Flyford Favell

Clockwise from top left: Al Hickey, Lawrence Flynn, Charlie Sara and Cleo Wallis.

## Background Information

### Genres

Folk rock • psychedelic rock • progressive rock • hard rock

### Members

Al Hickey • Lawrence Flynn • Cleo Wallis • Charlie Sara

### Associated Acts

The Mansa Musas • Sockeye

**Flyford Favell** was a rock band formed in New York in 1967. Their line-up consisted of Al Hickey (bass and lead vocals), Lawrence Flynn (lead guitar and vocals), Cleo Wallis (drums, percussion and vocals) and Charlie Sara (keyboard, vocals and rhythm guitar). They are best known for their joint vocals, Flynn's prolific songwriting, Sara's compositions and Wallis' influential playing style.

## History

### Formation (1965-1967)

Al Hickey and Lawrence Flynn met in June 1965 on a bus from the airport to New York City. They met the day Flynn first arrived in America from England with a guitar and nothing else to his name and they struck up a friendship. Al saw Lawrence perform a few times and eventually approached him to play with him and a couple of friends. They had similar interests in folk music and beat poetry and they found that they “sounded pretty good together”. They discussed forming a band but didn’t know anyone else to join it. In the meantime, they played a few gigs together, playing mostly folk staples, Dylan covers and a couple of Flynn’s early songs. They played "Leaving Home" in their first performance in Greenwich Village, which would later appear on their first album. Sometime that year, they recorded three six-song demo acetate discs to send to record labels, to little success.

Flynn’s girlfriend, Cass Parsons, at the time put them in touch with a friend of hers in January 1966 - Cleo Wallis, a drummer bouncing between various garage rock bands and making a name for herself in the early 1960s punk scene. Flynn and Hickey went to see Wallis perform with The Optics, with whom she would stay until their breakup in May 1967. Although Hickey would later state his original hesitance, unsure of the fit, Flynn was immediately enraptured. They approached her about putting together a band, which Wallis initially declined. They would keep in contact over the next few months and spend time at each other’s performances.

Inspired by his elder sister Veronica - herself a session musician - after a trip home to Britain, Flynn bought a Rickenbacker twelve-string guitar in 1967. Hickey began learning bass guitar soon after, sensing a change in the tide. Upon the breakup of The Optics, Wallis arranged to meet with Flynn and Hickey to play together and see whether she felt they could get anywhere. They met at Flynn’s apartment in the Village, which he shared with Parsons. To this meeting, Wallis brought Charles Sara, guitarist and keyboardist with The Kookaburras, and her friend. Wallis felt the need to bring someone with closer ties to psychedelic and hard rock to balance out against Flynn and Hickey’s folk influences. The session went well and the final lineup was met. The group named the band Flyford Favell, a misspelling of Flynn's home village in the UK. While the band would claim this was on purpose for many years, Hickey would later state it was a mistake on Sara's part when he filled in some paperwork.

### Folk-rock and *Flyford Favell* (1967-1969)

With Hickey and Flynn’s folk influences and Wallis and Sara’s propensity for garage rock and the advent of psychedelia, the band reached a balance within folk rock, although even some of their earliest work edged into psychedelia. Flynn wrote around half of the original songs they regularly performed, with Hickey, Sara and Wallis all providing several others. Following one gig in Los Angeles, filling in for a friend’s band that had to drop out, they signed with SK Records in June 1968. The band relocated to California later that year.

Flyford Favell’s self-titled first album was released in December 1968 to moderate success. It was largely a folk-rock album, with a couple of variations. It marks Flynn’s first work as a commercial songwriter, with "I Know You" and "Changing Every Day" later amassing a number of covers over the years. While SK released their cover of Bob Dylan’s "(It’s All Over Now) Baby Blue*"* as their first single, "Belly of the Beast" was the second. Flynn’s writing was noted by critics as a standout of an album whose sound was largely safe, if a little discordant across the album. "Maggie" gained some popularity as a pop hit, but while most of the power of the album came from Flynn’s writing, Wallis’ "The Ram" - a six-minute drum-heavy romp - and Sara’s "Abyssinia" - a multi-instrumental soundscape - brought the band respect within the psychedelic scene and showed a hint of things to come on later releases.

The subsequent tour - with five gigs across the West and East coast and two in the UK in the spring of 1969 - was successful, and there was little friction between the group members, something that Sara later reflected on as “bittersweet naïvety”. The tour also marked the beginning of a lifelong friendship for Wallis and Flynn upon a visit to Flynn’s home in England together. Hickey and Sara stayed in London during this time, immersing themselves in parties. This marked their first experience with both larger musicians and harder drugs, the latter of which would later prove instrumental in the band’s separation.

### Psychedelia and *The Black Bull of Norroway* (1969-1970)

Returning from their first international tour with bright eyes and newfound enthusiasm, the band pushed for more creative control and a bolder sound for their next album. During this time, all the members began experimenting more with recreational drugs. This was most noticeable in Flynn’s writing, branching out from his acoustic-heavy early work into a far more eclectic sound. He became increasingly prolific, recording more than twenty demos in the recording sessions for the album. While tensions flared with Hickey and Sara, Wallis would later state that it was over the course of this album that her songwriting ability became more tenable thanks to her partnership with Flynn. Rising tensions and increasing tardiness led to the album’s completion coming three months late.

