Achi news desk-
One popular single was not enough to guarantee a profitable career for the group, even if the song’s author had received around £1,400 for his pains – a small fortune at that time. The follow-up single took off, as did the first LP. However, the band persevered, going on to enjoy considerable chart success and acclaim in the Seventies and beyond.
The name of the group is, of course, Status Quo. They are now in their seventh decade, and are still led by Francis Rossi – author of Pictures of Matchstick Men and so much more – who turns 75 at the end of the month. Perennial favorites with Glasgow audiences (of which more later), Quo play Bandstand Kelvingrove on May 30 and 31, with the first of these two dates long sold out.
Quo were familiar with the charts in the Seventies when, with their long hair and denims, and their irresistible, no-nonsense hard rock, they were one of Britain’s biggest bands – and one of the hardest bands, too, gigging extensively. As Colin Larkin puts it in the Virgin Encyclopedia of Seventies Music, the “kind” Quo have “carved a great niche in music history by producing unassuming, unassuming and infectious rock music”.
Their run of hit singles stretched from Paper Plane and Caroline to a solid cover of John Fogerty’s Rockin’ All Over the World and the 1974 number one hit Down Down. Their albums were also best sellers: Piledriver, Quo, Hello, On the Level, and Blue for You (the three last named all reached the top of the charts).
Such has been Quo’s continued commercial success that in 2015 it was announced that they had just recorded their 500th week on the Official Albums Chart, putting them in a very select band of artists.
Since then they have collected many other amazing statistics.
Status Quo can trace its roots back to 1965, when Rossi first met Rick Parfitt. Both were in their mid-teens at the time, and in separate acts performing at Butlin’s, Minehead: Rossi was with Alan Lancaster, John Coghlan and others in The Spectres, Parfitt was with identical twins Jean and Gloria Harrison in The Highlights.
The Highlights ended prematurely but little by little Rossi and Lancaster invited Parfitt to join their band. By 1967 they were together going under the name Status Quo.
As Colin Larkin notes, industrious live appearances built up the grassroots, and impressive performances at the Reading and Great Western Festivals in 1972 signaled a commercial turning point.
It seems that Quo and the Glasgow Apollo were made for each other; their gigs at the venue in Renfield Street were quite noisy and enjoyable. According to the Apollo website, the band’s first appearance there was in May 1972, supporting Slade at what was then known as Green’s Playhouse, and they returned as headliners the following March.
They played an amazing 25 gigs at the Apollo between September 1973 and June 1984, which more or less matches the lifespan of the Apollo itself. Many of the concerts were held over consecutive nights to cope with the high demand for tickets – three nights in May 1974, for example, and three in March 1976. Quo even released a live album recorded at the Apollo.
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Quo, however, went on to have their lean times, particularly in the years immediately preceding their triumphant turn as the opening act at Live Aid at Wembley in July 1985, when they kicked off the extravaganza with Rockin’ All Over the World .
The passage of time has left its mark on Quo, as it has on other groups that have been working for decades.
Rick Parfitt himself died of sepsis after a shoulder injury, in a hospital in Marbella, in December 2016. He was only 68 years old. As a tribute on the band’s website it is: “Rick was one of the greatest rhythm guitarists in rock music. His tough, uncompromising style of playing was the backbone of Status Quo’s best rock albums and drove the band’s live performances and their consistent success in the album and singles charts”.
He also, he adds, has written and co-written some of Quo’s best songs including Mystery Song, Whatever You Want, Backwater, Living on an Island, and Rain.
Quo now consists of Rossi, Andrew Bown (keyboards, guitar), John ‘Rhino’ Edwards (bass), Leon Cave (drums) and Richie Malone (guitar). Live, they are still a formidable proposition, as anyone who saw them support Lynyrd Skynyrd at the OVO Hydro in 2019, during the American band’s farewell tour, can testify.
Apart from their twin appearances at Bandstand Kelvingrove later this month, Quo are playing a number of other gigs across the UK and the Continent this year.
The band themselves estimate that, over the decades, they have played over 6,000 live shows to an audience of some 25 million people, traveling four million miles in the process and reportedly spending around 23 years away from home.
Globally, their record sales total exceeds 118 million. They have spent the equivalent of seven and a half years on the British singles charts. They have had 43 popular albums in Britain. They even got into the Guinness Book of Records in 1991 when they played four British shows in 11 hours and 11 minutes, including one – of course – in Glasgow, at the SECC.
New and archive releases are still emerging, by the way. Volume three of Quo’s ‘Official Archive’ series – a live recording made at Gloucestershire’s Westonbirt National Arboretum in 2008 – is on the way, while Francis Rossi has just released a vinyl edition of We Talk Too Much, his 2019 collaborative album with the singer Hannah Rickard.
Status Quo play Bandstand Kelvingrove on May 30 and 31. See statusquo.co.uk
