Spyglass Guest is Greenslade’s most successful album, and the one on which the guitarless band finally let a guitarist in the door. Released in 1974, it is polished, varied and crowned by ‘Joie de Vivre,’ the eight-minute piece many consider the finest thing they ever recorded.

The short version

Spyglass Guest (1974) is the third studio album by Greenslade, and their highest-charting. The quartet — Dave Greenslade, Dave Lawson, Tony Reeves and Andrew McCulloch — open the door to guests for the first time, with Clem Clempson adding electric guitar, Andy Roberts acoustic, and Graham Smith violin. It closes with the only cover the band ever recorded, Jack Bruce and Pete Brown’s ‘Theme for an Imaginary Western.’ It was also Tony Reeves’s last album with them.

Letting the guitar in

Two albums had made the point: Greenslade could thrive without a guitarist. Having proved it, they relaxed. Dave Greenslade invited his old Colosseum bandmate Clem Clempson to guest on a couple of tracks, the folk guitarist Andy Roberts added acoustic to another, and Graham Smith, then of String Driven Thing, brought his violin to the album’s centrepiece. For the first time, the songs were written by individual members rather than the group. Even the sleeve changed hands: Roger Dean’s fantastical wizard gave way to a photograph of a black panther before a great engraved gong, though Dean’s logo remained. The title came from a line in ‘Joie de Vivre’ and, by all accounts, means precisely nothing.

The sound

This is the most refined and varied record Greenslade made. Dave Greenslade ranges across organ, Mellotron, harmonium, glockenspiel and tubular bells; Dave Lawson answers on pianos, clavinet, ARP and even soprano saxophone. The rhythm section — Tony Reeves’s melodic bass and Andrew McCulloch’s supple, jazz-schooled drumming — is among the finest in British prog, and the guest guitar and violin add colours the band had denied themselves. The keyboards remain dazzling but never self-admiring: nobody here jams for the sake of it. The mood swings from folky to funky to grandly symphonic, sometimes within a single piece.

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The songs

‘Spirit of the Dance’ opens with a Dave Greenslade instrumental of real momentum. ‘Little Red Fry-Up’ and Tony Reeves’s ‘Siam Seesaw’ both make room for Clem Clempson’s guitar, the latter opening on Andy Roberts’s walking acoustic figure. The undisputed peak is ‘Joie de Vivre,’ eight minutes that gather church organ, sultry electric piano, sweeping Mellotron and Graham Smith’s soaring violin. ‘Melancholic Race’ builds slowly to a jazz-fusion climax, and the album ends with ‘Theme for an Imaginary Western,’ the Jack Bruce ballad that Dave Lawson feared lay beyond his range and then sang better than anything else in the catalogue.

Reception and legacy

Spyglass Guest reached number 34 in Britain, the best showing of Greenslade’s career, and remains their most commercially successful record. Opinion among fans is livelier: some find it uneven beside the first two albums, and few defend the murky sleeve, but almost everyone agrees on ‘Joie de Vivre,’ which has long been the song that converts newcomers. It marked the end of an era too. Tony Reeves left afterwards to concentrate on a career in record production, replaced by Martin Briley for the following year’s Time and Tide, the band’s last for Warner Bros.

The verdict

Spyglass Guest is a fine album and a natural next step after the first two, though newcomers might still begin with Bedside Manners Are Extra. Its variety is its charm: instrumentals of real force, guest musicians who broaden rather than dilute the sound, and a rhythm section quietly demonstrating why Greenslade were among the most musical bands of their era. Come for ‘Joie de Vivre,’ stay for ‘Melancholic Race’ and the beautiful closing cover, and hear a band at their most assured — and most relaxed.

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