Nottingham group 1960-67 who became Ten Years After.
This is going to be a long and complicated journey. There are myths and mistakes out there (even Leo Lyons has a few dates muddled up) so this is going to be a slow methodical process. I already have some pages on this website talking about particular moments in their career and eventually I hope to bring all these elements into one concise story.
To start with, let’s get this out of the way. The “Embassy label” vinyl records you will often see on eBay or Discogs by Ray Pilgrim and the Jaybirds are not by The Jaybirds from Nottingham. They are by Ray Pilgrim! They are not Alvin Lee and Leo Lyons et al. There are no newspaper cuttings eluding to it. Alvin Lee never mentioned it. Leo Lyons has never mentioned it and he regularly posts on his facebook page. The Discogs page is wrong!
Apart from the obvious “same name”, I think some of the confusion has come from an original mention on the very excellent alvinlee.de website made many years ago where they thought it might be true and maybe they’ve added that info to the Discogs page. The information about the group is correct but not the “Embassy Records” releases.
So, unless Leo Lyons contacts me personally and tells me otherwise, I stand by what I say. According to wikipedia Ray Pilgrim is still alive and there is a website detailing some of his music career. RayPilgrim.
SOME BASICS ABOUT THE JAYBIRDS
They were firstly the Jaymen (1960), then the Jaycats (1960) before becoming the Jaybirds and had a few different line ups over the years. Alvin Lee had been in groups before that and so had Leo Lyons. Later in 1966 they did appear as backing musicians with The Ivy League both live and on record. They did record at Joe Meeks studio (Jan 1962) and this is likely to be released by Cherry Red records “eventually” who now have in their possession the famous “Tea Chest Tapes”.
From Dec 1961 to June 1962 The Jaybirds were led by local Nottingham singer Farran Christy. You can read that story here.
The first line up of Ivan Jaye and the Jayemen (April – August 1960) can be read about here.
A little bit about The Ivy League here.
Much much more coming later …..