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| El Maestro. |
The Hit
Apollo 100’s “Joy” dropped the year after I was born, but the whole “souped-up classical” vibe brought back vivid memories of hearing a disco spin on Beethoven’s 5th in the late 1970s (by Walter Murphy, titled "A Fifth of Beethoven"). While both got…let’s go with surprisingly popular, nothing connected the two outside the call-back to classical works.
I’ll get to who (or what) Apollo 100 very briefly was below, but the most surprising thing about their riff on “Joy” was the fact they weren’t the first band/act to do it. As noted in Wikipedia’sslim write-up on Apollo 100, their version of the song was “a nearly note-for-note remake of the pop music arrangement by Clive Scott of ‘Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring’ as recorded by the British band Jigsaw.” In other words, a cover of another song that, in pop culture terms, didn’t make a lot of sense. Jigsaw has a bigger, better story than Apollo 100, but the bounds of this project means playing the cards I’m dealt. About that…
The Rest of the Story
“But after those two albums, Apollo 100 was history, and what became of Tom Parker after that, the Internet is not forthcoming.”
Parker got the writing credit for “Joy,” but he was just one part of Apollo 100, “a short-lived British instrumental studio-based group.” He hailed from Newcastle upon Tyne, England, and bounced lower (jazz clubs) and higher (played with Eric Burdon and the New Animals) over a career that, as implied above, ended in both obscurity and Spain. Based on everything I saw, Apollo 100 was the main work of his career, a project he built with Vic Flick (guitar), Zed Jenkins (also guitar), Jim Lawless (“percussion”), Brian Odgers (bass), and, hold this name for the segue, Clem Cattini (drums).
The two albums alluded to above were Joy and Master Pieces, released in 1972 and 1973, respectively. Even after “Joy” blew up (No. 6 on Billboard), neither album sold well and, given that most of them held down regular jobs as session musicians (see below), it didn’t make much sense to stick with a limping project. As such, the pieces of Apollo 100 scattered after 1973. But a couple of the members had better days on either side of Parker’s project.
Apollo 100’s “Joy” dropped the year after I was born, but the whole “souped-up classical” vibe brought back vivid memories of hearing a disco spin on Beethoven’s 5th in the late 1970s (by Walter Murphy, titled "A Fifth of Beethoven"). While both got…let’s go with surprisingly popular, nothing connected the two outside the call-back to classical works.
I’ll get to who (or what) Apollo 100 very briefly was below, but the most surprising thing about their riff on “Joy” was the fact they weren’t the first band/act to do it. As noted in Wikipedia’sslim write-up on Apollo 100, their version of the song was “a nearly note-for-note remake of the pop music arrangement by Clive Scott of ‘Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring’ as recorded by the British band Jigsaw.” In other words, a cover of another song that, in pop culture terms, didn’t make a lot of sense. Jigsaw has a bigger, better story than Apollo 100, but the bounds of this project means playing the cards I’m dealt. About that…
The Rest of the Story
“But after those two albums, Apollo 100 was history, and what became of Tom Parker after that, the Internet is not forthcoming.”
Parker got the writing credit for “Joy,” but he was just one part of Apollo 100, “a short-lived British instrumental studio-based group.” He hailed from Newcastle upon Tyne, England, and bounced lower (jazz clubs) and higher (played with Eric Burdon and the New Animals) over a career that, as implied above, ended in both obscurity and Spain. Based on everything I saw, Apollo 100 was the main work of his career, a project he built with Vic Flick (guitar), Zed Jenkins (also guitar), Jim Lawless (“percussion”), Brian Odgers (bass), and, hold this name for the segue, Clem Cattini (drums).
The two albums alluded to above were Joy and Master Pieces, released in 1972 and 1973, respectively. Even after “Joy” blew up (No. 6 on Billboard), neither album sold well and, given that most of them held down regular jobs as session musicians (see below), it didn’t make much sense to stick with a limping project. As such, the pieces of Apollo 100 scattered after 1973. But a couple of the members had better days on either side of Parker’s project.