Following the release of "Waken And Turn To Me*"* as a single, with Tomorrow as a B-side, Flyford Favell’s second album, *The Black Bull of Norroway*, was released in November 1970. Critics called it a marked improvement on their first album, noting the intensity of the compositions, something which Sara had pushed for. The album pushed Favell to new heights and chart success, the psychedelic sound striking a new chord with the audience. The overall sound of the album was notably harder, and some of the album has since been compared to the Mansa Musas' punk work. Although Flyford never truly became a hard rock band, with simply a few elements underlying their folk rock or psychedelic songs, journalist Bob Tull would suggest that given the progression of *Bull*, if the band had stayed together longer, they may very well have ended up a hard rock group.

Their second single from the album was "Setting Sun", the only original single release by the band that was not written by Flynn, and the most mellow. In 2005, in a retrospective profile of the band for Rolling Stone, Ian McGuinn would write:

> It is a wonder that [Flyford Favell]’s only true love song - and arguably the most poignant of their catalogue - was penned not by Lawrence Flynn, but by none other than Al Hickey and Charlie Sara, two men who have been divorced more times than Liz Taylor and who - rumour has it - hate each other so much that Sara refuses to be in the same state as Hickey.
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They played several dates in both New York and Los Angeles, including a riotous concert at the Hollywood Bowl. They returned to the UK shortly after, playing dates at the Roundhouse, in what would become their last international concert. Wallis stated in her autobiography that this tour was her favourite they played, even with the band’s - and Hickey's in particular - increasing unpredictability. Recordings of the 1970 Roundhouse concert were included on later release *Flyford Favell: Live (1980).*

### *Sordid Realities* and breakup (1971 - 1972)

In 1971, Flyford Favell embarked on the production of their third - and what would become their final - studio album. The development would be wrought with difficulties that would eventually break the band apart.

Flynn was introduced to Jared McKernan, manager of British prog-rock band Old Dover Road, by Hickey. He would soon be caught in a drugs bust at McKernan’s home in Laurel Canyon, and although he wasn’t charged, their association was entangled in Flynn’s short-lived heroin addiction. By the end of the year, Flynn was writing less, and what he was writing was markedly darker than his prior work. Sara divorced his wife in July 1971. The same week, he fought with Hickey in the studio, resulting in the pair coming to blows and refusing to be in the studio at the same time except for final recordings. In a 2013 interview, Wallis cited the disagreement as her main reason for forming punk-rock band, The Mansa Musas:

> It sucked. The atmosphere was off. We weren’t working out, no one was talking to each other, [...] I felt I needed to be ready to move on. So I started putting together a little pet project - thought of it as an investment, in case this all fell through.
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*Sordid Realities* was released in February 1972 and remains Favell’s most successful album. "Sordid Realities*"* was released as a single with "Waxwing" as the B-side and was the band’s most commercially successful song. It drew on a number of past influences of folk, psychedelia and hard rock, ultimately culminating in the group’s first and final foray into prog-rock. Critic Paul Densmore hailed Sordid Realities as “an album of enormity”. He noted, in particular, the second side of the album - consisting of five Flynn songs in succession - as a triumph. The songs blended into a suite of varying styles, with the dark and dirge-esque nature of "Sordid Realities" blending into the wailing swansong of "Go Start Anew". The final track - of both the album and Favell’s studio discography - would later prove ironic - its title a callback and tribute to the first track of the band’s first album, Dylan’s "(It’s All Over Now) Baby Blue*"*. In a 1992 interview, Flynn stated:

> I think it was subconscious. At the time, everyone sort of acted like it was some eerie coincidence, but I don’t think it was. I was in a bad place. I think part of me knew it was ending and wanted to pay tribute to that. I do enjoy the conspiracy theories, though.
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Wallis’ development as a songwriter was also noted, the poetic lyrics coupled with a 4-minute drum solo in "Across the East Sea*"* being a particular standout of the first half of the album. The song also marks her debut as lead vocalist, which would come to define the Mansa Musas’ sound.

On March 3rd 1972, the day before the US tour was due to commence, Flynn was hospitalised following an overdose. He was found on the floor of his hotel room by Wallis and Hickey. SK cancelled the tour with the intent to postpone. Relations between Hickey and Sara remained tense, and following Flynn’s overdose, Wallis separated herself from the rest of the band. Flynn would stay at Wallis’ apartment during his recovery, but following this he returned to England. Not long after the incident, Flynn approached the other members about formally leaving the band. In Sara’s autobiography, Abyssinia Charlie, he called this “the final nail in the coffin”. Hickey and Sara refused to play together, and Wallis would not meet with Hickey outside of the studio. The band agreed to disband on June 21st 1972.

## Members

* Al Hickey - vocals, bass guitar, rhythm guitar, harmonica (1967 - 1972)
* Lawrence Flynn - lead guitar, vocals, rhythm guitar, piano (1967 - 1972)
* Cleo Wallis - drums, percussion, vocals (1967 - 1972)
* Charlie Sara - keyboards, rhythm guitar, vocals, percussion, double bass, violin, recorder, flute (1967 - 1972)

## Discography

* *Flyford Favell* (1968)
* *The Black Bull of Norroway* (1970)
* *Sordid Realities* (1972)
* *Flyford Favell: Live* (1980)