9. HairOST
When Kevin Ayres and the Whole World split up in the early 70s, I was at a loose end, and my agent phoned me and asked me if I would like to join the Hair musical band. Now, Alex Harvey was playing guitar in the live band for the show at the Shaftesbury Theatre and sometimes he needed a guest to do his part when he couldn’t do it. So I had to play all the guitar parts and I really found it quite challenging. There’s a lot to learn. But I remember always looking forward to getting to ‘Let The Sunshine In’ because the guitar starts it off. If you think, the end of part one of Tubular Bells [hums bass riff] is a much more elaborate version of the ‘Let The Sunshine In’ riff. It’s probably where the idea came from because ‘Let The Sunshine’ In builds and builds. I do like things that start off small and get bigger and bigger. Ravel’s Bolero: that should be on the list. I used to love that. So I owe a lot to being in the musical Hair, just for just the fact that I got bored and started improvising a lot. I think it put the singers and dancers off.
