MARTIN KIELTY

When Alex Harvey died of a heart attack a quarter of a century ago this weekend, he was barely mourned by a music scene he'd championed and changed only a few years previously. He'd come from the slums of Govan and preached pacifism wrapped in punk. He had the nerve to call his band the Sensational Alex Harvey Band. No-one disagreed. But his legacy sits uncomfortably in his home city.

Nothing was run of the mill about Harvey. He became a star in 1957 by winning a national talent show, and together with runners-up Sydney Devine and Joe Moretti, he spent 12 weeks touring the country in a battered old taxi, living the classic wine, women and song lifestyle. Moretti, who went on to play the guitar with 1950s heroes including Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran, remembers: "We lived in that car, we never had enough to eat and hardly ever had any money - but it was magic. Better than a real job."

While the teddy-boy fashion was in, Harvey wore his hair long; and while everyone else crooned Elvis tunes, he dug into the annals of gutsy blues and sang with passion and energy about the tough way of life he shared with black Americans of an older generation. He sang in his natural Glaswegian accent and the result was the transmission of honesty and attitude.

He spent five years playing guitar in the hippie musical Hair, which he said taught him discipline. Richard O'Brien, of Rocky Horror Show fame, met him in Hair. "He was a terrible influence, a real cheeky chappie. We'd go drinking and he'd make up all these stories about his time in Europe with the beat bands. At least, I think he was making them up - one never quite knew."

But it was a chance encounter with a failing prog-rock band in 1972 which put Harvey on the world stage. Glasgow outfit Tear Gas had their own reputation - they played so loud they were known as Fear Gas, and while the trend for "music ye cannae dance to" was on the way out, Zal Cleminson, Chris Glen and cousins Ted and Hugh McKenna, was becoming more experimental. The result: no bookings.

"Our manager told us there wasn't enough work to carry on," recalls drummer Ted McKenna. "We had one other option - this guy Harvey was looking for a band. It was double our wages and our debt would be cleared. We just thought it would keep the band together."

Funding came from millionaire Bill Fehilly, who wanted to make Harvey a star, and indeed is remembered as the only man who could control his protege.


IN JUST a few months the band were drawing in huge crowds all over the UK. Everyone wanted to knock them down for daring to call themselves "sensational", but no-one could, because, quite simply, they were sensational.

"Alex could dominate a room just by walking into it," says McKenna. "We knew how to focus his energy and send it into the audience. I remember crowds stepping back as Alex, Zal and Chris stepped forward. One night the entire audience watched us in complete silence. We thought we'd done a lead-balloon until the cheering started about a minute after we came off - they'd needed time to talk to each other: Did you get that? Wasn't that incredible?'."

By 1973 the Sensational Alex Harvey Band (SAHB) was big news. Glam rock was the big noise and Slade were the bosses, and no-one but SAHB dared support them. Glen says: "Alex took the challenge seriously. He'd spend 10 minutes shouting at himself in a mirror to wind himself up before he went on, then he'd go strangely calm. When the audience weren't listening he'd speak quieter instead of louder - he knew they'd shut up to hear what he was saying, even if they didn't like him. By the end, they always did."

Harvey's father had been a conscientious objector during the war and the son shared that belief, while having a passion for military history. And while he explored the theme of violence thoroughly in a stack of his songs, it's the socialist and pacifist message which came through. Harvey used comedy play-acting to enthrall the crowds. He looked after his audience like he was their father, stopping the show to break up fights, slowing the song to announce messages of love and changing the pace to encourage the room to act as one. Despite eight successful albums and two his singles (a spoof of Tom Jones's Delilah in 1975 and Boston Tea Party in 1976), Harvey was never able to capture his power and passion in the studio, and without the advantages of the video era, SAHB's best side was never quite shown. They were one of the very few acts which survived the punk revolution. The Sex Pistols and most other prime punk movers were SAHB fans.

But the years of portrayal of honesty and energy weighed heavy and Harvey had experienced his own woes. His brother, Les, of blues legends Stone the Crows, died by electrocution on stage in 1972, then manager Fehilly died in a plane crash in 1976. Close friends say Harvey couldn't recover. He returned with a new band. But his health was waning and, although he loved his New Alex Harvey Band, it didn't connect the way SAHB had. His last shows in Europe with The Electric Cowboys are best forgotten.

Harvey died on his way home from that last tour on February 4, 1982, a day before his 47th birthday. They called him the world's oldest punk, the faith healer and the last of the teenage idols.

Back home in Glasgow, the world had changed since Harvey's day. The Govan slums were gone, mainstays of the music scene such as the Apollo were under threat and the popular voices were keen to forget the "no mean city" years. His death was barely marked. But that attitude, that accent, that delivery, had made a deep and indelible mark.

Ray Conn, Harvey's last manager, recalls: "Towards the end he was ill and a lot of people let him down. But he was full of love - you remember the gap-toothed smile. So many of the things he said make more sense the older you get. He was a special man and everyone who knew him and loved him was proud to have known and loved him."

  • Martin Kielty is author of SAHB Story: the tale of the Sensational Alex Harvey Band, the official biography available from publisher NWP.

A sensational story: where are they now?

  • SAHB split up in 1977 after five years and eight albums: Framed (1972), Next (1973), The Impossible Dream (1974), Tomorrow Belongs to Me (1975), Live (1975), SAHB Stories (1976), The Penthouse Tapes (1976) and Rock Drill (1978). SAHB Without Alex released the Fourplay album in 1976.
  • Guitarist Zal Cleminson went on to play with stablemates Nazareth, Midge Ure and Elkie Brooks. Ted McKenna joined Irish guitar virtuoso Rory Gallagher. Chris Glen wound up with ex-Scorpion Michael Shenker and eventually recruited Ted into the band, and together they went on to work with Ian Gillan. Keyboardist Hugh McKenna, Harvey's closest collaborator, suffered ill-health due to the strains of rock'n'roll life and left the band in 1976. He worked with Harvey again before his death and continued his career in songwriting.
  • In 2002 the band reformed for a one-off tribute concert for Frankie Miller, and enjoyed it so much they decided to stay together. In 2004 they recruited ex-Shamen performer Max Maxwell to front the band in place of Harvey. Maxwell, himself a lifelong SAHB fan, understood no-one would accept a replacement, and set out to deliver something similar but different. After three UK tours he's been accepted by the faithful SAHBsters and the band made Zalvation their first internationally-released album in 29 years.
  • They keep the SAHB name as a tribute to a man they're proud to call their colleague and friend.