark Naked and the Car Thieves, and since the bass slot for Curved Air needed filling, Way brought along the new band's bassist, Phil Kohn.The reunion tour saw Sonja Kristina play her role as Curved Air's sex symbol far more dramatically than she had before. Between the band's previous breakup and the reunion tour she had worked as a croupier at the London Playboy Club and returned to the stage with Curved Air in see through lace, feathers and beads, highlighting her sexuality.
A live album and single were recorded during the lauded three week reunion tour, and they succeeded in paying off the tax bill. With their debts paid, Monkman and Pilkington-Miksa had no more reason to remain in the band. And so, Curved Air broke up for the third time in as many years.
Stark Naked, the Car Thieves, and Curved Air
However, Darryl Way wanted to continue Curved Air with Sonja Kristina. Way brought in two more "Car Thieves", guitarist Mick Jacques and drummer Stewart Copeland, Miles Copeland III's brother. Now more members of this new lineup came from Stark Naked and the Car Thieves than Curved Air. With Darryl Way at the helm, this new band often employed the same classical and folk influences as the original band and played the now classic Curved Air songs at their shows), but their core sound was rooted in pop, rhythm and blues, and hard rock. Miles Copeland III, still serving as Curved Air's manager, put the group on his own label, BTM.The band kicked off with a European tour, which started poorly. Way, a notorious perfectionist, grew impatient with the struggling of his bandmates, especially novice drummer Copeland. Eventually, the musicians found a way of working together and became a popular live act.
The group struggled with studio work. Phil Kohn left and the band, unable to replace him in time for the sessions for Midnight Wire, relied on guest musicians to play both bass and keyboards. Norma Tager, a friend of Kristina's, penned the lyrics to the "Midnight Wire" songs. Kohn was later replaced by Tony Reeves, formerly of Colosseum and Greenslade, but the recording sessions for both Midnight Wire and 1976's Airborne were expensive and highly stressful for everyone involved. Both albums – as well as "Desiree", a single drawn from Airborne – failed to break the charts.
Citing dissatisfaction with BTM Records' inability to support Curved Air financially, Way departed. Though Alex Richman from the Butts Band stepped in on keyboards, the loss of the band's de facto leader was a blow. This line-up's final release was a cover version of "Baby Please Don't Go” and although the shows were sold out and always successful the new recordings did not chart. After months of gradually losing steam, Curved Air broke up so quietly that, by Sonja Kristina's recollections, most of the music press wrote off the band's absence as a "sabbatical". Copeland formed The Police, Reeves returned to work as a producer and played in semi-pro band Big Chief along with Jacques, and Kristina and Way both pursued solo careers. Kristina and Copeland maintained the romantic relationship they had formed while bandmates and were married in 1982.