One minute The Action were the ultimate mod cult band, belting out exuberant Anglicised approximations of Tamla/soul material in clubs across the country, the next they’d shed singer Reggie King and mutated into questing countercultural adventurers Mighty Baby.
Under the
leadership of guitarist Martin Stone, they would become increasingly
insular as four of the five band members converted to Islam and they
moved slowly towards a more improvised sound. By the end of 1971,
fasting for Ramadan had left them almost too weak to perform onstage, at
which juncture they came to the reluctant conclusion that rock’n’roll
and the Muslim faith were incompatible. Over the previous three years,
however, they made some magical, mystical music that is now collected
under one roof for the first time.
The band-authorised 6-CD set At A
Point Between Fate And Destiny features all surviving recordings, with
much-loved studio albums “Mighty Baby” and “A Jug Of Love” joined by
rehearsal sessions, a complete and previously unissued alternative
version of the first album, audio from the band’s only TV appearance and
other studio outtakes. The set also features three hours of 1971 live
material, with a ninety-minute chunk of their legendary appearance at
Glastonbury that includes previously unreleased versions of Mighty Baby
favourites ‘Virgin Spring’, ‘Goin’ Down To Mongoli’, ‘Woe Is Me’,
‘Devil’s Whisper’ and, most thrillingly of all, the
hitherto-presumed-lost full 36 minute version of ‘A Blanket In My
Muesli’. Featuring a host of rare photos and memorabilia as well as a
new 12000 word essay that covers the band’s unique journey from mod to
odd with the aid of extracts from key member Ian Whiteman’s fascinating
unpublished autobiography The Average Whiteman, At A Point Between Fate
And Destiny is self-evidently the definitive word on a group who
occupied their own peculiar time and space in the late Sixties/early
Seventies underground rock firmament, blowing more than a few minds in
the process. All tracks newly remastered, with the A Jug Of Love album
and both sides of the non-LP single ‘Devil’s Whisper’ reissued from the
original master-tapes for the first time.
