“Flaming Youth and Other Stories” – The pre-Genesis story of Phil Collins. Memorabilia: TWR Archive.

Most people who are not fans of Phil's or Genesis will probably struggle to name any of the pre Genesis groups he was a member of. Some Genesis fans may remember Flaming Youth but his musical story begins before that as we shall see.

Back in the so-called “Swinging Sixties” the best way to make contact with other musicians was through an advertisement in the back pages of one of the numerous music papers and magazines of the time and so it was that a London based three piece called The Schy placed an ad in the Melody Maker looking for a drummer. Apparently according to one of the band members, Jeff Slater, the ad only received one reply and that was from... Phil Collins.

They met and apparently hit it off immediately and Phil set about changing things immediately. Gone was their old set and Phil introduced them to the Blues and even then his talent as an arranger and his keen ear impressed his band mates. They even recorded an acetate of one of Phil's songs; Lying, Crying, Dying which, by all reports sounded eerily similar to In The Air Tonight! Thanks to contacts who ran a hotel called The Adrian which was a place of residence for the likes of various members of The Nice and The Koobas and someone called Tony Stratton-Smith (whose name we all know, don't we?) and it was through the contacts they established there that they got their first manager; Rodney Inge and came under the ambit of the now infamous Jimmy Savile who even plugged the band in his column in the Sunday People newspaper.

Dear old Denmark Street in London, our version of Tin Pan Alley was where a chance observation of a “For Sale” sign was met by a cry of “Freehold!” from one of the band's occasional roadies and the name stuck. The new group soon underwent a revision of their musical style with a more mainstream pop emphasis which apparently did not sit very well with Phil or one of his band mates. The band played their first gig at the Marine Theatre in Lyme Regis on 4 th May 1968 for which they were paid £30. Sporadic gigs followed and fortunately for us, a set list has survived which lists the following songs the band played...

Want You Back Woman/No, No, No/Mercy Mercy/Homeward Bound/Talk To You/ Lying,Crying,Dying/Nasty To Nice/Everybody/Gloria/Painter Man/Wheels On Fire/Get Out Of My Life Woman/Eric's New Job/Little Boy Lost/Sah La La La Lee/Shake/Caroline/You Don't Know/Wind And Tide/Makin' Time/I Know You Wanna Man/Own Up/Runaround Sue/Baby Each Day/Neighbour, Neighbour/Gimme Some Lovin'/Outcast. As can be seen from this, the emphasis was most definitely on the more popular end of the spectrum although Phil's composition and another new song; Eric's New Job also got an airing. A session invitation also led to the recording of the first record featuring Phil – Green Light which was a cover of The Equals' song. This was subsequently released by Phil's new band; Hickory but Freehold still had some distance to run with changes to the line-up including the addition of Phil's long-time friend Ronnie Caryl on guitar and Phil taking over vocal duties . A three week stint at the famous Storyville Club in Hamburg was organised for October 1968 but Ronnie's parents refused to sign the paperwork allowing their as yet under age son to undertake the trip . This had a negative effect on Phil who quit the band shortly before this trip took place. Freehold carried on in various incarnations until 1972 when the band finally called it a day.

Meanwhile Phil went on with Hickory who eventually morphed into what we now regard as his first proper band: Flaming Youth. Flaming Youth were very much the brainchild of Ken Howard and Alan Blaikley who put the band together as a vehicle for their compositions. Band member Brian Chatton who was friendly with the staff at the Speakeasy Club in London which was virtually Phil's second home at the time remembered his first encounter with Phil in his excellent autobiography; Rolling With Rock Royalty..

“I was having a cup of tea and a sandwich when in walks long haired Phil Collins with his best mate Ronnie Caryl. I told them I had come down from the North with Jon Anderson with whom I had played in his band called The Warriors. Phil's eyes nearly popped out of his head. What? Jon Anderson from Yes he asked excitedly. The next thing I knew we were putting a band together called Hickory. Through my association with La Chasse (a late night drinking establishment) I had met Ken Howard and Alan Blaikley who were both managers of Peter Frampton's band. They took an interest in us and took us on.

In 1969 they wrote an epic group of songs about space travel in honour of the first moon landing. Having spent a few weeks in the studio, Hickory became Flaming Youth and our album – ARK TWO was released. We felt a bit like puppets most of the time we were in Flaming Youth. Ken and Alan had a fantastic idea with Ark Two and we had high hopes for Flaming Youth but we had grown too quickly that incarnation of a band wasn't around for long...”

The band recorded at De Lane Lea studios and with a two week deadline they set about with a will recording the album in over forty hours – an enormous amount of time – and expense - for the period. The resulting album was released by Fontana Records and was well received especially in the Melody Maker which referred to it as “Pop album of the month”. The band got off to a good start with an album launch gig at the London Planetarium and they were to go on to perform a string of gigs over the coming months as well as releasing two singles.

The band even managed to record several TV performances in Europe during 1970 which included: “A L'Affiche Du Monde – De Brighton A Jupiter” ORTF Paris 25.2.70 “JAM: Flaming Youth” TROS Hilversum 14.5.70 “Start Ins Weltall Mit: Arche II” WDR Cologne 24.12.70 Sadly, of the numerous gigs the band also played there appear to be no surviving audio recordings.

By the time the band were considering a follow up album, things had changed considerably and Howard and Blaikley's new material was considerably more esoteric than Ark Two and for both Phil and Ronnie the writing was clearly on the wall with the band morphing into some sort of free form jazz outfit including Rod Mayall, brother of famous bluesman John on keyboards – quite ironic when you think of Phil's later involvement with Brand X which is documented later in this issue.

It was during the summer of 1970 that another of those newspaper advertisements in the back pages of Melody Maker caught Phil's eye. It said...

“Tony Stratton-Smith requires drummer sensitive to acoustic music and twelve string guitarist...”

Phil decided to go for the audition but not before he buttonholed Strat at one of his usual drinking holes; the Marquee Club . Having ascertained that the group were a worthwhile proposition both he and Ronnie attended the audition at the lead singer's home in Chobham. The group were, of course, Genesis and Phil's part in their story is has been documented thoroughly elsewhere in TWR. Phil's diary entry for 4 th August 1970 simply states... “Got Genesis job”. However he did fulfil his remaining contractual obligations with Flaming Youth his last documented gig with them was in Penzance on 16 th August 1970 and he finally took his place onstage with Genesis at gig in Chatham on 2 nd October of that year.Flaming Youth fizzled out shortly afterwards and the musicians went on to other things.