Gracious!: The Recordings 1970-1971, 3CD/DVD Expanded Edition (Esoteric/Cherry Red ECRUS4005, 2025)
Gracious!: The Recordings 1970–1971, 3CD/DVD Expanded Edition feels like opening a sealed time capsule from the dawn of British progressive rock. The surprise is not that Gracious! were good, plenty of bands were, but that a group this talented, this technically fluent, could slip into the margins for so long. This box finally restores their brief glow to full brightness: two studio albums, a live Isle of Wight set, and film that proves they were at the top tier of early progressive rock.
The lineup reads like a textbook of classic prog-rock architecture. Paul “Sandy” Davis handles lead vocals and 12-string guitar with soulful clarity and charisma. Alan Cowderoy’s lead guitar supplies multifaceted work, while brilliant keyboardist Martin Kitcat shines from behind the Mellotron, organ, and piano. Tim Wheatley’s bass and Robert Lipson’s drums complete a rhythm section that bends time.
Their early rise makes the later disappearance even stranger. A support slot for The Who in 1968 and another for King Crimson in 1969 placed them right in the blast radius of rock’s most forward-leaning acts. One can almost hear the moment they bought that Mellotron: a door swinging open from tough club rock into a more panoramic, risk-friendly sound.
The Vertigo-issued debut, Gracious!, arrived in 1970 with the confidence of a band that knew its own vocabulary. The record moves like a well-paced novel: themes introduced, tested, recast, then returned in richer colors. Kitcat’s playing is the spine. His piano lines show a composer’s discipline, and his organ work carries the swagger of someone who has lived in Bach as comfortably as in blues and jazz. The Mellotron blooms across the arrangements like a weather system rolling in, majestic and perfectly timed.
Cowderoy meets that breadth with a guitarist’s narrative instinct. His leads begin in blues-rooted speech, then tilt into full progressive psychedelia. Davis and company deliver vocals that land in the sweet spot, with charm. The harmonies lock together with the bright precision prog-rock demands, recalling early Yes in their tightness and lift. Wheatley and Lipson deserve equal billing. Odd meters arrive, natural, even inevitable.
Gracious! plays it straight by progressive rock standards, then happily veers into quirks: a sudden fugue here, a stretch of exploratory psychedelia there.
That momentum carried them to the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival, where they shared a bill with Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, The Who, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, and a small army of era-defining names. The performance was recorded and filmed, then shelved for decades.
The second album, recorded at Olympic Studios in early 1971, began life as Supernova before emerging as This Is Gracious!. The set’s liner notes argue for it as the peak. That case is strong, though the debut still feels like the sharper statement. This Is Gracious! opens with the 25-minute title suite, a shifting epic that moves through passages the way a symphony moves through movements. The palette remains close to the first album, but the vocal mix changes character. Where Gracious! lifts toward Yes-like, This Is Gracious! leans into a Beatles-style.
Vertigo dropped them before the record’s release, and Philips issued it later in 1971 under the slightly awkward banner This Is… Gracious!.
This collection rounds up the full studio story, then adds the missing live chapter and a multi-region DVD of the Isle of Wight film. A richly illustrated booklet, packed with unseen photos and a new interview-based essay by Mike Barnes, supplies the human context behind the music’s ambition.
The tragedy of Gracious! is not that they failed to deliver. They did. The tragedy is that they were never given the runway to keep evolving.
Musicians: Paul “Sandy” Davis on lead vocals, 12-string guitar; Alan Cowderoy on lead guitar, vocals; Martin Kitcat on Mellotron, organ, piano, vocals; Tim Wheatley on bass, vocals; and Robert Lipson on drums.
Track Listing:
Disc One: Gracious!
- Introduction
- Heaven
- Hell
- Fugue in D Minor
- The Dream
Disc Two: This is Gracious!
- Super Nova
a. Arrival of the Traveller
b. Blood Red Sun
c. Say Goodbye to Love
d. Prepare to Meet Thy Maker - C.B.S.
- What’s Come to Be
- Blue Skies and Alibis
- Hold Me Down Bonus track
- Once on a Windy Day (single version)
Disc Three: Gracious! Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970 – Previously unreleased.
- Super Nova
- Once on a Windy Day
Disc Four – DVD (Multi-region): Gracious! Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970 film – Previously unreleased.
- Super Nova
- Once on a Windy Day