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The short-lived band Grail from Great Britain was founded in 1969 by songwriter and guitarist Terry Spencer. After various line-up changes, the band consisted of Chris Williams (voc, autoharp), Paul Barrett (g, cl, voc), Dave Blake (clo, sit, fl, voc), Stan Decker (b, g, keyb) and Chris Perry (dr, perc) at the time of recording their first album in 1970. Apparently, no one in the UK was interested in the recorded material, even though Rod Stewart was rumoured to be the producer. However, their manager Bob Pearce managed to sell it to the German Metronome label during a tour of Germany.
Their first and only LP was released there and in France on Barclay in May 1971, unfortunately with two completely different covers. By the time of its release, the band had already broken up. This extremely rare and obscure album contains seven tracks, all of which are very different. It presents an impressive and unusual mixture of guitar-heavy hard rock, proto-prog, acid folk with exotic elements through the use of flute, sitar, cello, clarinet and autoharp. The original German vinyl edition on Metronome is particularly sought after by collectors.
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