Average White Band

Just how did six Scotsmen come to record the funkiest slice of jazzy soul this side of James Brown and turn it platinum on both sides of the Atlantic? Thirty-five years later and AWB’s entire 70s canon has been lovingly re-released. John Medd talks to guitarist and vocalist Hamish Stuart about The White Band (who were anything but Average).

The story behind Pick Up The Pieces, AWB’s1975 Billboard topping monster single, goes back to a time of sweaty Glasgow jazz clubs in the late 60s where guitarists Hamish Stuart and Onnie McIntyre first met. With the explosion of Motown, Stax and Atlantic one club in particular, The Picasso, was a breeding ground for raw Scottish talent – Maggie Bell and Frankie Miller to name but two – together with Stuart and McIntyre, would not only be soaking up these new sounds but trying out new material of their own. A little further north, in Perth, Alan Gorrie was forming a little R&B club where his regulars included drummer Robbie McIntosh and a young horn section from Dundee Art College, Roger Ball and Malcolm (Molly) Duncan – later christened The Dundee Horns by Maggie Bell.

Fast forward to London1970 and Messrs Stuart, McIntyre, Gorrie, McIntosh, Ball and Duncan are all much in demand session men, but working separately; Island studios hire them collectively where they become the house band, most notably backing Johnny Nash on I Can See Clearly Now.  I ask Stuart who their influences were around that time. ‘We were all listening to The Isley Brothers, Stevie Wonder, Bill Withers: all artists who were pushing back the soul boundaries. And, of course, not forgetting James Brown!  Then Donnie Hathaway’s live album came out; it had a great vibe with a small rhythm section. Perfect.’
By 1972 the sextet found a name for themselves (courtesy of a British diplomat friend of the band’s whose oft used catchphrase ‘too much for the average white man’ struck a chord) and were drafted in to play the, now infamous, Lincoln Music Festival. Six months later and they opened for Eric Clapton’s legendary comeback gig at London’s Rainbow Theatre; such was their performance they were signed by MCA immediately and in 1973 their first long player, Show Your Hand, was released to critical acclaim.

But it was the following year the band went global: decamping to the States the band recorded what would become known as The White Album. It sold by the shed load, as did the above mentioned single taken from it: Pick Up The Pieces. I suggest to Stuart that this deceptively simple tune must have paid for a few houses over the years. ‘It certainly put the kids through college!  We were in Hollywood jamming at the home of one of MCA’s Directors, with blankets over the windows, when we just discovered this riff and kept expanding on it.’ Indeed on the first batch of reissues we get to hear it’s first outing on the How Sweet It Can You Get set (their pulled second album). ‘That’s right. The difference between the two versions being that we upped the ante in the groove department!  When did you know you’d got a hit on your hands? ‘I remember being at a baseball game in Cincinnati and the marching band were playing it!’ You must be thrilled with these rereleased packages. ‘Absolutely. In the past our stuff has only come out sporadically on CD in bits and pieces. Now, for the first time, they’ve done it chronologically so it’s got context.’  Stuart stayed in America, living in New York as a tax exile, until the band split in 1981. Lucrative work with Paul McCartney followed and he toured the world with the ex Beatle for a few years before coming back to Britain and forming his own band. These days he regularly plays with friend and fellow Scot Jim Mullen and can be found running his own gastro pub in Kent. ‘It’s great. My wife and I both love great food and great wine so this combines the two. And every summer we have our own music festival in the back garden.’