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Medley Midi
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The most popular non-single from the album was "Person To Person",",' a hard-earned masterpiece culled lyrically from Hamish and Alan",s experiences as road warriors with lover waiting overseas It was just one of many such songs AWB would record Gorrie laments", "The trans-Atlantic phone ca is the worst communication you can have with your love one" especially if you're in L A and she's in the UK The difference is such that you're going to bed as they're getting up" or vice versa Hamish and I pounded out that song in the back room at Clover in about 25 minutes because we well both very familiar with the frustration of speaking into phone from which you're getting absolutely nothing ", "High on success" it was at a Hollywood party (for Greg Allman) after a week of dates at the Troubadour that AWB faced its darkest tragedy Mclntosh wine was spiked which you're getting absolutely nothing".
SUGGESTED DISCOGRAPHY
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Malcolm had been in art
school with Roger where they spent spare hours playing Coltrane and Cannonball in campus
jazz bands. Onnie was an old bandmate from Glasgow with solid lead and rhythm guitar
chops, and the group originally began with trumpeter Michael Rosen They had to wait for
the drummer of their choice, though Robbie Mclntosh, ironically the youngest member of
AWB, was already a much-in demand tour musician for visiting soul greats like Ben E King
and Garnett Mimms whom Robbie's band, Senate, backed on a live album) But once Alan and
Robbie locked together as members of Brian Auger's Oblivion Express, they knew they would
be playing together again 
The name Average White Band was adopted from a mutual friend, Robert Wyper
who used to describe people and places in his travels working for the British diplomatic
service with sayings such as, "Uganda is just too hot for the average white
man." Gorrie elaborates, "We couldn't think of a good name, so that one worked
as a bit of a tongue-in-cheek joke, because we were anything but an average white band
" Though the first album failed to generate any U S. hits, AWB was developing a cult
following in L A through gigs at the Whisky A Go-Go But the brass at MCA's country &
western-steeped American division dumped AWB from the roster after hearing demos for their
proposed second album with a terse "You boys are way off target!" Gorrie
recollects, "We were stuck in L A with barely the price of one plane ticket between
us, so we got MCA to give us our last demos back. Clapton's road manager Bruce McCaskil1
tipped us off that Jerry Wexler lAtlantic Records A&R giant) was going to be at a
dinner party out here. Being the ballsy Scots that we were, we gate-crashed the thing and
made him listen to our rough tapes!" 
A deal was cut, and
the seriousness behind it was clear when Arif Mardin was brought in as producer for one
week of re-recording at Criteria Studios in North Miami and two weeks at Atlantic Studios
in New York "When we arrived at Criteria," Duncan remembers, "" Aretha
Franklin was in there cutting a track" and we all just about died!" Also at this
time" the infamous AWB logo, with a naked woman"s backside shaping the W was
created "'It started as a doodle of mine," says Gorrie" "that I
envisioned in a two-color pixel dot style, I like the work of Roy Llchtenstein "",
Tim Bruckner transformed it into the black-and-white design that is still used today The
first single from AWB (The White Album) was the creamy", Philly Soul-like ballad
","Nothing You Can Do", but in late "74 while the band was out
promoting the LP on the road (second billed to ian drummer/labelmate Billy Cobham)",
the primarily instrumental track "Pick Up The Pieces",", was
breaking out of secondary radio markets like Seattle Essentially a one-chord jam built on
swinging alternating lines between the horns and guitars",
'",Pieces"," became the song to blow your party whistle and do
""The Bump"" to down at the discotheque Ball recalls"
","Hamish had been playing the guitar lick over a groove at Clover studio in L A
I wrote out a home part on manuscript paper We put them together", shoved the words
"pick up the pieces" on the breakdown because they had a percussive
effect", and Molly did the sax solo ",", Duncan adds", "I
remember listening to the playback and thinking" "That sounded rather
good", but they'll never release that as a single " that's why I'm not an
A&R man!"," "Pick Up The Pieces"," went to #1 on the pop
chart and #5 on the soul chart", was the group's first and only gold single in
America" and was nominated for a "'Best R&B Instrumental"," Grammy
but lost to "TSDP (The Sound Of Philadelphia)", by MFSB The record also spawned
several popular LP cuts", and established AWB as an album-oriented band '-Got The
Love was a funky midtempo one with snaky wah-wah guitar intrcate bottom and a jazzy bridge
- a Ball trademark - that revealed a sophistication in aural texture matched in the period
only by Steely Dan -Work To Dn",", was a favorite among the many Lesley Brothers
songs the guys played back In Scotland Alan sang the verses", Hamish the chorus"
and Dnnitook a rare guitar solo But it is on '-You Got It",", that we hear the
differences Alan",s and Hamish's voices utilized to the maximum in a bri liant
vocal arrangement. Alan asserts his tenor in the first path the verse" volleys with
Hamish at the "Everything", anything", in the world",",
line" then passes the ball to Hamish for a all-net swish of a bridge", concluded
on the chorus with call-and-response and unison parts. 