Angel Pavement, like their fellow York renegades The Smoke, found their spiritual home as part of producer Monty Babson’s Morgan Blue Town stable of artists in the late 1960s.
The group grew out of a soul-based band called Wesley Hardin’s Shotgun Package in 1967, and guitarist and singer, Alfie Shepherd had his mind set on forming a West Coast sounding close harmony group.
Gathering a following in the York area, they set about recording a number of demos that they privately released on EP’s. Putting future recordings on hold, they took up an offer of work in Mexico for five months which shaped the quintet into a tight, harmonic musical unit and yielded several original compositions which they cut under the supervision of Morgan staff producer and Smoke drummer Geoff Gill upon their return to England in the summer of 1969.
The band’s two lone singles were atypical if rather charming, pop efforts donated by Morgan whiz kid Danny Beckerman and performed by the Morgan house band.
Despite further singles and an album being scheduled, the real meat of Angel Pavement’s output was to remain tantalisingly unreleased until the 21st century – Maybe Tomorrow, an impressive collection of their complete recordings, was released in 2005.
Their brand of English guitar pop is imbued as much with the sound of the West Coast as it is with the domestic baroque ‘n’ roll of Honeybus, The Zombies and Badfinger.
Paul Smith’s voice recalls John Pantry’s work from the same period while Graham Harris’ nimble, melodic bass effectively became the group’s lead instrument on many tracks.
Paul Smith
Vocals
Graham Harris
Bass
Alfie Shepherd
Lead guitar
Dave Smith
Guitar
Mike ‘Candy’ Candler
Drums
John Cartwright
Guitar
