Spooky Tooth were an English rock band originally formed in Carlisle in 1967. Prior to Spooky Tooth, four of the band’s five founding members had performed in the band Art. Following the dissolution of Art, the members of that band’s final line-up (guitarist Luther Grosvenor, vocalist Mike Harrison, drummer Mike Kellie and bassist Greg Ridley) joined forces with American keyboardist/vocalist Gary Wright in October 1967 and formed Spooky Tooth. Wright was introduced to the members of Art by Chris Blackwell, founder of Island Records.
Their debut, It’s All About, was released in June 1968 on Island Records and was produced by Jimmy Miller. The second album, Spooky Two (March 1969), also produced by Miller, gained some attention in the rock press but, like the debut, failed to sell. It was the last album release by the original lineup and included their now classic version of the Larry Weiss penned “Evil Woman” and “Better by You, Better Than Me”.
Ridley joined Humble Pie in 1969 and was replaced by Andy Leigh for the album Ceremony (December 1969). The experimental nature of Ceremony received mixed reviews and despite the project being instigated by Gary Wright, the album is considered by him to have ended the band’s career. The record is described by another as being “one of the great screw-ups in rock history”. As Wright describes it, “…We did a project that wasn’t our album. It was with this French electronic music composer named Pierre Henry. We just told the label, ‘You know this is his album, not our album. We’ll play on it just like musicians.’ And then when the album was finished, they said, ‘Oh no no — it’s great. We’re gonna release this as your next album.’ We said, ‘You can’t do that. It doesn’t have anything to do with the direction of Spooky Two and it will ruin our career.’ And that’s exactly what happened.”
Wright left the band following the release of the album. Harrison, Grosvenor and Kellie remained and recorded The Last Puff (July 1970) with members of Joe Cocker’s Grease Band. In the autumn of 1970 the band embarked on a European tour that was undertaken with a line-up of Harrison, Grosvenor, Kellie, keyboardist John Hawken and bassist Steve Thompson. After this, the group disbanded, though Harrison and Wright reformed Spooky Tooth in September 1972 with a different line-up. You Broke My Heart So I Busted Your Jaw was the first album by the reunited band, released in May 1973. Founding guitarist Grosvenor did not rejoin the band, he was succeeded by Mick Jones, while founding drummer Kellie was replaced by Bryson Graham. The bassist was Ian Herbert, then Chris Stewart. For their next album, Witness (November 1973), original drummer Mike Kellie returned in place of Graham. Wright remained the dominant songwriter at this stage of the band’s history. But co-lead singer Harrison left following the album’s release and Mike Patto was the new vocalist, alongside Wright, when they recorded The Mirror (October 1974), which also included new bass player Val Burke and Bryson Graham back on drums. But the album’s failure led to Wright leaving once again for a solo career and the group disbanding in November 1974.
Jon Milward summarized the band in The Rolling Stone Record Guide in 1979: “If ever there was a heavy band, Spooky Tooth had to be it. Featuring two vocalists prone to blues-wrenching extremes, and an instrumental attack comprising awesomely loud keyboards and guitars, Spooky Tooth came on like an overwhelming vat of premedicated goo.” Noting their lack of commercial success, Milward concluded that the group “would remain the right band at the wrong time.”
