JIM McCARTY is the drummer of The Yardbirds, the blueswailing club heroes who blazed a trail of scintillating, experimental rock music during the


mid-60s. McCarty and singer Keith Relf then formed mellow proggers Renaissance. He’s still going strong, this year releasing the quintessentially English solo outing, Sitting On The Top Of Time. LENNY HELSING catches up with Jim to ask him about his long and varied career.


Shindig!: Let’s begin with your most current project Sitting On The Top Of Time. This is a real surprise, and has a gloriously mellow feel. What’s inspired you lately? Jim McCarty: Thanks for your appreciation. I’ve always been quite eclectic in my tastes and I like all sorts of music from authentic blues through jazz to classical. Just lately though I have admired Ry Cooder, and also Jan Garbarek, the jazz sax player. But over the period of writing the material for this album I’ve been spending increasing amounts of time in Provence, a countryside and nature that I have found surprisingly inspiring, without really doing anything other than going about my business within it.


SD: Hearing you as a fully-fledged lead vocalist is a real pleasure too Jim. JM: Well, yes I have always enjoyed singing very much and I find it is a question of confidence. Singing one’s own songs is easier because they mean something quite personal to me, but I find that it is a question of just enjoying singing more and more and having the confidence to step out from behind the drums.


SD: From the jazz-tinged instrumental ‘Nearly End Of May’ to the daydreaming folky guitar on ‘For Eloise’, it’s a diverse


20


album. Was there a conscious effort to bring quite a few different tastes to the table? JM: I really think that I wrote these songs and arrangements to go around my own voice –it wouldn’t have worked to create harder rock songs. I’ve always loved music that puts you into a certain mood with softer harmonies. Having said this, I also find that I always enjoy collaborating with other good musicians. So this does mean that when you go into the studio, although I’ve written the compositions previously, there needs to be space enough in the recording process to allow them to bring their own magic.


SD: As a songwriter, who have you especially admired post-original Yardbirds? JM: Well that’s a long time ago and so there are many. But to name a few that come to mind there’s Burt Bacharach, Brian Wilson, Paul Simon, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Gordon Lightfoot and Neil Young.


SD: After The Yardbirds called it a day in 1968, you and vocalist Keith Relf decided to form the group Renaissance. Did you already have the idea of playing a kind of classically-informed progressive folk-rock or did it just evolve that way? JM: We found that this music did in fact


evolve. We wanted to do something quite different from what we’d done before in The Yardbirds and it just happened that John Hawken came for an audition. He was trying to form a country-rock band with Peter Grant as manager. We didn’t really know that he played classical piano, just that he was a great rock pianist. Keith and I already had some song ideas and we tried one out in rehearsal at my old house in Surrey. In the middle of the song John suddenly started playing some Beethoven and Louis Cennamo, the bass player and myself improvised along with him and it sounded great. From there we sort of adopted that formula and experimented further with it.


SD: You and Keith stuck around for the first couple of LPs, Renaissance, and Illusion. Why did you leave when you were beginning to get a good reputation here and in the USA? JM: All things went along fine for a while until we started touring in the US and it became evident that Keith and I still hadn’t got over the stress of touring with The Yardbirds. To make matters worse the US agent put us on shows with heavy-rock bands such as The Kinks and Savoy Brown, which was exactly what we were trying to move away from. Because of all of this stress the members of the band started to not get


Photo: Alamy


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92